Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/199

 courage and joyfully allow the Lord to slay us. He has said/ and He will not lie, "Even the hairs of your head are all numbered." And although our adversaries will cry out that those saints were Hussites, Wyclifites and Lutherans, we should not wonder, but rather let this strengthen us the more, for Christ, too, had a Cross and slanderers. Our Judge is not far oflF, and He will pass a different judgment ; this we know for certain. Pray for us, dear brethren, and for one another, that one of us may hold out faithful hands to the other, and all of us, in one Spirit, cling to our Head, Jesus Christ. May He strengthen and perfect you with His grace to the honor of His holy name. To Him be praise and thanks, from us and from every creature, forever. Amen.

597. ERASMUS TO ZWINGLI.

Schuler und Schulthess, vii, 307.

Corpus Reformatutn, xcv, 114. Basle, August 31 (1523).

Greeting, my dear Zwingli. I was glad to have your chatty letter. It is rtunored here that the third Augustinian also was burned on the day after the Visitation, for the other two were burned the day before.* I do not know whether to deplore their death or not. Certainly they died with the greatest and most unheard of constancy, not because of Luther's doctrines, but because of his paradoxes, for which I would not die, be- cause I do not understand them. I know it is a glorious thing to die for Christ. The godly have never been without afflic- tion, but the godless, too, are afflicted, and he who transforms himself into an angel of light' is tnaster of many wiles ^ and the gift of discerning spirits is rare. Luther proposes some riddles that are absurd on the face of them: all the works of the saints are sins, which are forgiven by the undeserved mercy of God ; free will is an empty name ; a man is justified

1 Matthew x, 30.

'C/. supra, no. 596. A third inmate of the Augustinian house at Antwerp, was arrested along with Voes and Each, and it was at first reported that he had suffered the same fate. He was imprisoned for a time, but we do not know what finally became of him. If, as Luther says (Enders, iv, 184), he was Lambert von Thorn, he was imprisoned and executed September 15, 1528. Clement: B^trSge, i, 48, n.

'II Corinthians xi, 14.


 * This in Greek.

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