to revile and shame us and your Grace's university. His words would have been too much even for a bad woman, for in his poisonous Obelisks, he reviled him as a Hussite, a heretic, a rebel, a shameless brawler, a new prophet,^ and everything else he pleased, more than twenty times as much as I, who was too moderate against his misconduct, ever called him for the vindication of our honor.
For I think Dr. Eck has much less right, not only to revile sudi a man, but to slander all of us, to the shame of your Grace's imiversity, and so criminally to libel us without any ground or reason. And if the goad pricks Dr. Eck too hard, the said Obelisks are at hand, and we will publish them, which hitherto, to spare his honor, we have refrained from doing. We have deserved his great ingratitude by not paying him bade in kind. And if necessary, we will also collect on paper aU the ugly, sharp, disagreeable words and gestures with which ke made the debate a simple obstacle to the truth. . . .
May God reward him for pitying me, Martin Luther. I would only like to hear what are the "singular excesses/* for which he so mercifully punishes me. But I can have nothing to do with him on articles of faith, except perhaps in that of penitence ; as for my opinion on indulgences, purgatory and the power of the Pope, I confess that, "according to his poor opinion" (as he truly says), I have made much scandal and offence, not for the common people, but for the Pharisees and scribes, for whom also Christ and all the apostles made offence. Truly, I cannot stop doing this even now, whether it wins the "good opinion" of Dr. Eck or not.
He blames me shamelessly for denying the authority of all the holy fathers at once, Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, Greg- ory, Leo, Chrysostom, etc., and for arrogating to myself alone
- e understanding of Scripture. Thus it is fitting that a
doctor of divinity should speak out roundly and forcibly ■^fore a prince. Your Grace may note how much inclined ^Eck is to serve us, in daring cheerfully to write such things ibout us. Had he said that I had contradicted some fathers, he would have had a show of reason, but his own clear con-
^^ and elsewhere in this letter the words printed in italics are Latin in t^ original.
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