else you may publish. He recently saw with admiration the works of St. Jerome so restored by your editorial care that we may say that prior to that we seemed to have nothing less than the works of Jerome.*
But why all this? So that, most kind sir, you may believe that I am writing to you with good intentions. My friend writes me that in interpreting the apostle on the righteous- ness of works . . . [Here follows an almost word for word quotation from Luther's letter, supra, no. 21, to . . .] that some will take occasion by your example to defend the killing, that is the literal sense of Scripture, of which almost all since Augustine are full.
This, most learned sir, is what my friend thought ought to be referred to you as to the Pythian Apollo. Pray hear him, if not for my sake, for that of the whole republic of letters. Wherefore you will do what is most pleasing to us, and also most worthy of your piety, if you kindly deign to answer my good friend and me, however briefly. You will thus gratify my love for you, as my illustrious prince's zeal and reverence for you and Reuchlin and all learned men. I will never be the last in loving and revering you. Farewell, most learned man. . . .
23. LUTHER TO SPALATIN. Enders, i. 72. Wittenberg, December 14, 1516.
... I have written twice to the venerable Franciscan Father James Vogt," the elector's confessor, first that he might give my thanks to the elector for the gift of a gown, which is of better cloth than befits a cowl had it not been a prince's gift; and, secondly, that he might make sure the affair of the sacred relics, which he commissioned our most reverend Father Vicar [Staupitz] to get in the regions of the Rhine;* but I know not whether my letters have arrived or will arrive.
iQn this edition, cf. supra, no. 15, Frederic could read little Latin, his adinirm- tion was probably vicarious.
'Mentioned twice or thrice in these letters; he died April 15, 153a.
'Frederic was a great collector of relics, of which he had by this time more than 5000, housed in the Castle Church at Wittenberg. Cf, Kolde: Augus- tinercongregation, 368, 4o8ff; P. Kalkoff: Ahtass und Retiquienverehrung in d^r ScMoiskirche £U Wittenberg. Gotha, 1907. Luther had come to dislike them. Cf, letter to Spalatin, June 8, 1516, translated, Smith, 33L
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