Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/86

 stadt His historical work was large and good (E. Fueter: Geschichte der neueren Historiographie (1911) 190-2), and he was also a friend and assistant of Erasmus, whose religious views he shared. His letters published, op cit. supra, with life by his friend John Sturm. Cf, P. S. Allen, Opus epistolarum Erasmi, ii. 6a

I have read your attack on our theologians, and I should have been sorry had it been vain. Wherefore, lest you should seem to yourself to have triumphed, after we Heidelbergers had deserted the cause (for it fared otherwise with our elder Wimpfeling,* although he defended us nobly), I will oppose to you a certain theologian, not, indeed, one of our number, but one who has been heard by us in the last few days,^ one who has got so far away* from the bonds of the sophists and the trifling of Aristotle, one who is so devoted to the Bible, and is so suspicious of antiquated theologians of our school (for their eloquence forces us to call them theologians and rhetoricians, too), that he appears to be diametrically opposed to our teachers. Jerome, Augustine and authors of that stamp are as familiar to him as Scotus* or Tartaretus' could be to us. He is Martin Luther, that abuser of indul- gences, on which we have hitherto relied too much. At the general chapter of his order celebrated here, according to the custom, he presided over a debate, and propounded some paradoxes, which not only went farther than most could follow him, but appeared to some heretical. But, good

ijamet Wimpfelins of Schlettstadt (i45o-Noyember is, 1528), matriculated at Freiburg, 1464, B. A. 1466, then to Erfurt In 1469 he went to Heidelberg, where he atudied and taught philosophy, becoming Rector in 1481. From 1484-98 he was ■t Spires, while there writing in favor of the Immaculate Conception. The next three years he spent at Strassburg, where he wrote a history of Germany. Then he taught at Freiburg and Heidelberg until 15 10, when he returned to Strassburg for five years. From 1515 till his death he lived at Schlettstadt, taking some part ia opposing Luther. Life by J. Knepper.

The Disputation took place April 25.

1 frankly confess I am unable to restore the certainly corrupt text of this passage, of which I believe I am giving the sense. For "volvere iussit" I have tiionght of putting "vulgatis sit," but this would hardly do. Bucer's hand is extremely difficult to read, which causes some of the text of his letters to be tsneertain. No help towards reconstructing this passage is given by the extremely free translation of the letter from the MS. in Baum's Capita und Butger, p. 96.

^Dunt Scotus, the famous opponent of Aquinas (1274* 1308).

"Peter Tartaretus (Tataretus) one of the most eminent of the later Scotists, tmaght at Paris 1490. Edited commentaries on Aristotle 1494, Expositio in Sum- mmloM Petri Hispani, first ed. without date, then 1501 and 1503, commentary on Scotna* QuodUbtHca 1519, and on Scotus' commentary on the Sentences 1520. Wctaer tud Weltes: Kirckenlejeicon, t. v,

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