Selections from the Table Talk of Martin LutherLuther, Martin
ReligionChristian
Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther
Luther, Martin
Table-talk
_Dum potui_, _rapui_; _rapiatis_, _quando potestis_.
(I extorted and oppressed as long as I was able; while ye have power,
get what you can.)
Oh! said Luther, how finely, think you, must this Cardinal have departed
and died?
_The World is full of Dissemblers and Blasphemers_: _How many Sorts there
be_.
Luther discoursing, in the presence of the Prince Elector of Saxony and
other Princes, of the many sorts and differences of wicked persons, said:
Colax, Sycophanta, Cacoëthes; these sins and blasphemies are almost alike
the one to the other, only that they go one after another, as a man going
up the stairs and steps ascends from one to another.
Colax, in my opinion, is he that in Terence they name Gnatho, an
ear-scratcher, a dissembler, a trencher-licker, one that talketh for his
belly’s sake, and is altogether a man-pleaser. This is a sin of mankind,
whose intent is to get all they can though others are hurt thereby.
Sycophanta is such a dissembler, traitor, and backbiter that would earn a
grey coat. This sin is nearer allied to the devil than to mankind.
Gnatho acts his part in the comedies, but Sycophanta in the tragedies.
Phormio, in Terence, is a very honest person, nothing, or very little,
stained with the other two vices.
Cacoëthes is a wicked villain, that wittingly and wilfully prepareth
mischief.
_Of the Wealth and Treasure of the World_.
The Fuggars {97} of Augsburg, on a sudden, said Luther, are able to levy
one hundred tons of gold (one ton of gold is one hundred thousand rix
dollars, making, in English money, two-and-twenty thousand pounds
sterling, and more), which neither the Emperor nor King of Spain is able
to perform. One of the Fuggars, after his death, left eighty tons of
gold. The Fuggars and the money-changers in Augsburg lent the Emperor at
one time eight-and-twenty tons of gold for the maintaining of his wars
before Padua.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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