Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/491

 415. MICHAEL HUMMELBERG TO VADIAN AT ST. GALL. Vadianische Briefsammlung, ii. 344. Ratisbon, March 7, 1521.

. . . Your opinion of Luther greatly pleased me. I think him a man of eminent genius and erudition and of singular judgment. His writings for the most part breathe out evangelic and apostolic doctrine and simple truth, that is, Christ himself, and they do it so forcibly that no sophist and impostor, no soft and effeminate man, no Pharisee and self-righteous^ person, no papist and flatterer either will or can bear it. . . . May God Almighty make Luther and the truth triumph. . ..

416. ALEANDER TO THE VICE-CHANCELLOR CARDINAL DE*

MEDICI.

Kalkoff: Aleander, 114. Worms (March 8), 1521.

The Emperor, at the advice of his councillors, in order, as they say, to please the princes and quiet the people, has de- cided to summon Martin, and he has issued a public man- date directing that all his books "be given into the Emperor's hands until his further decision."* Under these circumstances I have at least exerted myself to bring the mandate into a form agreeable to the intentions of the Holy See and to the honor and authority of the Pope. In this effort the draftsman of the German Chancery, Nicholas Ziegler, has done me good service, so that, if they do not go behind us and act contrary to the decree of the Diet and the wording of the mandate, I hope that we shall, by it, put a limit to this rascally heresy. Finally, it is much better to have had the Emperor put this out on his own authority, provided that they do not disr^^rd their numerous resolutions to the contrary and act against us. For although I have hitherto doubted that it could be their intention to use Luther as a weapon to put pressure upon the pope in other matters, I have now, alas! been obliged to convince myself of the correctness of this surmise. For yesterday evening when the Emperor betook himself for

^"lustitiarius," Luther's word for people who relied for justification on their own works, not on faith.

SHe issued this mandate on his own responsibility, failing to get the Diet to condemn the books to be burned. Printed by Forstemann: Neues Urkundenbuck, p. 61. Cf. Smith, p. no.

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