Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/60

 ness and courtesy ; but Behemoth * cares nothing for that, and it will never bring him to reform.

I remember that when he said of himself in the Preface to his New Testament, "A Christian readily despises glory," * I thought in my heart, "O Erasmus, you deceive yt)urself, I fear." It is a great thing to despise glory, but his way of despising it was to think lightly of it, not to bear contempt that others put upon him. But the demising of glory is noth- ing, if it is only in words ; it is less than nothing, if it is only in thoughts ; for Paul says,* "The kingdom of God is in power." Therefore I have never dared, nor can I now boast of any- thing except the word of truth, which the Lord has given me.

Their books do no good because they refrain from chiding and biting and giving offence. When the Popes are civilly ad- monished, they think it flattery, and keep right on as before, as though they possessed a sort of right to be uncorrected and in- corrigible {jus incorrigibilitatis), content that they are feared and that no man dares reproach them. They are the sort of people that your Plutarch paints in his book on flattery; but Jeremiah speaks more gravely and terribly of them: "Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord deceitfully,"* for he is speaking of the work of the sword against the enemies of God. I, too, am afraid and my conscience troubles me, be- cause I listened to you and to my friends at Worms, and held my spirit in check and did not show myself a second Elijah to those idols. They would hear another story if I stood before them again. But enough of this.

Duke John * the elder knows at last where I am ; so far he has not known ; my host * has told him in confidence, but he will be silent. I am well here, but I am growing sluggish and languid and cold in spirit, and am miserable. Until to-day I have been constipated for six days. . . . Christ be thanked I He has not left me without some relics of the holy cross. . . . I write this not for sympathy, but for congratulation, praying

ment on Job xl, in Deutsche Bihel, Weimar, iii, 513.
 * Luther follows Jerome in making Behemotb mean the deril. bee his com-


 * Allen, ii, 168.


 * I Corinthians iv, 20,


 * Jeremiah xhriii, 10.


 * Brother of the Elector.


 * Hans Ton Berlepsch.

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