768. LUTHER TO MELANCHTHON AT OR NEAR JENA.* Enders, vi, 71. (Wittenberg), August 2, 1527.
I believe that all sorts of things about me have been told you and written you by others. Beside what I wrote of lately,* I was for more than a whole week in death and hell/ so that I was sick all over, and my limbs still tremble. I almost lost Christ in the waves and blasts of despair and blasphemy against God, but God was moved by the prayers of saints and began to take pity on me and rescued my soul from the lowest hell. Do not cease to pray for me as I for you, for I believe that even my agony is for others. We are convinced that the plague is really here, but hope it will be mild and light. We who are Christ's, despised little flock that we are, have to suflFer the public hatred of the world and evils enough of our own, to say nothing of poverty and other htmiiliations. I desire in Christ to see you, if I shall be worthy. Hans Luf t * has been ill nine days; yesterday he seemed to be out of his mind, but it is hoped that he will recover. Farewell, with all that are yours and ours, and have us in your prayers, as dead men who live, as captives who are free, as suflFerers who are safe. May Christ, the conqueror of death, of hell, of sin, of the world and the flesh, be and grow in us and you by His Spirit. Amen. M. L.
769. THE ELECTOR JOHN OF SAXONY TO LUTHER. Enders, vi, 72, German. Torgau, August 10, 1527.
Greetings to you, reverend, learned, dear and pious sir. Since, without doubt, you know that because of the deadly danger that has come upon Wittenberg, we have, on their own humble petition, granted permission to those connected with our university to remove to Jena," and since it is reported to us that you are minded not to depart from Wittenberg, and
1 Where he had gone on the vintation of the churches. C/. t^Pra, no. ^^7,
- A lost letter.
- The illness described s^pm no. 765, and the spiritual depression which ac-
companied it.
- Thc Wittenberg printer (x495'i5S4)> a close friend of Luther's, executor of his
deed of trust leaving property to Catharine, Enders, xy, 333, often mentioned in letters and the table talk. 1550 he was councillor, 1363 burgomaster of Witten- berg, Enders, iv, 331.
" Because of the outbreak of the plague the university removed from Wittenberg
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