Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/369

 his wickedness in a pamphlet I have just sent to press. Unless the Lord prevent it, one would say that the rebellion and slaughter of the peasants was but the prelude to the destruc- tion of Germany. I earnestly b^ you to pray with all your might to the Father of mercies to prevent these plots and break the plotters' fury; and especially accuse Duke George, a man, I fear, lost and condemned, that God may either con- vert him, or, if he is not worthy, take him from our midst; otherwise the beast will not rest, but will be like Satan him- self both of his own spontaneous fury and by reason of the encouragement of the bishops. It so torments him to think that Luther is not slain that there is reason to fear that he may perish with chagrin only on this account; he can neither sleep nor wake in peace. Good Heavens 1 how many intrigues our Elector has to bear not only from him but from his own wicked nobles.

I have much to tell you that I cannot write, especially about the last attack on me by that enraged reptile, Erasmus of Rotterdam.* How much eloquence will this vainglorious beast exercise in trying to destroy Luther?

I think you must have heard that some learned men are writing against Oecolampadius ; " their book* is marvel- ously pleasing. Bilibald Pirckheimer* has written against him, too, with more spirit and zeal than I had thought him capable of, for I believed him too much taken up with other things. But others will rise again, and this sacramentarian sect now has, if I mistake not, six heads born in a single year. Wonderful spirit, thus to disagree with himself I Carl- obedience of Albert petitioned the Emperor (December, 1515) to take Tigonms measares for the suppression of Lutheranism. Luther's answer was nerer pub- liihed in fuU (Weimar, xytii, 256fF).

1 The HyperaspUtes, Part I, an answer to Luther's Bondage of the WUi, ef. infra, no. 729.

York).
 * De genuina verborum Domini, #tc., 1525 (copy at Union Seminary, New

and signed l>y fourteen South (»erman Lutherans. Koatlin-Kawerau, ii, 8off. Brena also wrote an open letter to Bucer on the subject. CR., xcv, 483, note. To the (^rman translation of the Syngromma Luther wrote a preface xsa6.
 * The Syngromma Suevicum, or "Swabian Symposium," written by John Brenz,

^Zwingli's works were forbidden at Nuremberg, where Pirdcheimer was an offi- cial. Pirckheimer wrott De vera Christi came et vero ejus sanguine, 1526. He drew from Scotus the doctrine of the ubiquity of Christ's body, afterwards made classic by Luther. ERE., t» s^- Roth, Pirckheimer, p. 6d.

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