Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/105

 100 LUTHER'S CORRESPONDENCE AND Let ^l

to their mutual destruction. If we shut our eyes and leave them the field open and free, it will happen, as they chiefly desire, that the whole world will be forced to look on their follies instead of on the best and most holy doctors.

Of our singular reverence for the Apostolic See, we have signified this to your Holiness, so that simple Christianity may not be injured and scandalized by these rash disputes and captious arguments. Whatever may be righteously decided upon in this our Empire, we will make all our sub- jects obey for the praise and honor of God Almighty and the salvation of Qiristians.

71. LUTHER TO SPALATIN AT AUGSBURG.* Enders, i. 213. Wittenberg, August 8, 151^

Greeting. I now need your help more than ever, de Spalatin, or rather the honor of our whole university nee it. I mean that I want you to use your influence with elector and Pfeffinger to get the elector and his Imperf Majesty^ to request the Pope to allow my case to be tried Germany,' as I have written the elector. For you see ho subtly and maliciously those murderous Dominicans* are acti for my destruction. I would have written on the same accoun to Pfeffinger, to request his influence in obtaining this favo for me from Emperor and elector, but I had to write i great haste. They have given me but a short time, as you by the Citation, that Lemaean swamp full of hydras and other monsters. Therefore be diligent, if you love me and

wrote this letter at the instigation of the Papal Legate, Cajetan. Luther's enemiet had taken notes of his Sermon on the Ban (cf. supra, no. 69), which they had reduced to a series of propositions, and sent to Cajetan. Cf. Smith, 47f.

^The Emperor Maximilian held an Imperial Diet at Augsburg in the summer of 1 5 18. Spalatin was present in attendance on the Elector Frederic.

'Maximilian I. (Emperor from 1493 till his death, January 12, 1519), in this case acted as Luther wished, getting the case transferred to Augsburg, not from the desire to help the Saxon, but apparently because he felt he could deal with him more summarily so. Smith, op. cit., p. 48. Supra, no. 70.

"Finding that Luther had not recanted at Heidelberg, the Curia summoned him to Rome to recant within sixty days, which summons, together with Prieriaa* Dialogue (supra, no. 68), Luther had just received. Smith, p. 47.

^"Praedicatores.** It would be possible to translate this "preachers of indul- gences," but it is more likely that Luther meant the "order of preachers.'* as the Dominicans were called, for they had, indeed, been particularly actirc against him. Tetzel, Eck and Prierias were all Dominicans. Smith, ibid.

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