Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/203

 198 LUTHER'S CORRESPONDENCE AND Let i^*

through, and daily discuss with my friends who you are, wha^ you are doing, what you are trying to do, or rather wha Christ's spirit is doing through you in the Church. An< behold, while we were talking of these things, a certaii organist named James, who loves you much, came upon us anc told us all that is now being done between you and Eck anc your other enemies. I cannot tell you, Father, how pleased happy and delighted we were when he told us of the glorious victory you had won over your adversaries and especially over Eck's scholastic and Aristotelian rather than Christian theology. His narrative gave much praise both to you and to the most illustrious Elector Frederic, to you, because you proved yourself worthy of admiration, to him because he appreciates those virtues of which you seem daily to give the greatest proofs, and by which your enemies are cast down and your friends rejoiced. For are they not better than goldS Wherefore I congratulate your Reverence, and I thank the God of heaven, who has deigned not only to keep you safe amidst so many perils and so many enemies, but also to giv^ you a glorious victory in your just battle. Moreover thi- same James told us that you greatly desired the books o John Huss,^ the apostle of the Bohemians, that you might leaf what sort of man he was and how great, not from rumo nor from the ill-advised Council of Constance, but from th true mirror of his mind, that is, his books. So I am sendinj your Reverence his book on the Church," and I am sendinj it the more boldly because I have read certain proposition which you are now defending against old and new errors a Leipsic, which are also proved in this book. It is a smal gift and one which might at first seem ridiculous, but, per haps, it will not be wholly unacceptable to you, especially i it comes in answer to your wishes and prayers, and als< because this was the one book on account of which the author

^Almost as Rozdalowsky was writing this Luther was declaring in his debate a Leipsic that "among the articles of John Huss there are many which are moi Christian and evangelic, which the unirersal Church is not able to condemn.' O. Seitz: Leipsiger Disputation, p. 87.

'As Enders could find no edition of this from a Hussite press prior to dii time he concludes that the book was in manuscript. It was printed by Hutte: in Germany in August, 1520. It made a tremendous impression on Luthci Cf. infra, no. 239, and Smith, 7 if.

�� �