Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/155

 drinking party. Thinking at first that I was among friends, I soon found out that I was in a trap. There was present one little Leipsic professor/ a little Thomist, who thought he knew everything. Though full of hatred he spoke kindly, but later when a dispute arose inveighed against me bitterly and loudly. All the while there stood outside, without my knowing it, a Dominican preacher,' listening to all I said. Later I heard that he said he was so much annoyed by what I said that he could hardly restrain himself from coming in and spitting in my face and calling me foul names. It tortured the man to hear me refute Aquinas for that little professor. He is the man who boasts even to-day that I was on that occa- sion so confused that I could not answer either in German or in Latin. For because we argued as usual in mixed German and Latin,* he confidently asserted that I did not know the learned tongue. For the rest, our dispute was on the silly trifles of Aristotle and Aquinas; I showed him that neither Aquinas nor any of his followers understood one chapter of Aristotle. At last, when he got boastful, I asked him to gather together all the forces of his Thomistic erudition and explain to me what it was to fulfil the commands of God, "for," said I, "I know that no Thomist knows that." This man of the primary school,* conscious of his ignorance, cried : "Give him some food, for that is the payment for schoolmasters." What else could he say, since he did not know the answer? We all laughed at his silly reply, and left the table.

Afterwards the Dresden prior wrote me how they boasted and how in Duke George's court they called me unlearned, proud, and I know not how many other bad names, also how

>His name was Weissestadt. Cf, Bindseil: CoUoquia, i. 152. Zeitschrift fSr Kirchengeschichte, xxxiii. 36.

^Terminarius, i. t,, a brother who was appointed to preach in the district assigned to the convent in which to collect alms. Du Cange, t, v. Kalkoff's translation *'Almosensammler" iZeitsckrift fur Kirchengeichichttt xxxiii. 37) is a little vague. This person collected what Luther said, together with other things he had uttered in his sermon and some things from his writings, and sent them promptly to Rome, where they produced a great effect. Indeed, this probably had great weight in inducing Leo to change Luther's summons to Rome to a citation to Augsburg, where it was thought he could be more expeditiously dealt with. Kalkoff, ioc. cit.

served Smith: Luther's Table Talk (1907), p. 9off.
 * The table talk shows that this was indeed Luther's usual custom. Cf. Pre-


 * Homo ex trivia, Enders would translate **man of the street,'* following the

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