Of the unfavorable judgments about Jonah's second marriage. Luther sends a wedding gift.
Printed in Litterar. Wochenblatt, II, 315; in Schütze, Vol. I, p. 264; in Strobel-Ranner, p. 317 and in De Wette, Vol. V, p. 570.
To the respectable and worthy man, Mr. Justus Jonas, Doctor of Theology, Provost at Wittenberg, the Lord's envoy to Halle, his superior in Christ.
Grace and peace in the Lord, who favors and blesses your marriage, amen. We fight here for you against [evil] 1) tongues stronger than perhaps you yourself. There is no measure nor end to judging. But Christ says, "Judge not, lest ye be judged" [Matt. 7:1], and rightly are they judged. For while they condemn the mote in another's eye, they will carry about in their own eye the damned beam, become a mockery to devils, a laughter to angels. So we say confidently 2) against them: "If 10 whores were here, who corrupted many students with Frenchmen", there no one judges and is angry; all are [dumb as the] fish or quite indolent judges and almost protectors; if half the city of adultery, usury, theft, lyin
1) It seems to have failed about tertias.
2) Instead of violenter, we have adopted the variant fidenter given by De Wette.
No one judges when the world is corrupted by violence and deceit: almost all laugh, or rather they themselves give their will to it, or do it. "It is a vexatious thing about the world. Thus we drive out violence with violence. Enough of that.
No. 3023.