Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/397

 outcome, provided only that we recognize that this state of affairs calls us to the philosophy of the Gospel, that we may not be more foolish than the man who, after shipwreck, thanked Fortune that even thus she summoned him to the pursuit of wisdom. I personally have assuredly reaped some private good from these great evils.

There are certain men here who are trying to put this city in the same condition that Zurich is, nor do they by any means suffer your man* to be preacher, though he seems to me apt to teach and not at all seditious. But his great crime is that he speaks to a very large audience.

I think you know what my Dane* recently intended to do. If such things are done in the city with impunity, what is the use of laws? Nor is this a first offence, which might be par- doned. Yet it is not so much the particular act that offends, as it is the precedent for worse things.

My stomach is somewhat better these last months, thanks to Christ, but recently a pain has developed in my right side. What it means I know not, save that I have once for all offered this poor body to Christ. Finally I made a will * when things got to this point, for even those who have nothing make wills. A certain priest at Louvain made a will in this form: "I have nothing; I owe much; the rest I g^ve to the poor." Whether the pestilence has died down I know not; but the report of it has died down. I wish you were here, were it. best for you.

I still have some fears about the Athanasius,* lest as things

» Possibly Augustine Marius (Mayr), (1485-1543), who studied at Vienna, where he was given the doctorate in theology 1520; 1522 became Suffragan Bishop of Freising, and 1526 was appointed to a position at Basle. He left in 1529. Oecolampadius speaks of the trouble he had had trying to get him to teach ac- cording to Scripture, in a letter to Zwingli, December 23, 1526, CR., xcv, 815.

'James Jespersen Arhusiensis of Denmark, thence commonly called Danus, at this time a famulus of Erasmus, later tutor in Greek to Nicholas Olaus and other men. Forstemann und Gunther, 376. On December 28, 1526, James Sobius of Cologne wrote Erasmus (ibid. 63), informing him that his Dane had come to Cologne and had stated that Erasmus wished to migrate to that city provided he were not bothered by Hochstraten, Geldenhauer "and that scum." He went so far as to bespeak a house for his master. Whether this were all he did that Erasmus disliked I cannot say.

• Dated January 22. 1527, published by J. B. Kan: Brasmiana (Rotterdam, i89i),

pp. 61 ff.

^Athanasii Lucubraiiones Aliquot, ed. Erasmus, Basle, 1527. The dedication to John Bishop of lyincoln is dated March 3> iS»7 Brasmi epittola*, 1642, xxisc, M.

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