To the Leipzig Goat

To the Leipzig Goat Greeting

Ir I had called you a goat, my Emser, you would surely have written a book or two about it and heaped all sorts of lies, slanders, and insults upon me in your customary way. But now since you write yourself down a goat, and in such glaring letters that everyone must notice, and since you threaten to do no more than butt, as you say, “Beware, the goat will butt you,” I daresay I may with your own permission and approval address you as a goat. It was hardly necessary for you to put it down in black and white, everything about you shows that you are a goat. Moreover, that you cannot do more than butt is proved abundantly by your books and your speeches. Do you not think, however, that I might answer your flimsy threats, and say, “Dear ass, do not kick.”” May God help the nannies whose horns are wrapped in silk; I, please God, am safe.

Have you never heard the fable of the ass who had a roaring-match with a lion, and some of the animals fled at the sound of his braying, but the lion turned to him and said: “If I did not know you to be an ass, I might be afraid of you myself.” You see every day that I am not afraid of those who have more wisdom and sense in one hair than you have in your whole body and in your soul besides, and yet you dare defy and threaten me; by which you bring convincing proof that you have given up your reason and become an unreasoning animal, and the man has become a goat.

What could an unreasoning goat like you do with the Holy Scriptures? How could he interpret it, not according to the letter that killeth, but according to the spirit that giveth life,as you boast of doing in this little book of yours? Why, you can hardly express yourself in German, your words come along so clumsily, helter-skelter, in wild disorder. And as far as I am able to judge, you do not know nor will you learn for a long time to come what the Scripture means by the words letter, spirit, death, life. Your canon law will never teach you and just as little will your goat-brain ever guess it of itself. This is another proof that you have put off the man and put on the goat; you are Licentiat sacrorum Canonum but Prohibitat sacrae scripturae, and such you will ever remain.

I fancy I know your real purpose in writing against me and I will pass by the fact that you are doing it with a presumption of learning and wisdom, which your own conscience doubtless tells you is lacking. I shall make this plain to you when your butting performance is over and my turn comes to scrape the horns of the goat. But from the very first mention of my name, and through no fault of mine, you have conceived such hatred toward me that I have been filled with wonder how any man could harbor such hatred and still remain alive, although your body begins to show it, and this hatred has made you a by-word throughout the land, and of all haters the great exemplar.

The same spirit of malice constrained you to write your first book to the Bohemians against me, in which you dealt with me after your fashion. I wrote an answer’ and quite unwittingly touched your sore spots. For, God knows, at that time I knew nothing of your goat-nature. Then your fury knew no bounds and you wrote a second book, on account of which all the scholars turned their backs on you, as you know, because you poured out so many palpable lies and whole cartloads of abuse. ButI took pity on you and did not wish,to reply.

Since that time your unspeakable hatred cannot be satisfied, it cannot rest nor give up its revengefulness. In addition to writing many evil-minded letters you have written a third book against me under the name of Thomas Rhadinus.? You had it printed in Rome under an assumed name, in order that no one might suspect that it came out of your poisonous heart. JI am concerned lest that hatred of yours, and nothing else but that, will be the death of you, especially when you begin to realize that your efforts are futile and that I simply ignore you. You poor miserable creature, how can any one believe, while such unnatural and consuming hatred dominates you, that you can understand the pure and gracious Scriptures, which, moreover, you do not read nor study. O God in heaven, how hopelessly blind you are! Is it not time for you to think of God as your Lord and Judge and to change your embittered and hateful heart?

Now, because I have hitherto not replied to your lies and calumnies, you put on airs as if you were the victor and I could not answer. Perhaps you are encouraged by the bull to hope that I shall not dare to write again, so that you can remain on the field alone, fight without opposition or danger, and come out victorious with your pretensions. You boast that as a priest of God you will patiently suffer my barking and snarling, though I have endured it from you three times in silence. You do not realize how invective follows invective in all your books, so that it is commonly said that of all abusive writers you are the worst. Such renown is just what youseek. And since such violent and senseless bluster is termed “patience” and “suffering” by you, and you can turn everything topsy-turvy and call things by new names, it is no surprise that you make the Holy Scriptures say just what you want. But take notice, henceforth I will not remain silent nor will I let you defile the Holy Scriptures with your goat’s snout, as you have begun todo. The score which you have thus marked up against yourself may have to be paid in full.

I ask but one thing: that you quit your lying and write the truth. Your ignorance in the Scriptures is nothing so extraordinary, but your love of lying is not fitting for a priest of God and makes answering you an unpleasant task. The slandering and calling of names I will overlook, since I know very well that neither your nature nor your hatred can stop it.

Look not upon this preliminary sheet, my dear Goat, as evidence that I could not wait until your book was finished.! But since you write that I have fled before you and come along with such boldness as if you expected me to do nothing at all except allow you to triumph, I want to let you know that it will be quite otherwise, if it please God. For if you had expected an answer from me, without doubt you would not have come along in such miserable rags. Therefore, since your assurance has made you so careless and lazy that you can no longer perceive your own prattle and spittle, and since I have the intention not merely to answer you, unworthy as you are, but to take occasion to give some Christian instruction concerning the spirit and letter, of which you are completely ignorant—I would rouse and admonish you to open your eyes and take hold of the sword, not by the blade, as in your blatant assurance you do now, but by the hilt, with both hands, and take counsel with your fellows, so that you may, at least at the close of your book, say something serious and worthy of defence and show the best of which you are capable. Then there will be no need to write so many unnecessary books and take up people’s valuable time. My dear Goat, you are near the end of your road.

If you say to me that what the Scriptures teach is light as goose-quills, but what you have spun out of the teachers, who often erred, and out of your own horny head, is strong as chains—please God, I will answer that, too, and silence your slanderous tongue that so wantonly defames and defiles God’s Word. Put on your boldest front, arm yourself with daggers and swords. You have three books and several letters to defend, and especially some unchristian lies, which shall either make you give up your butting or else lead you into still more lying. I too will let myself go and give my mind a fair chance at you. Therefore, my dear Goat, think not that you are in the arena alone.

I know very well that it is not easy to deal with a shameless liar and blasphemer, as the proverb says:

Hoc -scio pro certo, quod sicum ster- Vinco vel vincor, semper ego maculor.! Yet for the sake of the truth, I must endure your immoderate and endless defaming and blaspheming. If you knew anything else, perhaps you would write it. I must therefore be patient, and let the storm of your turbulent hatred beat about my head. I, too, have often been vehement, but for the most part I have written that which was good and without violence; you can do nothing but call names and blaspheme. Let it come, my Goat, one seeks in vain for anything good from you. Fiat voluntas Domini, Amen