Dilucida explicatio sanae doctrinae de vera participatione carnis & sanguinis Christi in sacra coena, ad discutiendas Heshusii nebulas

DE VERA PARTICIP.

he had confessed that, due to his innate gentleness, he was desirous of peace and leisure. These are his words: "BUT as for your urging me in your recent letters to repress the unlearned clamors of those who are renewing the contest of τῆς ἀπολαβείας the enjoyment/partaking, know that certain people, primarily out of hatred for me, are stirring up that dispute so that they might have a plausible cause to oppress me." Here, the same love of fostering quiet stood in the way of his speaking more freely about other matters, the explanation of which was either unpleasant to refined palates or subject to perverse judgments. Furthermore, how greatly the importunity of these men, who do not cease to rage against us, displeased the holy man, is clearly evident from another passage. For after he congratulated me on the refuted blasphemies of Servetus, and testified that the Church now and in the future owes and will owe gratitude to me, and that he himself entirely agreed with my judgment, he added that these were the greatest matters and those most necessary to be known. Finally, he added, as if regarding frivolous trifles: "These are nothing ὡς τῆς ἀπολαβείας regarding the enjoyment." Writing to me from Worms, however, he laments that the neighboring Saxons, who had been colleagues, had departed after the condemnation of our churches was presented: and he adds, "NOW they hold triumphs at home as if over a Cadmean victory a victory that brings ruin to the victor." In another letter, weary of their implacable madness and fury, he does not hide the fact that he wishes to be with me.

These latest things are nothing to Staphylus, who makes a mercenary profit from the insolence of his tongue before the Roman Antichrist, and, in establishing his tyranny, mixes heaven and earth in the manner of the Giants. Nor is this mists-maker of so much importance to me—to whom a shameful defection from the faith left no sense of shame—that I should spend much effort in refuting his

malice in a thesis in which he clearly uncovers his profane contempt for all religion. For he wishes the entire doctrine we profess to be suspected on this one account, and he strives to render it infamous, because ever since the eternal truth of God emerged again after the darkness of the Papacy was routed, many errors also arose, which he claims are accepted by the reborn Gospel. As if he were bringing this lawsuit not against Christ and the Apostles rather than against us. Never had the devil raged so impotently, vexing both the bodies and souls of men, as when the heavenly and life-giving doctrine of Christ shone forth. Let him calumniate, therefore, that Christ came so that those who were previously healthy might be made demon-possessed. An incredible mass of errors began to overflow in the whole world shortly after the promulgation of the Gospel. Let the mercenary rhetorician of the Pope, Staphylus, chatter that these flowed from the Gospel as from a spring. Certainly, if he strikes any light-minded and erratic spirits with this such futile calumny, they will not stumble whose hearts have been fixed by the admonition of Paul: "It is necessary that there be heresies, so that those who are approved may be made manifest." He himself is a notable proof of this fact: for his beastly fury, which it is apparent is the just reward for his perfidy, confirms all the pious in the sincere fear of God. It is a matter of indifference to this foul and clearly Epicurean man that reverence for heavenly doctrine be torn from everyone's hearts. Indeed, his efforts tend toward this: not only that all religion may become worthless, but that care and zeal for it may also be shaken off. Therefore, not only does his wickedness collapse of its own vanity, but he is detestable to all good people along with his author. Meanwhile, the false