and I believe it, that there are more fire-places in Venice than there are spoons even in Erfurt, for many houses have ten, twenty, thirty or more fire-places.
I report to you again that Brunswick,^ too, has received the Word, and the city council and people have written asking for our Bugenhagen ; their request has been denied, however ; perhaps they will ask for someone else. May Christ make His glory to increase! At Halle, again, on Ashwednesday, the chaplain of the nuns was stricken with sudden death be- cause when the sacrament was given to the knight von Sel- witz, * he said it was a "pocket-god" that was given him.* But not even these things move the raging blasphemers. The dis- putation at Berne ^ in Switzerland has come to an end. Noth- ing was done except that the mass has been abrogated and the boys in the streets sing about how they have been freed from a baked God.* Zwingli was conducted there and back by a thousand men, a proud and imperial triumph; his end, which is perdition and confusion, will quickly come; only let us be diligent in prayer. Give my greetings to Sebastian Kammer-
readers, is surely as follows: Torgau was one of the seats of the electoral court, and a place where there was great luxury, which I«uther often bemoaned, CoUoquio, ed. Bindseil, i, 339, iii, 103. Indeed, he derived the name Torgau from tenet 9% or "deamess," ibid,, iii, 102. One sign of this luxury was the silver or gold utensils, among them the spoons of an elaborate nature, such as are now shown in the Saxon palace at Dresden. This worried the simple Zwilling, but I<uther consoles him by saying that there are signs of even greater luxury in Venice. Fire-places icanUnus in the sense of the French cheminie) were a luxury then as they were the only means of heating, except stoves. But at Venice, says I<uther, there are more fire-places than there are spoons even at Erfurt. Erfurt passed for the largest and wealthiest town of Germany. W. Kohler: Im Morgenrot der Reformation, ed. Pflugk-Hartung, 19 12, p. 347, gave it 32,000 inhabitants in 1505. A chronicler of 1572 called it the largest city in Germany. MitteUungen des Vereins fUr anhaltische Geschichte, x, 61.
^The first attempts to introduce the Reformation in Brunswick were made hi 1524, but failed of immediate success because of the opposition of the city council. In 1527, however, the council yielded to the increasing demand for evangelical preaching, and sent to the Wittenberg University, then located at Jena, for a preacher. The Wittenbergers sent Heinrich Winkel, but his work provinir unsatisfactory, they now sent again to Wittenberg asking this time for Bugenhagen.
- Friedemann von Selmnitz (?), cf, Enders, vi, 223, n. 5.
- This was the second case of the sort which had come to I«utiier'a eftra; the first
was that of Dr. John Krause, also of Halle (Enders, vi, i43f. and 147, n. 9).
- Held in January, 1528. Vide Jackson, Zwingli, 28off., Stahelin, Z«»fip/», ii, 333ff.
- Oecolampadius*s "Reasonable Answer" (Billiche Antwort J, Bcolampadij muf
Dr. Martin Luthers Bericht des sacraments haib, 1526, copy at Union Seminary) speaks of the doctrine of the real presence as making God "a baked God'* and "a bread God." Luther naturally took this very ill. See Conversations with t,Hiker» translated by Smith and GalUnger, 191 5, pp. i4f.
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