Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/548

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truly devoted to the Holy See ; the princes did not admit to this examination the Official of Trier, who in the last few days has come out strongly against us. Immediately after the de- parture of the princes, the Archbishop of Trier invited Martin to his room accompanied by two doctors,^ with- out whom he will take no step and speak no word, as though he were their ward. Present were the Official of Trier and the Dean^ of the Church of our Lady at Frankfort, who was formerly at Rome and now with the best intentions as a strong Catholic theologian writes against Luther. Then in a Latin oration the official admonished Martin to recant his errors and recognize the councils, decrees, traditions and usages of the Church. Luther answered little (for he is said to have a poor memory) and only refused to subscribe to the decrees of the councils, which he said were full of contradictions and errors, as could be seen by the Council of Constance. The official declared that in matters of faith the councils neither erred nor contradicted each other. There- upon Martin cited the thesis condemned at Constance, that the Church consisted only of the number of those predestined to salvation, and he cited against the doctrine of the council the words of Christ, in the Gospel of John :* "Of those whom thou has given me, I lost not one." "Save the son of perdi- tion,"* interrupted the official, and with this weapon, as well he might, he plied Martin so hard that the man knew not what to answer. The same thing happened with two other

^They were Jerome Schur£F and Nicholas too Amsdorf. Sdiurff (1481-1554) of St. Gall, studied medicine at Basle, and then, in i5oo.or 1501 took up jurispru- dence at Tubingen. In 1504 he began to teach and practice law at Wittenberg, where he lived till 1546, after which he was driven by the Schmalkaldic war to Frankfort on the Oder. He was a warm friend of Luther. Present at the Diet of Worms, when Luther was asked if the books there assembled were his, Schur£F had cried: "Let the titles be read," which was then done. AHgemeine deutsche Biographie,

'John Dobneck, always called Cochlaeus (1479- January xo, 1553), born near Nuremberg, studied there and at Cologne 1504, where he took his M. A. in 1507. In 1 5 10 he returned to Nuremberg to teach school, in 1515 went as private tutor to Bologna, and in 1517 took his doctorate in theology at Ferrara. In 1520 he was given ecclesiastical preferment at Frankfort on the Main. He was at the Diets of Worms and Nuremberg 15 J4. In 1538 he took Eraser's place as chaplain to Duke George of Saxony. He wrote much against Luther, including his life, the Historia de Actit et Scriptis Martini Lutheri, 1549. AUgtmtint deutsche Biographie. Life by M. Spahn, 1908 (not seen by me).

>John, xviii 9; cf, John, xvil. is.

^ohn, xviL 12.

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