Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/126

 will graciously take this letter in good part, for I am quite at your Grace's service. I commend your Grace to God's mercy.

Your Grace's servant,

Martin Luther.

549. LUTHER TO CASPAR BORNER OR JAMES CUBITO. Enders, iii, 375. Wittenberg^ May 28, 1522.

This letter appeared in print in July, 1522, together with a letter to Capito of January 17, 1522 (Enders, iii, 278ff.). In this edition it was headed merely "Judicium D. M. Lutheri de Erasmo Roterodamo ad Amicum." An old MS. copy of the letter in Dresden is headed "Epis- tola Lutheri ad amicum, cujus, ut opinor, meminit in priori epistola ad Erasmum." By this is meant the letter of April, 1524, infra, no. 620, in which Luther refers to Joachim Camerarius. A MS. at Copenhagen is headed "Marth. Luth. ad civem quendam Lipsensem." Ambrose Blaurer saw a copy of it and refers to it on August 6, 1522, as "ad quendam Lypsicum," Briefwechsel der Blaurer, i, 52. The old edi- tions of the letters identify the recipient with Caspar Bomer of Leip- zig. On the other hand, Capito says that he saw the original auto- graph from which it was printed, and that it was addressed to James Cubito, a physician of Magdeburg. (See letter of July 30, 1523, Enders, IT, 188.) This testimony is weighty, and is accepted by O. Clemen in Supplementa Melanchthoniana, i, p. xiv. The allusions in the letter to persecution and to the "princeps" are not decisive, as Luther speaks in the letter to Capito of January 17, 1522, of the bad conditions at Magdeburg, and might well have spoken of the Archbishop as a "prince." There was also constant persecution at Leipsic. The letter, though not published under Luther's supervision, was intended to be an "open" one. In all •the rest of his correspondence Luther never alludes once to either Bomer or Cubito. (The reading "Cubito" in a letter of August 7, 1536, Enders, xi, 25, should be "Curio.")

Bomer (ti547) of Grosenhayn, since 1518 rector of the Thomas School in Leipzig, and professor of theology at the university.

Grace and peace in Christ. I was glad to receive your last letter, honored Sir, because it shows how rightly you think and that you are making progress in your opinions of things Christian. I hope and pray that the Lord may perfect what He has begun. I am grieved, indeed, by what you say about the fury against Christ which prevails in your city, but either your Prince will give up his raging of his own accord, or someone else will make him do so against his will, and that soon.

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