Luther recommends two clergymen for employment in Halle. News from the: Imperial Diet at Regensburg.
Handwritten in Aurifaber, vol. III, p. 337. Printed in Schütze, vol. 1, p. 156 and in De Wette, vol. V, p. 382.
Grace and peace! You urge, my dear Jonas, that I should answer you
Letters from the year 1541. No. 2815.
to your letters. I have indeed hesitated, because I have no one through whom I can send letters to you; at last, even in contradiction with myself, I have understood myself to instruct your wife to deliver the letter to you. It pleases me that D. Kilian will be Syndicus at Halle. I have personally wished him the best of luck, as he is a man completely devoted to Christ and holy; he will promote your efforts much. Our Diaconus Andreas 1) is preparing his affairs, of which D. Kilian will report to you verbally. But hear what I have so often forgotten. There is at Hof ("City at Hof") a quite excellent man, Mr. Stephan Kastenbauer, 2) who was expelled from Augsburg some years ago either before, or after, or with Urban Rhegius on the orders of the Sacramentirans, a man (it would be too much of a wound if you did not know him) who is very learned and quite loud; I wanted you to talk about him. He has as a comrade an excellent learned and sincere man, who used to be (as they call it) a regular canon. Either of them is worthy of a profession, not merely to Halle. I will endeavor, if Halle is not able to do so, that the Lüneburger even accept him in the place of Urban Rhegius, if this can otherwise be sustained by D. Pommer.
You have more news than us in such an excellent place. But this I have wanted to write, perhaps even in vain, that the papists in the presence of the emperor have condemned that book, the supposed maker of concord, 3) with great vehemence, and are almost about to suspect that it was written by us, although we hate it worse than a dog and a snake. That quite wretched book, which has plagued this Reichstag for so many months, is finally trampled underfoot by our part, and torn to pieces by that part, regardless of the fact that Bucer has approved it quite extraordinarily, and
1) Hill.
2) also called Agricola. About him see St. Louis edition, vol. XVII, 2226, note 2.
3) The Regensburg Interim. St. Louis Edition, Vol. XVII, 581, No. 1369.
insisted with great impetuosity that it be accepted, also "Master Grickel" boasted out of hatred against us that no scripture is more useful for establishing unity. Thus, GOD powerfully disgraces the two hypocrites. Therefore you see how much the prayer of the church is able to do. For the emperor is deceived with this book and deceived in his hope; what he will do, time will bring to light. I know that we and ours were accused in the most hostile way before the emperor on the part of those who condemned the book, and in order to ruin that discussion 4). Among other main pieces of the most bitter accusations, this has been the most bitter, that "protesting estates" (you know, that's what they call us) are pulling the subjects of the Catholics, that is, the bad wolves (catholicorum, id est cacolicorum), 5) out of obedience (as the rebels), and sending them preachers, who would undertake to defend them against their rightful and proper authorities: Whether you, the people of Halle and our prince, are not on this charge, I leave to you to judge. Summa, they are very angry, spout frightening accusations against us, and seem to breathe out more fire than in hell.
4) This happened either on July 4, when Eck sent his testimony against the Regensburg Interim to the assembly of princes (see St. Louis edition, vol. X VII, 756, no. 1397), or shortly before, as we see from Melanchthon's short history of the Regensburg Convention (Corp. Reg, Vol. IV,. 570 ff.), where he says (l. c. Col. 575): "Although so many other points of controversy had not been settled, the Emperor ordered that opinions about the book be expressed in the assembly of princes. Here the Duke of Bavaria, Wilhelm, brought forth from a writing a long accusation of those who had accepted the Augsburg Confession. Then he also completely rejected this book presented by the emperor. He judged that no improvement or moderation of any opinion, no mitigation of the papal laws was to be permitted; nothing was to be conceded to the opponents that deviated from the customary opinions or from the ceremonies of the other nations. This was the summa of the speech of Lord William, with which most of the bishops agreed. To reinforce this, Eck sent a short letter to the assembly of princes, in which he disapproved of the book and testified that it had never pleased him because it contained unbearable errors and did not follow in speech the manner of speech and custom of the theologians.
5) We have assumed that also here, as in the letter to Wenc. Link of August 17: cacolycorum is to be read.
Letters from the year 1541. No. 2815 to 2819.