leave the truth to be mocked. Thus they would gag me, and open everyone else's mouth ; thus your Grace can imagine that in this case any man, who otherwise perhaps would not dare to look at me, might fall upon me. Now with all my heart I am disposed obediently to follow your Grace's true counsel, and always keep still, provided they will do the same, for I have much to do, and do not seek my own pleasure. But if they won't keep silence, I humbly pray your Grace not to take it ill that my conscience will not suffer me to abandon the truth. And although my position touches the Pope's Holi- ness, yet was I obliged, in the course of the debate, to take the opposite side [to Dr. Eck's], always reserving my humble obedience to the Holy Roman See. God grant your Grace salvation. Amen.
Your Grace's humble chaplain.
Dr. Martin Luther, Augustinian,
135. LUTHER TO GEORGE SPALATIN. Enders, i. 448. Wittenberg, March 13, 1519.
It will be beyond Melanchthon's power, dear Spalatin, to give so many extra lectures, when he already has more than enough to do. Even if you think he should lecture alternate days, yet he will have none the less anxiety. Moreover, Aristotle's Physicis are completely useless to every age; the whole book is an argument about nothing, and, moreover, a bulging of the question. His Rhetoric is of no use either, unless one wishes to become an expert in rhetoric, which is much as though one exercised his mind studying dung or other stuff. God's wrath has decreed that for so many ages the human race should occupy itself with these follies, and without even understanding them. I know the book inside out, for I twice have expounded it to my brothers, having rejected the usual commentaries.^ Tn short, we have decided to allow these lectures to continue only for a short time, since even an oration of Beroald^ would be more profitable, as
^Luther lectured on Aristotle's Ethics and Physics during his first jear at Wittenberg, 2508-9. His dislike of the Stagirite began about this time. Cf. note to Attgnstine, Weimar, ix. 37.
'Philip Beroald, 1453-1505* lectured on eloquence at Parma, Milan and Paris.
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