Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/214

 U^ot only Louvain* and Cologne, but Oxford* and Cambridge lave declared war on Luther, their purpose being to ruin Christian philosophy* and crush polite learning. The leaders are said to be Cajetan and Adrian, both cardinals.* For the delegates of Louvain and Cologne agreed with Cajetan at Coblenz that he should keep the sale of indulgences as his department and leave the rest to them. They were going to cavil at this, but he, much more courteous than they, yielded to them, for it was his opinion that it would be sufficient to brand as error that which they attacked as the crime of heresy. For I have learned from a trustworthy friend, in whom Caje- tan confided, that there was almost no page in a book of ! Luther's on which they had not written "heresy, heresy,'* ' several times. They showed the book thus disfigured to the [ cardinal, led perhaps by their own prejudice to hope that he would endorse their judgment at once. But when he had examined the book and their dirty notes, he said : "We must not strike out too much. There is a very slight differ- ence between some things which you have called heresies and the orthodox view. They are errors, not heresies. Let James' be an example to you." . ..

169. NICHOLAS VON AMSDORF TO SPALATIN. Walch, XV. 1404. German. Wittenberg, August i, 15 19.

Greeting. It would be long and prolix to relate the order \*nd procedure of the Leipsic debate ; much more prolix and Vdious to describe the same. For as often as I think of the sAi debate, I am moved and kindled, not, as God knows, for the love I bear Dr. Luther but for that I bear the truth. I ^oubt not that truth is certain, unchangeable and eternal, I Plough hated by all gross fellows. Even before this time I

^Cf. de Jongh: Vancienne Facultf de thiologie h Louvain, p. 2o6flF. Luther's ^'^b arrived in the Netherlanda at latest early in 1519, and their sale was ^'^ediatelj forbidden by the University of Louvain, which, at the same time, "^'Mched a messenger to get the opinion of the University of Cologne on Luther, ^e condemnation of him by Cologne followed on August 30.

^ can find no other reference so early as this to any action of the English "'ivcnities against Luther. It was abundantly true later.

''Tlulosophia Christi" was the name adopted by Erasmus for his system.

'I^aliatus; d&is is evidently the meaning, though not given in Du Cange.

"Probably Hochstraten, or James, iii. x, iv. 11, v. 20. On this whole affair, c/. ^ Jongh, op, cit,

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