I am writing very briefly, my James, so that I do not avoid writing altogether and thus give you the impression that I have either forgotten you or that I would neglect you.3 Yes, I am sluggish, tired, cold— that is, I am an old and useless man.4 I have finished my race;5 it remains only that the Lord call me to my fathers,6 and that my body be handed over to decomposition and the worms. I have lived enough, if one may call it living.7 Please pray for me that the hour of my passing will be pleasing to God and a blessing for me.
I care nothing for the Emperor8 and the whole Empire except that I commend them to God in my prayers. It looks to me as if the world, too, has come to the hour of its passing,9 and has become an old wornout coat (as the Psalm says),10 which soon has to be changed. Amen.
There is nothing of heroic virtue left in the sovereigns, but only hatred and discord, avarice and selfish lusts which cannot be healed.11 So the commonweal has no men, and the third chapter of Isaiah12 runs
[toward us] head-on. Nothing good can be expected, therefore, except that the day of glory of the great God of our salvation may be revealed.13
My daughter Margaret thanks you for your gift.14 Along with all her brothers15 she was sick with the measles.16 Although they have long ago recuperated, she has caught a very high and persistent fever which has lasted now for almost ten weeks; she still hangs between life and death, and the outcome is uncertain.17
I shall not be angry with the Lord, if he takes her out of this satanic age and world18 from which I, too, desire quickly to be taken, together with all my loved ones. For I long for that day and for the end of the raging of Satan and his followers.
Farewell in the Lord Jesus Christ! Greetings to your flesh,19 and also to you, in behalf of my Katie and all our friends. Pray for us!
MARTIN LUTHER, DOCTOR [Wittenberg,] January 26, 1545 Urged by Jonas' son, Luther writes this letter though he feels that he has nothing to say. Luther mentions two items, however, which he thinks might be news for Jonas, and briefly comments on them: The Pope has issued a brief in which he chastises Emperor Charles for engaging in religious colloquies with the evangelicals; at the pending diet the Emperor intends to propose a reform of the church. Luther concludes his letter by asking for Jonas' prayers in his behalf.
On Justus Jonas, see LW 48, 275, n. 3.
Text in Latin: WA, Br 11, 29–30.1
To the most illustrious man, Mr. Justus Jonas (the Elder), Doctor of Theology, the true and faithful bishop of the church at Halle,2 my elder3 in the Lord
Grace and peace in the Lord, and a most happy [new] year. Amen. Your son, Justus Jonas,4 who, of course, is not [yet] a magister noster, but rather one of our Masters [of Arts],5 has [nevertheless] admonished me to write to you, my Jonas; indeed, he said that you desire a letter, and that you would welcome one. Therefore I am writing now, though I have nothing important to write about, since you are always faster in writing about news [than I am]. Yet perhaps you do not know the following: A letter6 of the Pope is circulating which the brethren have sent to Veit Dietrich from Venice; it is written in an absolutely arrogant and violent tone, and is addressed to Emperor Charles V. In this letter the Pope, with great and typically Italian arrogance,7 demands to know from the Emperor why the Emperor dares to permit and promise colloquies about religion since it is not the Emperor's place to teach but rather to listen to and learn from Mother Church and the teacher of faith. (These are words well known to you as an apostate jurist.)8 Many question whether this is a serious affair or the joke of a libeler; yet it certainly appears to me to be something.
In addition there is much ado about the fact that at the pending diet9 Charles intends to propose a reform in accordance with the example set by the church at the time of the Council of Nicaea. What a lively reformation that will bet If this is true, then the pope's goose is really cooked.10 If it is a trap set up