To Justus Jonas letter 24 - Martin Luther

TO JUSTUS JONAS

Theological doctor and first faithful missionary at Halle. November 10, 1541.

Grace and peace! I have received the two fat — nay, right fat, Martinmas geese — nay, the very fattest I ever received. Accept my thanks for them. Heigho! how is it that you have such superfluity? Have you perhaps in Halle an Ethiopian banquet or Halio’s table? But more of this again. You ask for news of the Turks. I have none. It is currently reported that the Emperor Charles has taken by storm a haven

called Specus from Barbarossa, and there is another rumour (which I fear is the true one) that Andreas Doria has lost all the Imperial troops fighting against the said Barbarossa. God have mercy on us! I am afraid that all our efforts against the Turks will be fruitless so long as we harbor these tyrants, these raging Turks — greed, usury, and the excesses of the nobles — with tyranny and godlessness, even going the length of indulging in diabolic contempt of the Divine Word, and casting into ridicule the bloodshed for us in our ingratitude. What will it avail us, although we succeed in banishing those Turks after the flesh, so long as we permit these spiritual Turks to occupy a place at our firesides, whose mad fury has made Germany a more arid waste in God’s eyes than anything the Turks could have accomplished, even as God repented having made man on the earth, at the very moment the human race seemed fairest (Genesis 6.), because of the wickedness of the children of men, the imagination of whose hearts was only evil continually? It is even the same today. The earth is destroyed through incurable vice, and will perish in the last fiery judgment. Wolff Heinze, as I wrote, has not sent any message about his present of a Bible, which lies by me. Remind him. Farewell. St. Martin’s Eve.

MARTIN LUTHER . (Schutze.)