Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/425

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ter and embrace her mother, remembering us in your prayers. . ..

I should be sorry if Rome were burned, for it would be a great portent. I hope we may live together again and pub- lish Ecclesiastes ^ before we die. I commend myself to your prayers. Qiristian ' and his family had moved to Berlin, but the Margrave Joachim ordered him to quit his dominions the same day because of danger from the plague. Behold the wickedness of Satan and of men! We Wittenbergers are the hatred and the disgust and the fear of all men; as says the Psalm,* "A reproach of men and despised of the people," but we are, as we hope, the joy and crown of angels and saints. Amen. Martin Luther^ Christi lutum*

781. ANTONY BIDEMARIO, CAPTAIN OF THE TOWN AND COMMUNITY OF VENZONE, TO JOHN MORO, LIEUTEN- ANT OF THE FRIULI.

Brown, 1527-33, no. 1085. Venzone, November 15, 1527.

Have heard that at Saltzburg the bishop ' is burning, hang- ing and drowning divers persons for Lutheranism; he has 150 in prison, including priests, la3mien and women; and he caused one of the principal priests in his service to be burned. He has also lately abrogated a corrupt practice, thus, — the male inhabitants of Saltzburg on meeting a married man would say to him, "Lend me thy wife for to-night, and to-morrow I will give her back to thee." Some assented from sheer goodwill, and some for hire. This abuse the bishop has determined utterly to extirpate. The writer spoke with persons come from Saltzburg who affirmed they had witnessed the burning of individuals for these irregularities, and that many of the inhabitants have made their escape; also that the Duke of Bavaria is doing the like in his duchy ; adding, moreover, that the Archduke Ferdinand sent fifty halberdiers with a sheriflf or provost to Wels near Lintz

^Luther had lectured on Ecclesiastes during 1526, but the lectures were ttill unpublished. 'Doring.


 * Psalm xxii, 6.


 * "Christ's mud/' a pun on his own name.


 * Matthew Lang.

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