Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/191

 but forcibly taking, against the resistance of the author, his Notes on the Gospel of John^ I do not want to ornament them with words of mine; they will commend themselves to the reader, and I shall not have to endure his tumed-up nose and wrinkled brow again. For he puts little value on himself and his own writings, not from modesty, but rather because he believes, in a true Christian spirit, that nothing is our own, but ever3rthing belongs to Christ; and he holds this opinion so obstinately that I truly think he is in error, and pretends that Christ is farther from his own heart than He really is. Nor does he believe me any longer when I try to persuade him otherwise; so far has he come and so far has he surpassed me — ^thus "the last shall be first, and the first last." Then, too, he says that he does not wish to be known as the author of this commentary. Certainly in help- ing the Church this way, Philip makes too little of himself.* I, too, should prefer that there were no commentaries at all, but that the pure Scriptures alone should reign and be ex- plained orally ; but I do not see how the Church can do with- out commentaries that at least point to the Scriptures, and Philip's are of this kind. Who cannot see that the Epistle to the Hebrews is itself almost a commentary? as are also Paul's letters to the Romans and the Galatians ? Who would be able to explain Holy Scripture unless Paul had shown how it must be explained? This kind of a demonstration I call the making of a commentary. That is all that is asked of Philip, but he imagines that something else is asked of him.

Therefore I send you my booty, my dear Gerbel, so that you may do your best to make it known how unwilling the author is. I hope that John Setzer * will print it more correctly and accurately than my former theft was printed. If that inexora- ble Achilles * had been willing to be rhetorical in this book, he would have added much that was illuminating and graceful; but now if it lacks anything, either in arrangement of matter

^Luther had been anticipated, for a student's notes had already been sent to Basle, where they were published in May, is^S* ^Est nimis nuUus, "he is too much of a nobody."


 * Secerius, the Hagenau printer.


 * Melanchthon.

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