Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/90

 the fifth and younger doctor, who moved the laughter of the whole audience by saying: ''If the peasants heard this they would stone you to death."

To Erfurt my theology is poison ;* Dr. Trutf etter especially

condemns all my propositions; he wrote me a letter accusing

me of ignorance even of dialectic, to say nothing of theology.

I would have disputed publicly with them had not the festival

of the cross prevented. I had a conference with Trutfetter

face to face and at least made him understand that he could

not prove his own position nor refute mine; rather that their

opinion was like that beast which is said to eat itself. But in

vain is a story told to a deaf man; they obstinately stuck to

their own little ideas, though they confess that these ideas

are supported by no other authority than natural reason,

which we consider the same as dark chaos, for we preach

no other light than Christ Jesus, the true and only light. I

talked with Dr. Usingen, who was my companion in

the wagon, more than with all the others, trying to persuade

him; but I know not what success I had, for I left him pensive

and dazed. This is what comes of growing old in wrong

opinions. But the minds of all the youths are tremendously

different from theirs, and I have great hope that, as Christ

rejected by the Jews went over to the Gentiles, so this true

theology of his, rejected by those opinionated old men, will

pass over to the younger generation. . ..

Brother Martin Eleutherius, Augustinian.

6i. LUTHER TO JOHN ECK AT INGOLSTADT. Enders, v. i. Wittenberg, May 19, 1518.

Certain Obelisk^ have come to me by which you have tried to refute my Theses on indulgences; this is a witness of the friendship which you offered me unasked, and also of your spirit of evangelic charity according to which we are bidden to warn a brother before we accuse him. How could I, a

Erasmus' Adages; as these are the first quotations from that work I have noticed in bis letters it is probable that he had recently bought the new edition which he had spoken of in his letter to Lang in February, supra, no. 49.
 * Here «nd elsewhere in the letter Luther uses a proverb which he found in

bis attack on Luther's Theses, Luther received it from his friend Link not long before March 24. Cf, Preserved Smith, sSf.
 * £ck gave this name (literally small daggers with which notes are marked) to

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