if on account of my bad name my presence would displease your Grace or any of your court, please do not conceal it from me, for I know well that my wind will not blow from Leipsic or Mcrseburg. Herewith I commend myself to your Grace. Your Grace's chaplain,
Dr. Martin Luther, Augustinian.
194. LUTHER TO SPALATIN. Enders, ii. 224. Wittenberg, November 7, 1519.
Greeting. I am girt up for the labor of explaining the Epistles and Gospels,* and am very busy, dear Spalatin. But I send what I can. . . .
I know nothing nor have I ever heard anything of the au- thority of Ecclesiastes* on purgatory. But the farthing men- tioned in Matthew,* with which Eck attacked me at Leipsic, is as applicable to purgatory as to anything else. What will not anything signify to those who take it apart from its context rather than rightly consider it? But even by the text itself Eck is evidently refuted by the adverb "till," which in biblical use does not signify a definite time, as they think, as, for example, in Matthew, ii.* "and knew her not till she had brought forth a son." See Erasmus* and Jerome. Secondly, because Christ speaks of a man who would not agree with his adversary, that is, who did not obey Christ's command, and thus, as they themselves confess, sinned mortally. Wherefore that prison is hell, from which no one is freed, for even Eck and his friends send only into purgatory those who have done all and have agreed with their adversary. Therefore the text is only valid against them, unless they agree that those who die in hatred, wrath and dissension with their enemies only go to purgatory, which I hope even they
'The BO^alled Church Postilla, or sermonB on the Gospel and Epistle for Sundays and feast days, which first appeared in March, 1531. Cf. supra, no. 1S5.
'Ecdesiastes, it. 14, cited by Eck; supra, no. 163.
'Matthew, ▼. 26, cited by Eck, "Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.*'
^Rather Matthew, i. 25. Luther always cites by chapters alone, because the division into verses was not made until after his time.
- C/. Erasmus' note on the New Testament (Opera, 1703, vi. p. 11). William
Tyndale, in his translation of the New Testament, sajrs that the words did not imply that "St. Joseph knew Our Lady" even after she had borne Jesus.
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