Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/291

 power." This was done in John v [22], 'The Father hath committed all judgment unto the Son." "And thy righteous- ness unto the king's son,"^ means that the execution of the said power is given to the king's son in Christ, who as God is the eternal Son of the King His Father, and as man is a son of King David/ and in both characters the whole judicial power is given to Him. Although the power of the Father and of the Son is not the same in divine matters, nevertheless the Son has it and a like substance from the Father; and, according as Christ is a man the judicial power is also given unto Him. Because in the last judgment He will appear in the htunan form in which He was judged by Pilate,* albeit that He appeared before Pilate in a form capable of suffering, but at the last judgment He will appear in a glorified form. So says Nicholas de Lyra in expounding the said psalm [Ixxii], "Give the king thy judgments, O God, judge thy people," etc. The psalm continues with the prediction, "Give thy righteous- ness to the king's son." Moreover Christ exercised a judicial jurisdiction when He sat down, as a judge does, and absolved the adulteress from the charges brought against her.* Also when He made a scourge of small cords and cast out of the temple those who bought and sold.* And through Daniel He judged the two old men, inveterate in evil days.* More- over Moses gave the law to the Jews,* and in this law Moses commanded one taken in this kind of adultery to be stoned. And in John vii (19), "Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law?" And in Luke ii (22), it is said, "And when the days of her purification were accom- plished according to the law of Moses." Now the Pope is the successor of Moses, as is seen by the gloss to the Canon Law' and by other laws cited by me in my book

1 The rest of Psalm Ixxii, i, just quoted.

' Quotes Matthew i, and Romans i, 3.

' Matthew xxri, 64.


 * John viii, 11, quoted in Canon I«aw.

note that this learned jurist seldom cites Scripture save from the Canon Law, or from Nicholas de Lyra.
 * John ii, 15 and Luke xix, 4$, as quoted in Canon Law. It la interesting to


 * Daniel xiii, Apocrypha.

^ Exodus XX : Leviticus xx, 10; Deuteronomy zxii, 22; John riii, 5.


 * Full reference in text and notes to it

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