Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/58

 unanimous are the voices of our friends praising us, the more hurtful they are, as it is written:^ "a man's enemies are those of his own household," and again, "those who praised me conspired against me."* For God's favor recedes as man's advances. For God will be your only friend, or will not be your friend at all. . ..

I do not write this, excellent Christopher, in scorn of your upright and kind intentions, but because I fear for myself. You do the office of a pious Christian, who ought to despise none but himself, but I must also try to be a Christian like you (if our future friendship is to be solid), that is, to despise myself. For he is not a Christian who receives a man on account of his learning, virtue, sanctity and fame (for thus the gentiles do and the little poets,' as they call themselves, of our age), but he who cherishes the destitute, the poor, the foolish, the sinner and the wretched. . ..

Behold your verbose friend ; do you as a friend be a patient reader.

Brother Martin Luder, One of the Hermits of the Sect of St, Augustine.

29. CHRISTOPHER SCHEURL TO JOHN ECK AT

INGOLSTADT.

Christoph Scheurls Briefbuch, hg. von Soden und Knaake, 2 v. Pots- dam, 1867-72, ii. 2. Nuremberg, January 14, 15 17.

John Maier of Eck (November 13, 1486-Fcbruary 10, 1543) in Swabia, matriculated at Heidelberg in 1498, at Tubingen in 1499, tak- ing the degree of B. A. there in the same year, and M. A. in 1501. From 1502-10 he was at the university of Freiburg in Breisgau, be- coming D. D. in the last named year. He published several things, among them the Chryssopassus ( ! cf. Revelations, xxi. 20). From 1510 till his death he was professor at Ingolstadt. In 1514, at the request of the banking house of Fugger in Augsburg, he maintained the justice of taking interest at 5 per cent., and debated the subject in 1515 at Bologna, and in 1517 at Vienna. He was anxious to dis- tinguish himself, and early in 1518 attacked Erasmus for saying that the Greek of the New Testament was not as good as that of Demos- thenes. About the same time Scheurl sent him Luther's Theses^ whick he answered in a work called Obelisks, A debate between him

^Matthew X. 36.

"Psalin cii. 9.


 * The humanists frequently called themselyes poets.

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