Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/71

 of St. Augustine, which were sent us by your Reverence. We have read them and among other things we find that they limit and restrict the power of the Pope and the Apostolic Sec, in which they contradict the general opinions of many blessed and venerable doctors. Wherefore we oflfer your Reverence the following htunble opinion: [Here follows a restatement of the same objection with citations from the Canon Law to prove it]. ..

45. LUTHER TO SPALATIN.

Enders, L 131. Wittenberg, December 20, 15x7.

[Luther answers a question about the women who visited Christ's grave.]. ..

I hear that Conrad Wimpina is doing something or other against the preacher of Zwickau* on the same question, for- sooth he confutes the history of St. Anna and restores those three Marys. He seems to me to have been hardly able to confute him, though I would not take the legend away con- tentiously on account of the people, but rather let it cool down and cease, especially since an error like that, born of piety, is not to be so severely condemned as that which leads men to worship the saints for money. Farewell.

Brother Martin Eleutherius, Augustinian.

46. LUTHER TO SPALATIN.

Enders, i. 135. Wittenberg, December 31, 1517.

Greeting. You ask me, excellent Spalatin, what I would think of publishing some theses asserting that the worship of the saints for temporal goods is superstitious. It was never my idea, Spalatin, to call the veneration of the saints super- stitious, even when they are invoked for the most worldly causes. For this is what our neighbors the Beghards* of Bohemia think. At least it is better to pray God through his saints for an)rthing whatever, seeing that every gift is of God, than to seek it, as some do, from the devil through magicians

^John Sylvius Egranus wrote agunst the legend that St. Anna, the mother of the Virgin, had married three husbands, Joachim, Cleophas and Salome [1] and had borne a daughter named Mary to each of them. Wimpina answered this attack, defending the legend. Cf, Kawerau, article Wimpina in RtaltncychpSdit, On Egranns, cf, infra, no. 52.

'The extreme Hussites.

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