Philippi Melanthonis Epigrammatvm Libri Tres

TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS COUNTS, LORD BERNHARD, AND LORD HERMANN SIMON, COUNTS OF LIPPE

PHILIP MELANCHTHON
GREETINGS

Large ornamental drop cap 'M' featuring foliate scrollwork.

God miraculously gathers and protects His Church. When Arminius a Germanic tribal leader who defeated three Roman legions destroyed three Roman legions in those very fields which are now yours, and are adorned with churches, doctrine, and buildings, and waged continuous wars in these regions, God elsewhere in Syria gave the Church such periods of peace original: "Halcyonia," a reference to the calm seas during the nesting of the halcyon bird that Christ, as a youth, could safely go with his mother from Galilee to Jerusalem for the festivals, and could scatter the seeds of doctrine. For the battle of Arminius took place in the consulship of Sulpicius and Poppeus Sabinus, as Dion relates, namely in the eleventh year after Christ was born of the virgin.