Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/208

 is renowned before other princes of the Empire for cherish- ing letters and learned men} But only for the sake of the truth of the holy faith have I debated, and because Dr. Carl- stadt compelled me to by printing and publishing certain Con- clusions with many words of contempt and reviling against me, although he had no cause to insult people thus. As to Dr. Luther, whom I pity because of the singular excesses^ into which his fair genius^ has fallen in taking up this matter, I was compelled to answer him because of his publication of a great deal of stuff from which, in my poor opinion, much error and scandal will arise. Your Grace may judge that he does not to this day in the least moderate his views, in that on a certain matter he denies and repudiates the opinion of the holy fathers Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, Gregory, Leo, Cyprian, Chrysostom and Bernard. It sounds evil for a Christian to presume to say that of his own wisdom he under- stands the sense of Holy Scripture better than the holy Fathers. It is also hard to hear him say, as he did in the debate, that many articles of John Huss and the Bohemians, condemned by the holy Council of Constance, are most Chris- tian and evangelic^ It is easy to imagine what joy the heretics conceive on hearing such things. He also says that St. Peter did not have the primacy^ over the other apostles from Christ, and many other things. As a Christian prince your Grace may judge whether these and similar things may be allowed in Christianity. In my poor opinion they cannot be; where- fore, solely for the sake of the truth, I will withstand them where I can.

Neither Dr. Luther nor anyone else can say that he has received a pennyworth of his doctrine from our Holy Father, the Pope, or from the great heads of the Church. Yet I, although a poor parson, came here at my own expense to meet your Grace's professors, and am still ready, if Dr. Luther thinks he has not yet debated enough, to go with him to Cologne, Louvain or Paris. For I know just what they will do. For when they proposed to me the University of Leipsic, they would have had it thought that they had refused to debate there, but that I compassed it with the prince and

^The words in italics are Latin.

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