and near us. Steps are being taken to provide a cure for him out of Saxony. Answer as soon as you can, and farcwdL
Martin Luther, Augustinian,
285. ULRICH VON HUTTEN TO ERASMUS AT LOUVAIN. Bocking, i. ^67, Steckelberg, August 15, 152a
... I advise you to be perfectly still and to moderate your pen so as to keep yourself safe for us. And listen to what I have to tell you, relying on our friendship. When Reuchlin's affair was all of a glow you seemed to fear those fellows more than was worthy of you. And now in the affair of Luther you are trying as hard as possible to persuade our adversaries that you are as far as may be from defending the cause of Christian truth, although they well know that your sympathies are all the other way. This is not noble. I laiow the friend to whom I am writing and that you will not take umbrage at my warnings. I heard with sorrow what men said and then I defended the fame of my friend, although some of his acts displeased me. Now that I am in danger, I conceal nothing from you. Therefore I pray you as a friend who loves you and wishes to deserve well of you, not to do more for me than you did for Luther and Reuchlin. You know with what triumph your letters are carried about by those whose hatred you seek to deprecate, though in doing so you win the hatred of others. Thus you have been abusing the Epistolae Obscurorum Virorutn, which at first you greatly approved, and thus you now damn Luther for stirring up things which ought to be left alone, although you have always treated the same subjects in your books. You will never get them to believe that your sympathies are not with us. You will offend us and not placate them; if, indeed, you do not irritate them further by such open dissimulation.* . . .
286. MELANCHTHON TO JOHN LANG. Corpus Reformatorum, 1. 210. (August 18?, isaa)*
Greeting, excellent and learned Father. At first I rather
iThis letter marked the beginning of the breach between Huttcn and Eramaii on which cf. E. Emerton: Erasmus (1900), chap. ix. 'The date is inferred from the letter of Luther to Long, Enders, U. 460.
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