Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/93

 back to February 13th by Enders, and to February 6th by Knaake in the Weimar edition, L 523, and Kostlin-Kawerau, 169. Kalko£f has shown, however {Zeitschrift fur Kirchengeschichte, xxxii, 411)* that the first letter sent with the Resolutions has been lost and that the one here translated is a second letter, intended by the author as an intro- duction to that work, which he was now at liberty to publish. Cf. supra, no. 53. He later changed this plan and substituted dedications to Staupitz and Leo X. and iii. 315, of the reception accorded his epistle as follows: "The Bishop of Brandenburg answered n;iy letter, saying that I should not go on with the thing, for if I once began I would get plenty to do, as the matter touched the Church. There spoke the devil incarnate in this bishop !" Kalkoff, loc, cit., 409, note, thinks this answer was given when the bishop visited Wittenberg, in February, 1519.

Recently, excellent Bishop, new and unheard of dogmas about indulgences have begun to be proclaimed throughout our regions so that many learned as well as unlearned men are both surprised and moved. Thus it happened that I was asked by many strangers as well as by many friends, both by letters and orally, what I thought of their novel, not to say licentious, doctrines. I put them off for a while, but finally their complaints became so bitter as to endanger the reverence for the Pope.

What was I to do? I had no power to decide anything, and I feared to cross the indulgence sellers, for I only wished that they might seem to preach the truth, and yet their oppo- nents proved so clearly that they only taught false, vain doctrines, that I confess they completely convinced me. That, therefore, I might satisfy both, the best plan seemed to be neither to approve nor to disapprove, but to hold a debate on the subject until the Holy Church should decide what to believe. Thus I posted topics for debate, and invited the public, and urged my learned friends privately, to give me their written opinions on the subject, for it seemed to me that my propositions were contradicted by neither the Bible nor the Fathers nor the Canon Law, but only by a few canonists who spoke without authority, and by a few scho- lastics, who expressed their opinions without giving proof. For it seemed to me most absurd that things should be preached in the Church for which we could not give a reason to heretics

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