Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/219

 science knows that it is not true that I contradicted them all. Let me tell your Grace the exact truth: I did, indeed, set one doctor, with the text of the Bible, against another, whom Dr. Eck cited alone, naked and without the Bible, and I will not cease doing this my life long. That is what Dr. Eck calls contradicting all the holy Fathers, and says that it sounds badly in the new Eckian Christianity. . ..

For I have said that when I had a clear text I would stand by it even if the exegesis of the teachers was contrary to the sense. St. Augustine often does this and teaches us to do it For, as the lawyers say, we should put more faith in one man who has the Bible for him, than in the Pope and a whole council without the Bible. From this, my dear friends. Dr. Eck and the men of Leipsic conclude roundly that I have repudiated all teachers. What can one do with such false tongues and hearts? In like manner he has thrown up at me the Council of Constance, and accuses me of contradicting it I will answer this charge in due time, and show his false heart to the world. . ..

[The rest of this letter is a long argument of ten pages on the power of the Pope and other points which came up in the debate with Eck.]

173. LUTHER TO SPALATIN.

Greeting. Behold, Spalatin, we are sending letters to the illustrious elector, our patron, in answer to the calunmies of Eck. We should be pleased if the illustrious elector will deign to send them to Eck; but if not, God's will be done. For the reverend Vicar Staupitz has made us doubtful whether the elector would have wished us to answer Eck in this style, and not rather with the Latin propositions* on which we are now working; wherefore we are sending both. But if the German letter is to be sent, we desire that anything in it be changed, which either the elector or you think should be changed. I have looked for Eck's letter among my papers without finding it; I will seek more diligently.

^Resolutiones Lutherianag super propotiiionibus tuis, Weimar, iL 391. Cf. Enders, ii. 102.

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