By public notice, Luther, as Dean of the theological faculty, invites to the doctoral graduation of M. Peter Hegemon, which will take place on September 17.
This document can be found in: Scriptorum publice propositorum a Professoribus in Academia Witebergensi, Ab anno 1540. usque ad annum 1553. Tomus Primus. Witebergae excusus ab Haeredibus Georgii Rhaw. Anno 1560. pag. 135b; from it in De Wette- Seidemann, Vol.VI, p.383 and, from the former Palm collection in Hamburg, in Schütze, Vol. I, p. 362.
The Dean of the Faculty of Theology.
The immense good deed of God must be acknowledged, and not only praised with a grateful voice, but also cultivated, protected and adorned with every kind of service, so that He preserves the ministry of the Gospel, through which the eternal church is gathered, in the world and does not let it be destroyed. But he maintains it in such a way that he wants the studies of the divine doctrine to be cultivated, and it is precisely from this number of learners and from those who have learned the ministry in this school of ours (ex hac nostra militia scholastica) that he takes the ministers of the Gospel. Therefore, schools of the Gospel have always been connected with popular churches, as in Alexandria, Antioch, Ephesus. May the youth consider this will of God and learn that these schools are not playgrounds of licentiousness and wantonness, as the pagan gymnasia were, but that they are associations gathered in the name of the Son of God, yes, that they are temples in which God dwells in truth. Therefore, just as it would be an abominable shameful act to disturb the meetings in the churches, so it is to disturb the
Letters from the year 1545. No. 3256. 3257. 3258.
The students (scholastici) know that it is a disgrace to set examples in the schools that are unworthy of well-meaning people. Above all, however, the studies of the Gospel should be held in honor, for the sake of which God preserves the other arts.
No. 3257.
To the bailiff and the council of Baireuth.
Luther asks that Lorenz Stengel, who feels unfit for the trade and is gifted for study, be given the money bequeathed to him for this purpose.-As can be seen from old news, Stengel was a schoolmaster in Baireuth in 1549.
Printed in Archive für Geschichte und Alterthumskunde des Ober-Main-Kreises, Vol. II, Heft 3, p. 132. Baireuth 1836, and De Wette-Seidemann, Vol. VI, p. 384.
To the strict, firm, honorable, wise gentlemen, N. N., Amtmann, and Rath zu Baireuth, my favorable gentlemen and good friends.
Strict, firm, honorable, wise, dear gentlemen and friends! I was inspired by the good
1) Date and signature only for shooter.
No. 3258.