xxii.  p.  191  {An  die  Bathsherren  alien  ^  Lange  to  Mutian,  Tentzel,  ifeMjmac

Stadte  Deutsches  Landes).  Luther  writes  Epp.  Mutiani,    p.    29:     "Is   Doctor

in  1521  to  the  Elector  Frederick  (De  Martinus  est,  quocum  Erphurdiae  per-

W.  vol.  i.  565),  "Non  de  eloquentia  et  quamfamiliaritervixi,necparumauxilii

Latini  sermonis  elegantia  dico.     Nam  bonis  in  literis  olim  mihi  attulit."


140  LUTHER'S  LIFE  PRIOR  TO  HIS  REVOLT        chap.
a  good  Greek  scholar,  as  Greek  scholars  then  went,  afterwards
Prior  of  the  Erfurt  Augustinians,  and  George  Burkhardt,  from  his
birthplace  Spalt,  called  Spalatin,  Elector  Frederick's  chaplain,
and  the  intermediary  between  him  and  Luther.  Mutian  and
Hess,  the  two  most  distinguished  of  the  humanists,  Luther  did
not  know  till  his  own  Erfurt  days  were  passed.  The  single
friend  who  belonged  to  the  inner  circle  of  the  poets  was
Johann  Jager,  better  known  as  Crotus  Eubianus,a  man  associated
with  Ulrich  von  Hutten  through  the  whole  of  his  brief  and
stormy  life,  and  now  identified  as  the  chief  author  of  the  Hpistolae
Obscurorum  Virorum,  as  we  saw.  But  this  intimacy  seems  to
have  been  suspended,  till  about  lol8-1520a  temporary  alHance
was  formed  between  Luther  and  that  section  of  the  humanists
who,  on  patriotic  grounds,  were  fiUed  with  anti-Eoman  rage.^
Luther  was  no  true  humanist  at  heart.  He  cared  for  learning,
partly  for  practical,  still  more  for  theological,  purposes.  One
cannot  conceive  of  him  as  sitting  down  to  file  and  pohsh  Latin
verses  into  a  passable  imitation  of  Ovid.  He  wrote,  not  to
show  how  well  he  could  write,  but  because  there  was  that
within  him  which  imperatively  demanded  utterance.
But  the  principal  part  of  the  general  training  which  each
student  of  the  University  went  through  before  applying  him-
self to  the  special  studies  of  a  faculty  was  philosophical.
