Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/52

 Wherefore will you please find out about it. The reverend Father Vicar asked for relics for the elector from the Arch- bishop of Cologne/ and the business of procuring these relics from the commissary of the archbishop was entrusted to the sub-prior of our monastery at Cologne. But after the departure of Staupitz, when the chief nun of St. Ursula* was required to hand over the relics, she alleged a prohibition of the Pope and said that she could not conscientiously comply without his mandate or permission. And though a writ of the licenser was shown her, yet because she doubted its authority and signature she has not yet complied. If you wish, you may tell the prince either to send thither a licenser of approved authority or else to excuse Staupitz.

As to what you write about the most illustrious prince speaking of me frequently and praising me, it does not please me at all, yet I pray that the Lord God may give glory to his humility. For I am not worthy that any man should speak of me, still less that a prince should do so and least of all that such a prince should do so. I daily see and experi- ence that those profit me most who speak of me worst. Yet I pray you permit me to thank our prince for his favor and kindness, though I would not be praised by you or by any man, for the praise of man is vain and that of God only is true, as it is written, "not in man, but in the Lord shall my soul make her boast,"* and again, "glory not in your own name, but in his."* Not that they who praise us are to be reprehended, but that they praise man rather than God, to whom alone is laud, honor and glory. Amen.

You ask me for my opinion of your plan for translating some little works into German,* but it is beyond my power

iHemann ron Wied» archbishop 1505 to 1546, when the Pope deposed him for faTorini; the Reformation, in which he had sought the aid of Bucer and Melanch- then. Kostlin-Kawerau, ii. 561, 581.

the eleven thousand virgins.
 * Th^ famous church and convent at Cologne where are exhibited the bones of


 * Psalm xxxiv. 3.

^Tsalm cv. 3.

^Spalatin, who later translated Melanchthon's Loci communes and several of Luther's things, was at this time thinking of translating some of the shorter works of Erasmus. The first thing he did translate from this author was a letter to Antony of Bergen on peace, dated March 14, 1514, under the title: Herre Ercumus Rot^odomut EpUttl su Herr Antony von Berg, Apt su Sant Bertin, von den

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