ing again not to command but to request you not to deliver over, but to yield to Eisleben George Schleusingen and William Tischer until the reverend father [Staupitz] returns. For thus necessity demands ; and you should say to that brother and to all that this is not done by me from violence, but because all of us, and I especially, are bound to uphold the honor of the vicariate, and especially of the reverend father Vicar. . . .
Brother Martin, District Vicar.
P. S. . . . A thunderstorm at Dresden so cut down the vineyards of our convent that the loss is estimated at two or three hundred gulden, besides other damage. This is my news.
15. LUTHER TO SPALATIN AT WITTENBERG. Enders, i. 46. Wittenberg, August 24, 15 16.
Greeting. I am going to beg a service of love and faith from you, sweetest Spalatin, that is, that you either send me a copy of Jerome's epistles* at once, or that, as much as you can in a short time, that you copy for me from the book of Famous Men (which I greatly desire) what that saint says about St. Bartholomew the apostle, so that I may have it before noon, for I am going to preach to the people.^ I am much offended with the foolish lies of the Catalogue and the Golden Legend.*
Farewell, excellent brother.
Brother Martin Luder, Augustinian.
P. S. — Don't be surprised that a theologian like myself should not have Jerome. For I am waiting for the edition* of Eras-
'I bave looked through Jerome's epistles without finding anything on St. Bar- tholomew. Luther quotes one of them, Weimar, iv. 523.
- This sermon, in which Luther seriously criticires the legend of St. Bartholomew,
is printed in Weimar i. 79. For a severe opinion of the legends of the saints, in the year 1544, cf. Kroker: Luthers Tischreden in der Matthesischen Sammlung, Leipsic, 1903, no. 661.
The hooks referred to are: Petri de Natalibus: Catalogus sanctorum (which was edited at Lyons, 1508) which Luther alludes to in his lectures on Romans, ed. Fkker, Scholien, p. a 12, and lacohi a Voragine, Legenda aurea, from which Lather quotes in his lectures on Psalms, Weimar, iv. 384.
The edition in nine volumes which was published by Froben throughout the year 1516. Erasmus edited the first four Tolumes, containing the epistles; the Anerbachs, Rhenanus and others were responsible for the other works. The dedication to the whole, by Erasmus to Warham, is dated April i, 1516. Further infonnation is to be found in P. S. Allen: Opus tpistolarum Brasmi (Oxonii* 1906- ) ii. 210.
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