Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/73

 lay hold on Christ a little. If the worshippers are of better faith they are to be convinced that they seek unworthy things. It is a mistake to foster the worship of the saints by the fears of evil and desire for temporal goods. But this is not to be taught to all at all times, but only to the little ones and to the weak; the other should be taught to ask for just the contrary things, punishments, diseases, scourges, crosses and divers torments, as he says :^ "Examine me, O Lord, and prove me ; try my reins and my heart." . . . Thus the Lord's prayer teaches us to seek for spiritual gifts in the first three petitions, and for the things of God, and afterward for our own. . ..

Brother Martin Eleutherius, Augustinian,

47. LUTHER TO SPALATIN AT WITTENBERG.* Enders, i. 140. Wittenberg, January 18, 15 18.

Greeting. Hitherto, excellent Spalatin, you have asked me things that were within my power or at least within my daring, to answer, but now that you ask to be directed in those studies which pertain to knowledge of the Scriptures you demand something beyond my abilities, especially as I have hitherto been able to find no guide for myself in this matter. Different men think differently, even the most learned and most gifted. You have Erasmus who plainly asserts that Jerome is the great, almost the only, theologian in the Church." If I oppose Augustine to him I will seem an unjust and partial judge, partly because I am an Augustinian and partly on account of the long established judgment of Erasmus, since he has said that it is most impudent to compare Augustine and Jerome. Other men think differently. Among such judges of such things I feel unable to decide anything on account of the mediocrity of my learning and talents. But among those who

^Psalm xxvi. 2,

'Luther says he answers Spalatin's letter on the day it was written, which would imply that Spalatin must at least be very near Wittenberg.

'Luther expressed similar thoughts in his letter of October 19, 1516. The expressions in the present letter seem to indicate that he had read the introduc- tions to the edition of Jerome which appeared in 15 16 (P. S. Allen, epp. 326, 396). Cf. Luther to Spalatin, August 24, 15 16. It is noticeable that the direct comparison of Augustine and Jerome, which I have not found elsewhere in Erasmus, was clearly defined in the letter of the humanist to Eclc, May 15, 15 18 (Allen, ep. 844), first published in August, is 18. There is a good deal about Jerome and Augustine in the Apology mentioned below.

�� �