Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/228

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181. LUTHER TO SPALATIN. Enders, ii. 187.

(LiEBENWERDA, October 9, or Wittenberg, October 10, 1519.)

First, he* bade me give his greetings to our most illustrious elector. Secondly, he told me to give his greeting to you. Thirdly, he asked whether I would stand by the agreement we made at Altenburg to have the Archbishop of Trier as judge. I said I would. This was the last act of our farce. At the end he said that by this conversation he had executed the papal commission, and that, as he was soon going to Rome, he did not wish to leave without having spoken with me about his commission.

Martin Luther.

P. S. — Instead of a chorus^ we had a comic dialogue on the power of the Pope, in which we agreed that the Pope did not have by divine right that power which he certainly did have, but that yet he had a sort of commission from the other apostles; and when I asked what other kind of power there could be for the other apostles, he said that it was the same, save that the world had been given to Peter in a different sense.

    • Ah, we shall soon agree on this matter,"* he concluded.

182. LUTHER TO GEORGE SPALATIN. £nders, ii. 192. (Wittenberg), October 13, 1519.

Greeting. I never said a word, dear Spalatin, nor even thought of going with Miltitz to Trier. I am surprised at the man's impudence or forgetfulness. When I was hardly brought to come to him at Liebenwerda, is it likely that I should promise to make so much longer a journey in his company? ... I believe that because he has been frustrated sn his hope he thus trifles without conscience, or else that he simply romances according to his custom. A certain doctor, a provost of Kollerburg in Pomerania, who dined here yester- day, told us that Miltitz was such a man. The doctor, who had just come from Rome, went with us to dinner with our

^/. e,, Miltitz, with whom Lather had a meeting at Liebenwerda on October 9, ampra, no. 177.

'Luther eridentlj thoaght of the chortis aa a sort of entr'acte. "Miltitz't words in German.

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