Luther asks the council to give a building site to Gabriel Zwilling.
From the original in Lingke's Luth. Gesch. zu Torgau, p. 91; in De Wette, vol. V, p. 76 and in the Erlangen edition, vol. 55, p. 185.
To the honorable, respectable, prudent, mayors and council of Torgau, my favorable, good lords and friends.
G. and F. in Christ. Respectable, prudent gentlemen and friends! I have often talked with Mr. Gabriel, your pastor, about his household and what he wants to leave his wife and children. He said that he would leave him well enough off, but his Else would like a little house, as is also reasonable. Now they showed me a room (because there was no house left), on which they thought they could put one, namely at the sexton's house, as he may well show you. Now I would like to have fallen with this request to my favorable lords; so I think that it is more honest and praiseworthy for you (if it is your power) that you show yourselves friendly to your faithful pastor, who has now served with you in the word for fourteen years, and let your gratitude shine, especially because it should come or remain under civil law. Accordingly, my friendly request is that you give him such space or help him, because he lies there in vain and unregarded. In this way you will give a good testimony of your favor and love for the word and its servant, which otherwise seldom has much favor.
1) De Wette and, after him, the Erlangen edition: "Bürger recht".
prove. Please forgive me, you will show yourselves Christian and kind in this. Hiemit GOtt befehlt, Amen. Tuesday after Assumption of the Virgin Mary [Aug. 21] 1537.
Martinus Luther, D.
No. 2373.
To the Elector Johann Friedrich.
Intercession for a scholarship recipient.
The original is in the Weimar Archives, Reg. Mm, fol. 66 b, No. 12. Printed by Burkhardt, p. 282.
Peace in Christ and my poor Paternoster! E. C. F. G. graciously gave a scholarship from a fiefdom to a city boy in Eisenach, named Hermannus Brothecker, whom he also used well and increased in theology. But now the time has come that it is over, he complains miserably, how he must leave the studio and learn a trade where he has no further entertainment. He therefore asks E. C. F. G. to graciously grant him the scholarship for another year or two, 2) because then he will be old enough to need it. Because he is a theologian, C.F.G. himself knows and sees what a lack of such offices is daily increasing, therefore, C.F.G. will graciously know how to show himself Christian in this to God's praise and glory; may he be with C.F.G. abundantly and steadily, amen. On St. Bartholomew's Eve [Aug. 23] 1537.
E. C. F. G. submissive Martinus Luther, D.
No. 2374