Let, 34 OTHER CONTEMPORARY LETTERS ^
Greeting. Returning yesterday,^ excellent Spalatin, I found your letters somewhat late in the day. Please answer the bookseller, Martin,* on my behalf, that he cannot expect to have my lectures on the Psalms. Though I would rather not have them printed at all, I am forced to. I have not yet been able to obey the command, but now, having finished lecturing
Reformatorum, L 514.) I have compared all those letters of Luther, to iS4i> ^ assume that the New Year begins on Christmas, and 3 (1519, 1527, 1538) that it begins on January x or later. Luther further explains his practice in a sermon oa January 1, 1531, of which the beginning is reported in the two following forms: (Weimar, xxxiv. part L 1) "Man heist hodiernum diem das Newenjarstage, quan« quam not Chriatiani nostrum newen Jarstag anfangen, sicut etiam scribitur 'Anno nativitatia,' doch woUen wir diesen newen jarstag hinwegwerffen, quanquam inceptua a Romania et hie mos mansit apud nos, sub tempore Romano sumus, Et alia multa ut Jnriateret tmd Babstum ein gros stuck. Item secundum Romanorum horologium et dientm appelationes." And: "Man heyst diss tag des Newen jhars tag, in qua circumciaio Christi agatur. Wiewol wyr Christen begehen unsern newjars tag am Chritttag, tamen ilium non reiiciemus, qui a more Romano hue venit Solden wyr all daa weg wcrffcn das yon hey den her kummet, totum jus civile et Papatus reiicienda essent." However these texts have been corrupted it is plain from them that Luther knew of the beginning of the year on January i, though at the time ke speaks he thought it more Christian to bcigin on December as. This would lead us to expect some variation in his practice, just as we have found to be the case. I therefore think that though the presumption is that the new year was begun on the latter date, yet the weight of evidence from the context of the letter should be decisive. The reasons why I put this letter in 1516 are the fol- lowing: I. Luther speaks of having been ordered (by whom it is not known, prob- ably by Statipitz or possibly the elector) to print his Dictata super Psalterium. These lectures were not finished until 15 16. In the letter to Lang of October a6, 1516, Luther says he is "collector Psalterii" (Enders, i. 67), and in this letter that the lectures "non ita collecta sunt*' Luther*s revision would be more likely to occupy two months than ten. 2. Luther never published the Dictata which first appeared in 1876, but in the spring of 1517 he did publish a commentary on the Seven Penitential Ptalms. Kostlin-Kawerau, i. 116. I believe this was a sub< atitute for the publication of the whole, for the time agrees exactly with what is aaid in thia letter about being ready to publish by Lent. 3. Luther speaks of having finished lecturing on Paul. He is thinking of his lectures on Romans which probably were finished by the beginning of the winter term 1516, certainly not before, as the numerous quotations from Erasmus' Greek Testament (published liarch, 1516) prove. Cf, Picker: Luther s Vorletung Uber den RBmerbrief, 1908. It is true that in the letter to Lang of October 26 he says that he expects to begin lecturing on Galatians on the following day, but this, though a difficulty, is not so great as would be the alternative of placing the letter in 15 15. He may not have begun lecturing as soon as he expected, or it may be a simple slip.
'The explanation of this given in Lincke: Luther e ReisegeschichSe (1796), p. j6, that Luther had been called to Erfurt to settle the difficulties with the faculty there mentioned in the letters of 15 14, would be improbable in any ctrcumstancea, doubly so if this letter is in 151 6. Luther made a good many tripa on business of hia order.
'"Martino mercatori," the second word taken by De Wette as a proper name,
perhaps "Kaufmann." No such bookseller is known. There was a Martin
- ^ Herbiipolenais at Leipaic, and T. Martens, "the Aldus of the Netherlanda," who
printed at Louvain, 1512-29. Staupitz had frequent dealings with the Netherlands.
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