Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/61

 anything that has ever come into my hands (I lie not) and most theological. I send it, but I shall be sorry I have done so if you read it carelessly. Behold most learned Erasmus and Jerome so much praised by him! I do not know whether they could compose such a book, but I know they have not done so.

I no longer have the Psalms, but the printer/ Truly, I am sorry that you want them so much, for they are not published for choice minds, but for the simplest, of whom I have to bear with many. Therefore they are not provided with learned apparatus and are without parallel passages in Scrip- ture, and, though very verbose, strange to say, insufficiently explained. For their subject is foreign to men, or rather they are incapable of understanding it. So it is not for your mind to eat predigested food like this. You already have enough in the works just mentioned, or if they are not enough, I beg you trust yourself to me this once, and with all your power lay hold on the book of Tauler's sermons, of which I spoke to you before. You can easily get it from Christian Doring," a most theological man. From this book you will see how the learning of our age is iron, or rather earthen, be it Greek, Latin or Hebrew, compared to the learning of this true piety. Farewell.

My opinion of Wimpina's book on predestination' is the same as Carlstadt's, namely, that he has labored in vain as far as the subject goes. You can easily form an opinion of the labored elegance of his style. Even if the theses he tries to prove were true, he should not draw the conclusions which he does from it.

^Thg Seven Penitential Psalms.

at a friend. He died circa 1534.
 * A goldsmith who wu also a printer and bookseller, mentioned often by Luther

^De divina providentia, Frankfort a. O. March i, 1516. Conrad Koch, known as Wimpina (c. i46o-May 17, 1531), matriculated at Leipzig I479> B. A. 148 1, M. A. X486, doctor theoU 1503. At this time, or perhaps earlier, he visited Rome. He was involved in a quarrel with PoUich, first rector of Wittenberg. In 1506 he was called by the elector of Brandenburg to be dean of the new he had a controversy with Egranus which will be noticed below. On January 20, 1 5 18, John Tetzel, the indulgence preacher, took Luther's Theses to Frankfort and with Wimpina's help composed a reply. In 1523 he wrote the Anacephalaeosis (printed 1528) against Luther and in 1530 waa at the Diet of Augsburg. Life by J. Negwer, 1909.

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