To Coban Hesse letter 2 - Martin Luther

TO COBAN HESSE

Luther thanks him for Latin translation of Psalter. August 1, 1537.

To the celebrated poet of our day, the honored Coban Hesse, my beloved brother in the Lord.

Grace and peace in our Lord Jesus Christ, dear Coban! I have received your Psalter, cherished brother in the Lord, and have read it with great delight, and will always read it, so much do I prize the labor you have expended on the book which is so dear to me. And I thank you from the heart for enabling

me to see this beautiful and sacred poetry which was so loved by the Hebrews, in the Latin tongue. For

I laud and admire the industry of those who by translation, explanation, or other means try to elucidate this exquisite poetry, although all may not be alike fitted for the task, for we cannot all do everything. Therefore I praise your work with all my heart, for perhaps you are the only one sufficiently acquainted with the Latin tongue who could have translated this highly spiritual poetry. You have given ample evidence in this work that you are possessed of the true poetic spirit, which is

Heaven’s gift, and which has been more abundantly bestowed upon you than upon others; for no other poet has known how to reproduce this royal poet as you have done, and you never could have done it, even with your ability, had you not been impregnated with the spirit of the whole. But such emotions

of the heart do not spring from nature, nor from the ordinary poetic gift, but are certainly a gift of the Spirit and an impulse from heaven. Therefore I wish you not only much happiness, but praise my Lord Jesus that He has through His Spirit qualified you for this divine work, which will be specially useful to the young, who may reap not only culture and poetry from this poem, but also spiritual knowledge, through the assistance of a faithful teacher. For I confess to being much more touched and swayed by such poetic effusions than by the spoken word, even were it out of the mouth of a Demosthenes or a Cicero. So if I experience this with minor poems, how much more must the contents of the Psalms move me, a book which I have studied from my youth, and which, thank God, has never failed to delight and benefit me. For although I would never despise the gifts of others, yet I venture to assert in holy joy that I would not, for the thrones and kingdoms of the world, exchange the delight I have experienced in the Psalms through the Holy Ghost. For I have none of the foolish humility which would

deny God’s gifts to me. In myself I have truly enough to make me humble, but I must rejoice in God as I do in my German Psalter, and now much more in your Coban one, but all to the praise and glory of God to all eternity. May you abide in Him forever. Amen. MARTIN LUTHER . WITTENBERG (Walch, 21.

1280.)