[814] P. 770 = 342. “And yet Erasmus, as against the Pelagians, always upheld the necessity of the gratia peculiaris.” Thus the Weim. ed., 18, p. 770, n. 2.
[815] Ibid., p. 756 = 320.
[816] Luther says in the passage quoted: “Exstant themata et problemata, in quibus perpetuo asserui usque in hanc horam, liberum arbitrium esse nihil et rem (eo verbo tum utebar) de solo titulo.” The last words refer to the 13th Thesis of his Heidelberg Disputation (see vol. i., p. 317). The Weimar editor quotes against the “perpetuo asserui,” “Werke,” Weim. ed., 1, p. 32, and 4, p. 295, with the remark: “These are exceptions of which Erasmus could not be aware.” It is not, however, a question of Erasmus, but whether Luther was telling the truth when he said: “It is false that I ever admitted free-will” (“antea non nihil illi tribuerim”).
[817] P. 778 = 354.
[818] Cp. vol. v., xxxii. 4.
[819] Luther’s Works ed. by Buchwald, etc., 2. Supplementary volume, 1905, p. 530.
[820] Cp. Melanchthon’s “Loci theologici” (1521), in the third edition by Plitt-Kolde, 1900, p. 87. In this work, in which “the fundamental ideas of Luther found a classical expression,” the theology is “strongly predestinarian in character, and even answers affirmatively the question: ‘utrum Deus mala faciat.’” Kawerau, in Möller, “Lehrb. der Kirchengesch.,” 3³, 1907, pp. 41, 43. The “Loci” Luther speaks of in “De servo arbitrio” (Weim. ed., 18, p. 601; “Opp. Lat. var.,” 7, p. 117) as an “invictus libellus, meo iudicio non solum immortalitate, sed canone quoque ecclesiastico dignus.”
[821] Scheel, ibid. (above, p. 264, n. 3), p. 400.
[822] “Fingat, refingat, cavilletur, recavilletur Diatribe, quantum volet. Si præscivit Deus, Iudam fore proditorem, necessarie Iudas fiebat proditor, nec erat in manu Judæ aut ullius creaturæ, aliter facere aut voluntatem mutare, licet id fecerit volendo non coactus, sed velle illud erat opus Dei, quod omnipotentia sua movebat, sicut et omnia alia.” “Werke,” Weim. ed., 18, p. 715; “Opp. Lat. var.,” 7, p. 263.
[823] “Cur permisit (Deus) Adam ruere?... Deus est, cuius voluntatis nulla est causa nec ratio,” etc. Ibid., p. 712 = 260.