Complete Luther Library

To Veit Dietrich in Nuremberg.

Volume 21b from the one-column St. Louis Edition English DOCX texts, reformatted for mobile reading on Last Christian Ministries.

Source text used with permission from Back to Luther.

Volume 21b

To Veit Dietrich in Nuremberg.

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Luther exhorted him to continue with the work of editing Luther's lectures on Genesis. - Rörer and Cruciger had copied them, and Dietrich arranged and edited them for printing. See St. Louis Edition, Vol. I, XIII, § IV.

The original is in the Munich library. Handwritten in Aurifaber, vol. III, p. 414. Printed in Strobel's Miscell., vol. I, p. 170; in Strobel-Ranner, p. 323; in Schütze, vol. I, p. 286 and in De Wetzte, vol. V, p. 601.

Grace and peace in the Lord! M. Rörer, who exercises a very great and much dominion over me, wanted me to write this to you, my dear Veit, but, as I am rebellious against such my ruler, I would perhaps have despised his dominion if he had not used oratory and persuaded me that you must be admonished to continue in my Genesis as you have begun. But even this his oratory I could have easily nullified by oratory used against it, if the

The reason of the dialectical proof would not have moved us: after the beginning is made (jacta est alea), it is shameful to let it go, lest perhaps Moses himself would like to hold this well-known word against us:

Turpius ejicitur, quam non admittitur hospes [It is more shameful for the guest to be thrown out,

As if, from the outset, the entry into the house is refused to him].

No. 3061a.