In his twelfth Sermon on the “Historien von des ehrwürdigen ...
Manns Gottes Martini Lutheri,” etc., Mathesius was later on to write
that he had enjoyed at his table “many good colloquies and chats”
and had tasted “much excellent stuff in the shape of writings and
counsels.”[663] Luther himself refers incidentally to these social
evenings in his famous saying, that, while he “drank Wittenberg beer
with his friends Philip and Amsdorf,” God, by his means, had weakened
the Papacy and brought it nigh to destruction.[664] The wine was
drunk—at least on solemn occasions—from the famous bowl known as
the “Catechismusglas,” on which were painted in sections, placed one
below the other and separated by three ridges, various portions of
Christian doctrine: at the top the Ten Commandments, in the middle the
Creed and Our Father, and at the bottom the whole Catechism (probably
the superscriptions and numbers of the questions in the Catechism). We
read in the Table-Talk, that, on one occasion, Johann Agricola could
get only as far as the Ten Commandments at one draught, whereas Luther
was able to empty the bowl right off down to the very dregs, i.e.
“Catechism and all.”[665]
For Luther’s sayings given in what follows we have made use of the
so-called original versions of the Table-Talk recently edited by
various Protestant scholars, viz. the Diaries of Lauterbach and
Cordatus, the notes of Schlaginhaufen and the Collections made by
Mathesius and found in the “Aufzeichnungen” edited by Loesche and in
the “Tischreden (Mathesius)” published more recently still by Kroker,
the Leipzig librarian.[666]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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