188 LUTHER'S CORRESPONDENCE AND Let. x
were going to publish them, I tried hard to dissuade them les'fc they might thereby hurt sound learning. Even those who wish Luther well will agree to this. Then followed a whole swarm of tracts; no one ever saw me reading them or even heard me express an opinion, favorable or otherwise, about them. For I am not so rash as to approve what I have not read, nor such a sycophant as to condemn what I do not knoWt even if this is now the regular custom of those who are least fitted of all to pronounce judgment. . . .
ISO. MELANCHTHON TO GEORGE SPALATIN. Corpus Reformatorum, i. 8a Wittenberg, May 21, 151:^
Hail, Spalatin, my dearest friend in the Lord. I fear le^ you will not have time to read my trifles. You will greatl thank a man careful not to speak a little too much. We ar reading Erasmus' letter.^ Glory^be to God who has giv the elector such a herald for his virtues, and Luther such a rare, and, as the lawyers say, eloquent supporter.* It will be your duty to commend us to Erasmus.
Yesterday there was with us a certain Hebrew scholar,' moderately learned, who studied the grammar at Heidelbei^ and taught it afterwards and now expects to lecture at Leipsic, but will come to us if the excellent elector wishes. I con- ferred with Luther about him and we both thought him moderately good and likely to improve with practice. . . .
Riccius^ has attacked Eck, who blandly boasts that he has fought against Zasius' the lawyer, Luther the theologian and Riccius the philosopher, so that he may seem to be a Hercules,
'7. e., to tlie Elector Frederic, cf, supra, no. 14X.
'"Suffragatorem pedarium"; the pedarii were senators who could speak but not rote.
"John CellariuB. of Kunstadt, a supporter of Eck, who later turned Zwinffliaa. and still later Lutheran. Died at Frankfort a. M.. 1542. Enders, ii. 58.
♦Paul Riccius, who wrote in April, 1519, Naturalia et prophetica de anima coeH adversus Eckium. He is spoken of in the Tischreden (Weimar, i. no. 205) as having been at the Diet of Ratisbon, 1532.
&Ulrich Zasi of Constance (i 461 -November 24, i535)f matriculated at Tiibingen 1481, after some years returned as bishop's notary to Constance, in X49> went to Freiburg in Breisgau as town clerk. He studied law, taking his doctorate ia 1500, lectured on poetry till 1506, when he obtained the professorship of jtuia- prudence, which he held till the end of his life. His writings on the subject are numerous. Allen, op. cit., ii. 9. He was at first favorable to Luther, then drew back. His epistles said to have been published by Riegger, 1774.
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