that this was made up by one of the Obscure Men, whom rivals suborned to attack me and seek an occasion. But Dorp's' letter will show you that the work is genuine. You will learn all from Melanchthon. Give my regards to your pastor," Jonas, John Reinecke* and William ;* also to my flesh and blood. The men of Leipsic and Meissen keep cawing away without getting anywhere. I hear that my sister Bar- bara has died. May she rest in peace. Amen. We shall all follow her. Farewell and pray the Lord for me.
Martin Luther.
242. LUTHER TO SPALATIN. l^ders, ii 369. (Wittenberg), March 26, 1520.
Greeting. Dear George, I recently forgot to send you the letter of Dorp, which I received with others from Antwerp. Read it and see whether you can think the thing a fiction* which was published there. For Dorp, as I think you know, is the most learned of all the Louvanians, not only by the witness of Erasmus, but by that of this, his letter, and the other which Erasmus has inserted in his Farrago,^
I thank the Lord who has occupied my mind with other things so that I should not read the Cardinal of Tortosa^ carefully, for he writes most impiously of all that divine and natural law is in the hand of the man possessed of divine authority. This is such a horrible portent that I could not pass over it, were my mind present. Farewell and pray the Lord for me. Martin Luther, Augustinian.
>Martin Bartholomew van Dorp (i485-Maj 31, 1525), studied at Louvain, where he became profeMor in 1504. He took his doctorate in theology 1515. From 1 51 4 till his death he was, in spite of temporary disagreements with Erasmus, hit warm friend and principal supporter at Louvain. He was also favorable to Lother, though cautiously. This letter is lost. C/. Allen, ii. ii, with references, and de Jongh, i6a (De Jongh wrongly thinks this letter was the Acta Academtae Loventenju, which, as it was not composed until November, 1520, is impossible).
- Kammerer.
SReinecke waa an old school friend of Luther, the son of the Mansfeld Bailiff, Peter Reinecke, later iron-master at Mansfeld. Died July 15, 1538. Enders, iii. 40X, xiL I, Smith, asof.
AReifenstein of a baptized Jewish family, from 1503 till his death, 1538, col* lector of taxes at Stolberg. Enders, vi. 378.
^Supro, no. 241.
- I>orp to Eraamtia, July 14, 1518, in the Farrago nova epistolarum Des. Erasmi,
Froben, October, 1519.
^Adrian, later Adrian VI., no. 202.
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