Luther to George Spalatin
      by Martin Luther
      
      From Wittenberg
      January or February 1514
      
      From:
      Luther’s Correspondence and other Contemporary Letters
      
      translated by
      Preserved Smith
      Philadelphia: Lutheran Publication Society, 1913.
      1:28-29
      
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      LUTHER TO GEORGE SPALATIN.
      
      WITTENBERG (January or February, 1514).

      Peace be with you, Reverend Spalatin! Brother John Lang has just asked me what I think of the innocent 
and learned John Reuchlin and his prosecutors at Cologne, and whether he is in danger of heresy. You know that 
I greatly esteem and like the man, and perchance my judgment will be suspected, because, as I say, I am not 
free and neutral; nevertheless as you wish it I will give my opinion, namely that in all his writings there 
appears to me absolutely nothing dangerous.

      I much wonder at the men of Cologne ferreting out such an obscure perplexity, worse tangled than the 
Gordian knot as they say, in a case as plain as day. Reuchlin himself has often protested his innocence, 
and solemnly asserts he is only proposing questions for debate, not laying down articles of faith, which alone,
 in my opinion, absolves him, so that had he the dregs of all known heresies in his memorial, I should believe 
him sound and pure of faith. For if such protests and expressions of opinion are not free from danger, we must 
needs fear that these inquisitors, who strain at gnats though they swallow camels, should at their own pleasure 
pronounce the orthodox heretics, no matter how much the accused pro-tested their innocence.

      What shall I say? that they are trying to cast out Beelzebub but not by the finger of God. I often regret 
and deplore that we Christians have begun to be wise abroad and fools at home. A hundred times worse blasphemies 
than this exist in the very streets of Jerusalem, and the high places are filled with spiritual idols. We ought 
to show our excessive zeal in removing these offences which are our real, intestine enemies. Instead of which we 
abandon all that is really urgent and turn to foreign and external affairs, under the inspiration of the devil 
who intends that we should neglect our own business without helping that of others.

      Pray can anything be imagined more foolish and imprudent than such zeal? Has unhappy Cologne no waste places 
nor turbulence in her own church, to which she could devote her knowledge, zeal and charity that she must needs 
search out such cases as this in remote parts?

      But what am I doing? My heart is fuller of these thoughts than my tongue can tell. I have come to the conclusion 
that the Jews will always curse and blaspheme God and his King Christ, as all the prophets have predicted. He who 
neither reads nor understands this, as yet knows no theology, in my opinion. And so I presume the men of Cologne cannot
 under-stand the Scripture, because it is necessary that such things take place to fulfill prophecy. If they are trying
 to stop the Jews blaspheming, they are working to prove the Bible and God liars.

      But trust God to be true, even if a million men of Cologne sweat to make him false. Conversion of the Jews will
 be the work of God alone operating from within, and not of man working--or rather playing—from without. If these 
offences be taken away, worse will follow. For they are thus given over by the wrath of God to reprobation, that 
they may become incorrigible, as Ecclesiastes says, for every one who is incorrigible is rendered worse rather 
than better by correction.

      Farewell in the Lord; pardon my words, and pray the Lord for my sinning soul.	

Your brother,
      MARTIN LUTHER.
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Translator's notes:
      
Luther probably did not know Reuchlin personally, but knew his works, and especially had used his De Radimentis Hebraecis 
(1506) a grammar and dictionary in one. He mentions this in his marginal notes on Lombard's Sentences (1509), Werke, 
Weimar, ix. 32.

      John Reuchlin (Feb. 22, 1455-June 30, 1522) of Pfortzheim, matriculated at Freiburg 1470, went soon to Paris, 
then, 1474, to Basle, where he took his B. A. 1475 and M. A. 1477, then returned to Paris, studied law, took LL. B. 
at Orleans 1479, became licentiate at Poitiers 1481, and doctor at Tubingen same year. 1482.90 he spent in Italy under 
patronage of Eberhard of Würtemberg. Made a noble 1492. About the same time began to study Hebrew; went to Heidelberg 
1496, and under patronage of Philip Count Palatine to Rome 1498. He returned to Stuttgart 1499, where he spent twenty 
years, serving as Triumvir of the Swabian League 1502-13. He retired before the armies of the League to Ingolstadt, 
where he spent 1519-21 with Eck, after which he returned to Stuttgart. See his life by Geiger, Realencyclopädie and 
Stokes, op. cit. introduction.
      
      
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 This text was scanned and edited for Project Wittenberg by Robert E. Smith and is in the
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Rev. Robert E. Smith
Walther Library
Concordia Theological Seminary.

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