the fifth and younger doctor, who moved the laughter of the whole audience by saying: If the peasants heard this they would stone you to death."
To Erfurt my theology is poison ;* Dr. Trutf etter especially
condemns all my propositions; he wrote me a letter accusing
me of ignorance even of dialectic, to say nothing of theology.
I would have disputed publicly with them had not the festival
of the cross prevented. I had a conference with Trutfetter
face to face and at least made him understand that he could
not prove his own position nor refute mine; rather that their
opinion was like that beast which is said to eat itself. But in
vain is a story told to a deaf man; they obstinately stuck to
their own little ideas, though they confess that these ideas
are supported by no other authority than natural reason,
which we consider the same as dark chaos, for we preach
no other light than Christ Jesus, the true and only light. I
talked with Dr. Usingen, who was my companion in
the wagon, more than with all the others, trying to persuade
him; but I know not what success I had, for I left him pensive
and dazed. This is what comes of growing old in wrong
opinions. But the minds of all the youths are tremendously
different from theirs, and I have great hope that, as Christ
rejected by the Jews went over to the Gentiles, so this true
theology of his, rejected by those opinionated old men, will
pass over to the younger generation. . . .
Brother Martin Eleutherius, Augustinian.
6i. LUTHER TO JOHN ECK AT INGOLSTADT. Enders, v. i. Wittenberg, May 19, 1518.
Certain Obelisk^ have come to me by which you have tried to refute my Theses on indulgences; this is a witness of the friendship which you offered me unasked, and also of your spirit of evangelic charity according to which we are bidden to warn a brother before we accuse him. How could I, a
- Here «nd elsewhere in the letter Luther uses a proverb which he found in
Erasmus' Adages; as these are the first quotations from that work I have noticed in bis letters it is probable that he had recently bought the new edition which he had spoken of in his letter to Lang in February, supra, no. 49.
- £ck gave this name (literally small daggers with which notes are marked) to
bis attack on Luther's Theses, Luther received it from his friend Link not long before March 24. Cf, Preserved Smith, sSf.
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