We have seen that bungler from Dresden play master to my New Testament. (I will not mention his name in my books as he has his judge and is already well-known). He does admit that my German is good and sweet and that he could not improve it. Yet, anxious to dishonor it, he took my New Testament word for word as it was written, and removed my prefaces and glosses, replacing them with his own. Then he published my New Testament under his name! Dear Children, how it pained me when his prince in a detestable preface condemned my work and forbid all from reading Luther's New Testament, while at the same time commending the Bungler's New Testament to be read--even though it was the very same one Luther had written! So no one thinks I am lying, put Luther's and the Bungler's New Testaments side by side and compare them. You will see who did the translation for both. He has patched it in places and reordered it (and although it does not all please me) I can still leave it be for it does me no particular harm as far as the document is concerned. That is why I never intended to write in opposition to it. But I did have a laugh at the great wisdom that so terribly slandered, condemned and forbade my New Testament, when it was published under my name, but required its reading when published under an other's name! What type of virtue is this that slanders and heaps shame on someone else's work, and then steals it, and publishes it under one's own name, thereby seeking glory and esteem through the slandered work of someone else! I leave that for his judge to say. I am glad and satisfied that my work (as St. Paul also boasts ) is furthered by my enemies, and that Luther's work, without Luther's name but that of his enemy, is to be read. What better vengeance?! Returning to the issue at hand, if your Papist wishes to make a great fuss about the word "alone" (sola), say this to him: "Dr. Martin Luther will have it so and he says that a papist and an ass are the same thing." Sic volo, sic iubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas. (I will it, I command it; my will is reason enough) For we are not going to become students and followers of the papists. Rather we will become their judge and master. We, too, are going to be proud and brag with these blockheads; and just as St. Paul brags against his madly raving saints, I will brag over these asses of mine! They are doctors? Me too. They are scholars? I am as well. They are philosophers? And I. They are dialecticians? I am too. They are lecturers? So am I. They write books? So do I.