I do in spirit, I scarcely know myself. What the world does — the Pope, the Emperor, the kings — I care little. I sigh for Christ and His grace unto salvation. I certainly told my Wolfgang* to send you and Enderisch the books you wanted/ and have told him again to get them ready, though the fact that I must send this letter the same hour that I received yours may hinder him. I think, however, that I have sent you again the whole of Genesis,' indeed, I am almost certain of it, but I am sending, or will send, another complete copy. I have almost finished Zechariah.^ I am answering the fanatics again with a confession of my faith.' Satan is busy and wants to keep me from writing anything more, but rather to take me with him down to hell; may Christ trample him under foot. Amen. . . .
784. LUTHER TO JOHN BRENZ IN SWABIAN HALL.
Enders, vi, 124. Torgau, November 28, 1527.
John Brenz (1499-1570) became in later years the most important Lutheran theologian of South Germany. As early as 1518, while still a student at Heidelberg, he had met Luther and been won for the cause of reform. In 1522 he was obliged to leave Heidelberg and became pastor at Hall, in Wurttemberg, which came to be, under his leadership, the center of the reform-movement in South Germany. His Kirchenordnung for Hall (1526) is one of the earliest of the Lutheran Church Orders, and his Catechism (1527-28) is the first Protestant work of this nature, antedating Luther's own Catechisms by a year. In the controversies over the Lord's Supper and with the Anabaptists he was Luther's firm ally, and his Syngramma Suevicum is the first important work on the Lutheran side of the former con- troversy. He appeared with Luther at Marburg (1529), and with Melanchthon at Augsburg (1530). His strict Lutheranism involved him deeply in the confessional controversies that followed Luther's death. Biographies by Hartmann and Jager (2 vols.), 1840-42; J. Hartmann, 1862, and A. Hegler, 1899. Cf, also W. Kohler, Biblio' grapia Brentiana (in Beitrdge sur Reformationsgeschichte), 1904. His letters edited by Pressel, Anecdota Brentiana, Tubingen, 1868.
- Wolf Sicbcrger, Luther's famulus.
- Cf. supra, no. 763.
"The sermons on Genesis, preached 1523*24, and published 1527 (Weimar, xiv. 97flF).
- It was published in January, 1528.
- Von Abendmahl Christi Bekenntnis (Weimar, xxvi, 26 iff.)* It was not pub-
lished till February or March, 1528. Cf. Smith, 242f.; KdttUn-Kawerau, II, p8ff.
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