Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/151

 113. LUTHER TO JOHN ECK AT INGOLSTADT.

After the meeting with Miltitz at Altenburg (on which cf. supra, no. 107), Luther and Melanchthon went to Leipsic for a few days to see friends and make arrangements for the coming debate with Eck.

My dear Eck, we did our best to get the Leipsic faculty to grant us the favor of which you write,^ but they simply refused, alleging that it was none of their business to get mixed up in this affair, but that jurisdiction belonged to the bishops. The dean of the faculty of theology answered my letter in such a way that I fear our debate will come to nothing unless you have some other plan.

I am, however, waiting with great eagerness to see you show, as you promise, that in my Resolutions not even the foundations are valid. You wonder that I have preferred Tauler alone ("I know not who he is," you say) to Aquinas, Bonaventura and Alexander of Hales. It seems ridiculous to you that, when I have rejected so many men, I should demand that this one should be received by you, although he is unknown to the Church. Before you make an end of this dreamer, please deign to read him through, lest you, trained in habits of inveterate trifling, should prove to be one of those tremendously wise men who call the Church the Pope, the bishops and the teachers of the universities, and should say that whatever they do not know is unknown to the Church. Yet I wonder who told you that Tauler was unknown to the Church. I suppose you are the Church and know all things. Be careful not to take immaturely considered premises for granted, nor to judge from them. Wherefore if you wish to admonish me, pray avoid bitterness and pay careful atten- tion to the individual propositions. Consider that I was not ignorant that he was unknown to your Church when I said that he was not to be had in the universities and did not write in Latin. Then I gave my reason for preferring him to the

ep. cit., p. 5. Very likely Rab wrote at his instigation, but the intenrention did no good as Miltitz came to Leipsic in the middle of January and, according to the tradition, censured him so severely that he died of chagrin on the foUowing August II.

'7. e., privilege of debating. Cf. supra, no. 109 and no.

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