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To the Reader.

I will in a few words reveal the reasons for his persecution. He was a man reformed in his religion, and had I the leisure to cite his works, I could quickly prove he was not a member of the Roman Catholic Church. For in his book On the Vanity of the Sciences original: de vanitate scientiarum he does not approve of monks and friars, but calls them sects, "which the Church lacked when it was at its best" original: Quibus caruit Ecclesia, cum fuit Optima. And certainly that notable jest of his regarding the monk's cowl irritates the Catholics original: "nettles the Papists" to this day. He also disclaims their images, their praying to saints original: "invocation of saints", their purgatory, and indulgences original: "pardons", and argued that the laity non-ordained church members should receive communion in both forms original: sub utraque specie; referring to the practice of the congregation receiving both the bread and the wine, a key Protestant demand. He corrects the Pope himself sufficiently and is utterly against the office of the Inquisition. What his opinion was of Martin Luther is also not hard to guess from his letters; for in a letter to Philipp Melanchthon a prominent German Protestant reformer he has these words: "Greet for me that unconquered heretic Martin Luther, who (as...