Thanks for a gift. Warning from the call received to Leipzig. News of the plague in Wittenberg.
From Aurifaber, vol. III, p. 286 in Schütze, vol. III, p. 111 and in De Wette, vol. V, p. 218.
Grace and peace! I have received the candlesticks, my dear Wenceslaus, and I give thanks. You have rightly understood my silence; but I would not have kept silent if a messenger had shown himself or demanded letters.
In no way would I want you to exchange your present position with the one in Leipzig, where there is still debate about who or with what one should feed the servants of the Word. Although the common people are very good, the great ones despise Wittenberg out of old hatred. Duke George is not yet dead there; indeed, it is uncertain whether he will die, or rather whether he will one day rise again. Indeed, I hate this Sodom, the dung puddle of usury and many evils, except insofar as it must serve to tear out the plumb line. The other
1) Cf. no. 2543.
The cities are well supplied, and have happy beginnings of the gospel. We have a small plague, but not a 3) bad one. The whole town is alive, but one house and a second one 4) are devastated. Now it is in the third house (although there has been no burial within eight days), this is that of Doctor Sebald, 5) whose wife died this night. He himself is in great danger from almost seven ulcers. This plague has been left behind by your murderers 6) against whom they wanted to rage. But there is another, worse plague, namely 7) the fear, because they flee so one before the other that 8) one can find neither a phlebotomist nor a guard. "I hold that the devil has possessed the people with the right pestilence, that they are so shamefully frightened" that one brother leaves the other, the son the parents. And this is undoubtedly the reward for despising the gospel and the raging of greed (furor avaritialis). I have taken the four children of Sebald to myself. Dear God, how great a cry is raised against me. Pray for us with your church. Be well in Christ. October 26, 1539.
Your Martin Luther.
No. 2592.
Elector Johann Friedrich to Luther and Bernhard von Mila, bailiff of Saxony.
The Elector asks them to express their concern as to whether the university should be temporarily relocated because of the plague.
The concept is in the Weimar Archives, Reg. O, p. 175. A A A. Printed by Burkhardt, p. 333. - The answer given to this letter is missing.
2) Instead of reliquiae civitatis we have assumed reliquae civitates.
3) Here we have inserted non.
4) Here we have adopted Schütze's reading: una domus et altera instead of: una domus, si inventa fuerit.
5) Münsterer, a jurist. Seidemann at De Wette, Vol. VI, p. 685.
6) Namely Johann and Christoph Geuder from Nuremberg, inscribirt 1538. (Album, p. 171.) So Seidemann at De Wette, vol. VI, p. 542, while De Wette offers: "Creuderis (?)".
7) Instead of sive we have adopted scil,.
8) Instead of et, we have adopted ut proposed by De Wette.
Letters from the year 1539. No. 2592. 2593. 2594.
Our greeting before. Venerable, reverend, dear devotee, councilor and faithful! We graciously inform you that the Rector, Magistri and Doctores of our University in Wittenberg have now come to us with a letter in which they state that, although the deaths there have been at a standstill for several months, for which reason they had partly hoped that it would not have continued this winter, But the other day, five of Doctor Sebalden's staff fell ill, plus others who died, so many young students are leaving, with a humble request that we arrange for some doctors and magistrates to go to a certain place with a group of students. And although we hope to God Almighty that there will be no further dangerous upheaval, we fear that the university will be dispersed and will not soon be able to be reunited. But since we know to remember that you, Doctor Martinus, since the university went crazy in previous such death runs from Wittenberg, wrote before that such craziness is not caused by the dangerousness of dying, but by some special persons, we graciously request that you diligently and actually inquire how it is due to dying, and if you find that it continues and is dangerous, and if you find that the situation is further and dangerous, that you consider that the university should be moved, report it to us without delay, and although we intend to move the university towards Altenburg, where it would also be able to maintain itself, 1) please inform us of your concerns as to how, in what form and where it should be placed most effectively and kept in these runs. We then want to be heard and know how to show ourselves. In this you do us a gracious favor, and we would not hold you to this, to whom we are graciously inclined. Date at Eisenberg, Friday after Simonis and Judä [Oct. 31] Anno 1539.
No. 2593.
To the Elector Johann Friedrich.
Luther asks that the D. Cruciger, whom they wanted to keep in Leipzig, not be let go from Wittenberg.
Ex Copial. Archiv. Vinar. in the Leipzig Supplement, p. 89, no. 160; in Walch, vol. XXI, 426; in De Wette, vol. V, p. 219 and in the Erlangen edition, vol. 55, p. 249.
1) Added by us.
No. 2594.