How long, pray, most insane and libidinous of apostates, will you abuse the patience, the lenity, the tender forbearance of the most learned men and the most illustrious princes of Germany, of our most august Emperor, of the most holy vicar of Christ — ^that column and support of the truth — in short, of God, most good and great? Do you despise, or do you only not know, the inexpressible goodness, htunanity and clemency of them all, which summons you, most miserable of all miserable manikins to simple repentance? . . . Now, if you can remember so far, it is a whole decade since you have — I cannot say lived, but — rotted in every sort of turpitude and heresy among the buried heretics of Wittenberg. This in spite of our grave, powerful, Christian princes, or rather God Himself, most good and great, daily shouting in your ear: Luther, arise! Luther, come forth 1 Luther, leave that seat X)i pestilence, Wittenberg ! Luther, flee, if you can, your flagi- tious inventions, more pestilent than Sodom and Gomorrah! . . . You have truly sinned heavily in much, most of all in this, that, an apostate monk, almost as lustful as Priapus, you daily and nightly wanton and chamber with a mm, more libidinous, as it were, than Venus, like the horse and the mule which have no understanding. . . . Obstinate and contuma- cious wretch, abandoned to your own desires, proceed from bad to worse. Fall into the pit of impiety, be snared in the springs of sin, be captured by the net of eternal damnation; be merry until you descend into hell, as you surely will, where, infernal brand! you will burn forever, and be eaten by the never dying worm. Return, return, O Shunamite! Return,
804. JOACHIM VON DER HEYDEN TO CATHARINE LUTHER,
Enders, vi, 334. German. Leipsic, August 10, 1528.
Heyden, whose name was Latinized as Myricianus, of Friesland, an 1/LJl, and Fellow of Leipsic University, and a notary public both of the Pope and of the university. This letter, sent to Wittenberg wMi the last, was soon printed as the preface to his translation of a work, The Case of a dedicated Virsfin and her Seducer, then ascribed to Ambrose (Migne: Patrologia Latino^ xvi, 367-S4; perhaps the real author was Nicetas, Bishop of Romatiana). Grisar, ii, 5i8f.
Joachim von der Heyden wishes Katie von Bora, Luther's
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