Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/239

 that which is bandied to and fro orally lacks judgment and often leads the mind of the debater from the truth, not to mention that it is base for a theologian to descend to strife. When we first heard of your debate we were sorry for it, for Bologna and Vienna well know Eck's character/ But the epistles of Lang and Melanchthon inform us that the debate resulted favorably to us.

Farewell and love me. I will not cease to love you. As much as I safely can I will defend your honor here. Pardon my haste; I preferred to write you at length and without care, rather than to compose a short letter with elegance. I have hardly had a chance to reread it.

Crotus Rubeanus.

187. ERASMUS TO MARTIN LIPSIUS OF BRUSSELS.

Sitsungsherichte der phiL-hist, Classe der kaiserlichen AkademU def Wissenschaften. Wien. 1882, c. 689.

(LouvAiN, middle of October, isiql)

Horawitz, who published this letter, dated it 1520, but the true date is given by comparison with that of October 17 to Fisher (no. 188), in a part of which not translated Erasmus speaks of Hochstraten*s visit, and still more definitely by the minutes of the theological faculty of Louvain (printed by de Jongh, op. cit., p, 43), in which it is stated that Hochstraten on October 12 handed to Louvain the condemnation of Luther by Cologne.

Martin Lipsius, born at Brussels, spent his life as an Augustinian canon at Louvain. He died 1555. He was a great-uncle of the more famous Justus Lipsius. His correspondence has been published by Horawitz, he. cit. Life in Biographic Nationale de Belgique,

Hochstraten is at Louvain. He found my epistle* to Luther, and thinks it sufficient to convict me of favoring Luther, though I myself am publishing' it to show how little Luther and I have in common. If I favor him, what is there monstrous in that? Hochstraten influenced the courtiers, especially the Lord* of Bergen, but there were some who rightly under-

lEck had previously debated at both Bologna and Vienna.


 * No. 155.

'In the Farrago nova of October, 1519.

^Maximilian des Berghea, Lord of Zevenberghen. one of the numerous grand> sons of John Labeo, the warrior of Philip the Good. He becomes prominent as a diplomat at the time of the election of Charles. Scant notices of htm in A. Walther: Die Anfdnge Karls V., 191 1.

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