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own innocence. I am not so insane as to dare to do aught against the chief vicar of Christ, since I am unwilling to cross even a bishop. I am not so ungrateful that I should not en- deavor to respond to your more than paternal indulgence towards me. Thus I shall save whatever little talent I may have for the glory of Christ and the peace of his fold. Who- ever is the enemy of this fold will also be my enemy. I didl not patronize Luther even when it was free for anyone to do so. Only I disapproved their mode of attack, not for Luther's \ sake, but for the dignitj' of the theologians. ...

I had decided to winter at Rome to consult the library of your Holiness, but the congress of kings* has kept me here. I hope to go to Rome next winter. May Christ Almighty guard your Holiness.

298. ERASMUS TO FRANCIS CHIREGATTO. Erasmi opera (1703), iii. 579. Louvain, September 13, iS2a

Chiregatto (fDecember 6, 1539), employed by Leo and Adrian in various ways, was made Bishop of Teramo in the Abruzzi on September 7, 1522. Allen, iii. 61.

If I did not embrace your candid, officious and affable friendship, I should be more inhumane than any Thracian.

Perhaps there are few men who regret this Lutheran tumult as much as I do. Would that I could have kept it off in the beginning, or could compose it now. . . . When the bull came out, commanding them to preach against Luther, two or three of the beggar tyrants* agreed over their potations to traduce me along with Luther before the people. . . . There is a man with a white pall, but a black heart, both stupid and furious and so morose that the whole university dislikes him. When he published the bull here he spoke more against me than against Luther. In his public lectures he always joined my name with those of Luther and Lefevre d'fitaples, and when it was pointed out to him that we all differed, he replied that heretics never agreed. ... At Bruges there was a certain Franciscan, a suffragan of the Bishop of Toumay, who, full

V. e., meeting of Henry VTII. and Francis I. at Calais in July. ^TTTuxoripavvoty 1. e., begging monks.

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