Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/59

 on one side and Luther and Carlstadt on the other was arranged at Leipsic, June and July, 1519. In March, 1520, he was at Rome, where he was largely instrumental in drawing up the bull Exsurge Domine against Luther. He was entrusted with the publication of it in Ger- many in the autumn of the same year. In 1530 he was the Catholic protagonist at the Diet of Augsburg, and after that in several religious conferences, notably that of Ratisbon, 1541. Cf. Realencyclopadie ; Greving; Reformationgeschichtliche Studien und Texte, Hefte i., iv., v.; H. E. Jacobs, in Papers of American Soc. of Ch. History, 2d Series, ii., 1910.

. . . Among the theologians [at Wittenberg] the most eminent are Martin Luther, the Augustinian, who expounds the epistles of the Tarsan with marvellous genius, Carlstadt, Amsdorff, Feltkirchen [Bemhardi], and others. If you wish to make the acquaintance of any of them, find out if we can do anything for you.

30. LUTHER TO JOHN LANG AT ERFURT. Enders, i. 87. Wittenberg, March i, 1517.

... If the Psalms^ translated and explained by me in German please no one, yet they please me exceeding well.* John Griinenberg, the printer, is waiting for you to finish those I sent you.

I am reading our Erasmus, and my opinion of him becomes daily worse. He pleases me, indeed, for boldly and learnedly convicting and condemning monks and priests of inveterate ignorance, but I fear that he does not sufficiently advance the cause of Christ and God's grace, in which he is much more ignorant than Lefevre d'fitaples, for human considera- tions weigh with him more than divine. I judge him with reluctance, and only to warn you not to read all his works, or rather not to accept all without scrutiny. For our times are very perilous and everyone who knows Greek and Hebrew

^Die sieben Busspsalmen, Wittenberg, 1517. This was Luther's first publication written by himself (the very first having been the German Theology), printed April. Luther is perhaps sending them to Lang for revision by that friend who knew Hebrew. Reprinted, Weimar, i. 154ft-

•Luther probably means that they please him because they will please no one else, for he considered this the surest sign of divine favor. Cf. the letter o£ December 26, 1516, where he says he prefers to have them come out in poor form. Knaake (Weimar, i. 154) seems to mist this meaning when he nyt: "Luther hatte seine herzliche Freude an ihnexL"

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