Page:The letters of Martin Luther.djvu/54

 grace sufficiently abroad, of which he knows very little. The human is to him of more importance than the divine.

Although unwilling to judge him, I warn you not to read blindly what he writes. For we live in perilous times, and every one who is a good Hebrew and Greek scholar is not a true Christian; even Dr. Hieronymus, with his five languages, cannot approach Augustine with his one tongue, although Erasmus views all this from a different standpoint. Those who ascribe something to man’s freedom of will regard those things differently from those who know only God’s free grace. From our desert Wittenberg.

MARTIN LUTHER, Augustinian.

(Lindner’s Selected Letters.)

XII
TO CHRISTOPH SCHEURL

Luther’s modesty as to his own classical attainments.

May 6, 1517.

My greeting! To begin with, best of friends, I must thank you for Staupitz’s pamphlet, but I am quite ashamed that the honored father should circulate my insignificant writings among you.

Truly I did not write them for the cultured Nurnbergers, but for our rough Saxons, for whom religious instruction must be broken into infinite particles.

Even were I to do my utmost, I never could furnish anything which would find favor with men so versed in classical literature, and how much less in your eyes, seeing my sole endeavor is to bring myself down to the capacity of the common people. Therefore, pray keep what I write from the learned; and I took great pains, according to your instructions, to write a friendly letter to Eck, avoiding everything disagreeable. I do not know if he has received it.

I send you these theses or propositions, and through you to Link, or to any one who may like such trifles.

If I do not deceive myself; they are not Ciceronian,