Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/84

 ciful, kind God will give me herein more grace, strength and patience to live in this matter and in others according to His

will. Albert, with his own hand.

520. MELANCHTHON TO THE ELECTOR FREDERIC AT

LOCHAU.

ARC, vi (1909), 324, (Wittenberg), December ^^ 1521.

The confusion caused at Wittenberg by Carlstadt and Z willing was increased by the arrival, late in December, of the "Zwickau prophets." Zwickau had long been a hotbed of heresy, twenty-seven Waldensians having been tried there in 1462. H. Bohmer in Neues Archiv fur Sdchsische Geschichte, xxxvi, pp. 1-38, 1915. The present agitation in Zwickau dated from the arrival of Munzer early in 152a Cf, supra. Vol. I, p. 324. Himself expelled by the government in April, 1521, his propaganda was continued by the fanatic layman Nicholas Storch, fol- lowed by Thomas Drechsel and Mark Thomae (sic) Sttibner. They claimed to be prophets immediately inspired, and started a chiliastic and revolutionary movement. When Zwickau became too hot for them they went to Wittenberg, where Sttibner had once studied. Storch felt out of place in the academic atmosphere, and soon left, to preach in West Thuringia, in 1523, and at Strassburg, 1524. Stiibner, however, won many adherents among the students. Cf. Smith, 137S.; Kostlin- Kawerau, i, 486ff.; Barge, i, 40off.; P. Wappler, Thomas Munzer und die Zwickauer Propheten, 1908; RGG., s,v, "Zwickauer Propheten."

I wish the grace and peace of Christ to your most illustrious Highness. May your Highness take in good part what I dare to write to you. For I am forced to do so at this time by high and perilous matters, which demand your Highness's at- tention and care. This is the matter which I must now set forth. Your Highness is not ignorant of the many, various and dangerous dissensions about the Word of God excited in your Highness's city of Zwickau. Some/ who made I know not what innovations, were there cast into chains. Three of the authors of these commotions have flitted hither; two* of them are illiterate weavers, the third* is educated. I have heard them ; they preach strange things about themselves, say- ing that they are sent by the clear voice of God to teach, that

^HasM Ton der Frelsttdt and I^eonard Koppinger. Cf, P. Wappler: Thomas Mnser in Zwickau und die Zwickauer Propheten, 1908.

'NichoUs Storch and Thomas Drechsel

'Mark Thomae (sic)^ called Stubner, because hia father owned a bath house {Badeetube) at Elsterberg, i. V.

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