After this[1] it happened by the favor of the learned men who taught me Hebrew and Greek that I learned that the Greek word is lurd^ota from Aierd and vobv^ u e., from "afterwards" and "mind," so that penitence or fitrdvoia is "coming to one's right mind, afterwards,"* that is, compre- hension of your own evil, after you had accepted loss and found out your error. This is impossible without a change in your affections. All this agrees so well with Paul's the- ology, that, in my opinion, at least, nothing is more character- istically Pauline.
Then I progressed and saw that iisrdvota meant not only "afterwards" and "mind," but also "change" and "mind," so that furdifota means change of mind and affection. . . .
Sticking fast to this conclusion, I dared to think that they were wrong who attributed so much to works of repentance that they have left us nothing of it but formal penances and elaborate confession. They were seduced by the Latin, for "poenitentiam agere"* means rather a work than a change of affection and in no wise agrees with the Greek.
When I was glowing with this thought, behold indulgences and remissions of sins began to be trumpeted abroad with tremendous clangor, but these trumpets animated no one to real struggle. In short, the doctrine of true repentance was neglected, and only the cheapest part of it, that called penance, was magnified. ... As I was not able to oppose the fury of these preachers, I determined modestly to take issue with them and to call their theories in doubt, relying as I did on the opinion of all the doctors and of the whole Church, who all say that it is better to perform the penance than to buy it, that is an indulgence. . . . This is the reason why I, reverend
"Resipiscentia," Erasmus translates /leravoelre "Resipiscite."
These words in the Vulgate might mean either "Repent ye" or "Do penance,'* and were usually taken in the latter sense by Luther's contemporaries. E. g., see Thomas More, Confutation of Tyndole (1532) in Works (1557)1 P* 4x8. C/. supra, note i.
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- ↑ Luther has just been speaking of his first acquaintance with Staupitz during the dark years in the Erfurt cloister, x 505-10; it was at this time that he began to study Hebrew, on which perhaps he got some help from a Jew while he was at Rome, December, 1510, cf. Smith, op, cit., p. 26f. Grisar: Luther, i. 27. Greek he first began to learn from his friend Lang during the years 15 13- 16, but he is apparently referring to the study of the New Testament in Greek edited by Erasmus in March, 15 16. In this letter he follows Erasmus' note to Matthew iii. a.
