illegally sent. The Bishop of Bamberg^ refused it on the same ground. The armed youth of Erfurt surrounded Eck and tearing the printed bulls into small bits, threw them into the water, so that it is now a real bubble.* The town council connived at this, and the court at Mayence hears nothing of it.' I expect you know how gloriously Eck was received at Leipsic, hated as he is by almost all except the duke and the bishop. Do what your spirit tells you, and farewell.
Martin Luther, Augustinian,
329. MELANCHTHON TO GEORGE SPALATIN. Corpus Reformatorum, i. 267. Wittenberg, November 4, 152a
. . . Luther has answered the bull,* charging Eck with the responsibility of it, for he certainly was the author of this tragedy. A few days ago he wrote a letter* to the Roman Pontiff, which I think you will approve as being sufficiently moderate and pious. I beg you to be watchful and not to neglect any human precautions, although not relying on them, but on divine providence. Martin seems to me to be driven by a certain spirit. We shall bring about his success more by prayers than by schemes. My friendship for Luther is now so firmly established that nothing sadder could happen to me than to be without him. Wherefore, for my sake as well as for the sake of the public, do what you can to prevent this man from being crushed, for I dare to prefer him not only to all living men, but to the Augustines, Jeromes and Gregory Nazianzens of all time. Farewell, dearest Spala- tin. . . .
330. ALEANDER TO LEO X. AT ROMK
Reichstagsakten, ii. 460. (Cologne, November 6, 1520.)
... I know that your Holiness is very anxious to know
what we did with the Elector of Saxony, wherefore I will
give you a brief account of a long affair. It is his nature to
^George III., Bishop isos-aa. As Nuremberg was in his diocese, Eck sent him the bull which was also directed against Pirckheimer and Spengler.
«Pun on "buHa." meaning both "bull" and "bubble."
- Erfurt was an enclave in Saxony under the government of Majence.
^Von den neuen Eckischen BuUen und Lugen. Weimar, vi. 579. Luther at first doubted the genuineness of the bull, and so did Erasmus.
•The preface to The Liberty of a Christian Man.
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