Jerome, who cast up to him the writings of his
predecessors; but he did not care for that. If this example of
St. Augustine had been followed, the pope would not have become
Antichrist, the countless vermin, the swarming, parasitic mass of
books would not have come into the Church, and the Bible would
have kept its place in the pulpit.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Text as given in the Berlin Edition of the Buchwald and
others, Vol. I pp. ix ff.

[2] I. e. The example set by preserving and collecting them.

[3] "There is moderation in all things."

[4] "I shall not be better than my fathers." Cf. 1 Kings
19:4

[5] _Des Pabats Drecet and Drecketal_. Luther makes a pun on
_decreta_ and _decretalia_--the official names for the
decrees of the Pope.

II
DR. MARTIN LUTHER TO THE CHRISTIAN READER[1]
EDITION OF 1545

Above all things I beseech the Christian reader and beg him for
the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, to read my earliest books very
circumspectly and with much pity, knowing that before now I too
was a monk, and one of the right frantic and raving papists. When
I took up this matter against Indulgences, I was so full and
drunken, yea, so besotted in papal doctrine that, out of my great
zeal, I would have been ready to do murder--at least, I would
have been glad to see and help that murder should be done--on all
who would not be obedient and subject to the pope, even to his
smallest word.

Such a Saul was I at that time; and I meant it right earnestly;
and there are still many such today. In a word, I was not such a
frozen and ice-cold[2] champion of the papacy as Eck and others
of his kind have been and still are. They defend the Roman See
more for the sake of the shameful belly, which is their god, than
because they are really attached to its cause. Indeed I am wholly
of the opinion that like latter-day Epicureans,[3] they only
laugh at the pope. But I verily espoused this cause in deepest
earnest and in all fidelity; the more so because I shrank from
the Last Day with great anxiety and fear and terror, and yet from
the depths of my heart desired to be saved.

Therefore, Christian reader, thou wilt find in my earliest books
and writings how many points of faith I then, with all humility,
yielded and conceded to the pope, which since then I have held
and condemned for the most horrible blasphemy and abomination,
and which I would have to be so held and so condemned forever.
Amen.

Thou wilt therefore ascrib