clearly says, among other things, that only the holy Gospel shall be preached and taught, and that teachers and preachers are to be admonished kindly and in such wise that it cannot be supposed that the truth of the Gospel is to be hindered or suppressed, I hope and trust in God that I shall not be forbidden to write and shall be innocent in the eyes of all if in my written replies I devote myself rather to the divine truth of the Gospel than to the proofs of my own innocence.
Concerning all this I would not leave your Grace any longer uninformed, humbly requesting that your Grace will graciously note this my submissive reply, and, if your Grace so pleases, pass it on. For, I thank God, I am acting without fear, and am not ashamed of my cause or of the Word of God. The eternal God illumine and strengthen your Grace's heart with His divine grace and mercy. Amen.
Your Grace's humble servant,
Martin Luther.
588. LUTHER TO BERNARD, A CONVERTED JEW,
Enders, iv, 146. (Wittenberg, May(?), 1523.)
It was alleged at the Diet of Nuremberg that Luther denied the
virgin birth of Christ (Cf. supra, no. 564.) As an answer to "this new
lie." be published a little tract, under the title, That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew (Weimar, xi, 314ff). The date of the first (Wittenberg)
edition we do not know, but a second edition was in press at Strass-
burg (or Hagenau) early in June, so that the first edition must have
been issued in May or earlier. Luther sent a copy of it as a present
to Bernard, a converted Jew, who married Carlstadt's maid in the
summer of 1522. Along with it he sent this letter.
Grace and peace from the Lord. The conversion of the
Jews is in bad odor almost everywhere, not only among Chris-
tians but also among the Jews. The latter say that no one
goes over from Judaism to Christianity in good faith, but that
anyone who attempts it is guilty of some crime and cannot
stay among the Jews. The Christians say that experience
shows that they either return to their vomit,[1] or only pretend
to have deserted Judaism. Everybody knows the story of
what is said to have occurred at the court of the Emperor
- ↑ II Peter ii, 22.
