Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/327

 banquet to celebrate the wedding we wish you not only to be present but to help us in case we need game. Meantime give us your blessing and pray for us.

I have mack ymvself so cheap and despised by this marriage that I expectHhd^angels laugh and the devils weep thereat.

The world and its wise men have not yet seen how pious and sacred is marriage, but they consider it impious and devil- ish in me. It pleases me, however, to have my marriage con- demned by those who are ignorant of God. Farewell and pray for me. ... . Martin Luther.

��692. MELANCHTHON TO JOACHIM CAMERARIUS. ZKG., xxi, 5g5. Wittenberg, June 16, 1525.

This letter is extant in two distinct texts. The better-known is that given in Corpus Reformatorum, i, 754, dated July 24, which differs in certain important respects from that here given. Both texts are Greek. Since the discovery of the text here given there has been a vigorous discussion of their relation, the view commonly adopted being that the text of the Corpus Reformatorum was edited by Came- rarius before publication. The theory of Dr. Henry E. Jacobs, to whom we are indebted for the translation, is that both texts are from the hand of Melanchthon; that of June 16 being the original letter which was, however, not sent to Camerarius, but laid aside. On July 24, after inquiries by Camerarius about Luther's marriage, Melanchthon wrote a second letter, modifying the statements of the first, but with a different conclusion. Dr. Jacobs believes that Melanchthon wrote the earlier part of this second text with the original before him, but left it as the writing proceeded. Because of the extensive use that has been made of the letter by Roman Catholic and other writers, we give the full Corpus Reformatorum text in a footnote. The letter was apparently first published in Epistolarum Philip pi Melancthonis Libri Quattuor, Londini, 1642 (in the same volume with a collection of Erasmus's epistles; the work is common, and I (P.S.) possess a copy), lib. iv, ep. 24, under date July 21 (not 24). It was taken with a large number of other letters te Camerarius from a Leipsic MS. once evidently in his possession, but in the London edition called Emesti Voegelitti codicem Lipsiensem, The form of the letter given is substantially that of the Corpus Reformatorum, In comparing this text with the Corpus Reformatorum in using other epistles, I have almost always found the London text superior. On the letter in general, see G. Kawerau : Luther in katholischer Beleuchtung (Sch. d. vereins /. Reformationsgesch., 105), 191 1, p. I4f, and Boehmer, Luther in the Light of Recent Research (Eng. trans, by Huth), 1916. I»p. 2I7ff.

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