suppressed. I am fearful, therefore, that if I cause your Majesty's edict to be published, but am not able to enforce it fully (and indeed this seems impossible in all the circum- stances), your Majesty's high name and imperial dignity will be lessened and our enemies be strengthened, and this I, as an obedient Elector, would greatly regret I perceive, also, that this dissension cannot be put down in this way by force with- out a terrible uprising, which, I think, we ought to avoid above all things in these perilous times. I have decided, therefore, to do nothing in the matter until your Majesty's further com- mands, which I await and am ready in all submissiveness to obey. But I humbly request that if your Majesty intends to enforce the mandate, its publication may be ordered in the neighboring territories also, so that all of us may take com- mon measures for the common end.
S06. LUTHER TO SPALATIN. Enders, 111, 229. The Wilderness (Wartburc), September (% 1521.
Greeting. Neither Capito's nor Erasmus's opinion* moves me in the least. They are only doing what I have expected. Indeed, I have been afraid that some day I should have trouble with one or the other of them, for I saw that Erasmus was far from the knowledge of grace. In everything he writes he is thinking of peace, not of the cross. Thus he thinks that everything must be discussed civilly and with a certain kindli-
^We do not know predsdy to wliat t,tit]ier allades, but tbe general ftituatlon IB clear. Even after the publication of the Edict of Worms Erasmus hoped to reconcile the two parties, and he used Capito as his chief agent. It was, per- haps, due to Capito that Albert of Mayence took the equivocal stand reported supra, no. 505. About this time Erasmus started his D€ finiendo negotio Luth- eroHO, which was not finished, but the scheme of which he gives in his Catalogue of Lucubrations (1522), Allen, i, p, 34f. In this Thrasymachus was to represent Luther, Eubulus the Catholic, and Philalethes the arbiter, sc, Erasmus himself. At the same time Capito had evidently written Spalatin to urge Luther to be more moderate. Luther's rebuff to this advance is reflected in Capito's letter to Erasmus of October 14* 1521, unfortunately much mutilated. Erasmi gpistolae, London, 1642, xxx, 79. In this he calls the Lutherans furious and insolent. Eras- mus saw Capito at Mayence about the middle of November on his journey from the Netherlands to Basle. Bpistolae, xvii, 9; cf, Vadianisch^ Brief sammlung, ii, no. 292. In the meantime, September 30, Capito visited Wittenberg to consult with Jonas and Melanchthon on making a treaty or compromise between Luther and Albert of Mayence. Archiv fUr Reformationsgeschichte, vi, 172 (1910). The Erasmian influence is shown in Capito's telling Melanchthon, at this time, that Luther overemphasized grace and free wilL Corpus Reformaiorum, U A^*» Baum: Capita und Butuer, p. 64.
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