We are beggars...

Two days before Luther died, he wrote the following in Latin and left them on the table.

Nobody can understand Virgil in his Bucolics and Georgics unless he has first been a shepherd or a farmer for five years.

Nobody can understand Cicero in his letters unless he has been engaged in public affairs of some consequence for twenty years.

Let nobody suppose that he has tasted the Holy Scriptures sufficiently unless he has ruled over the churches with the prophets for a hundred years. Therefore there is something wonderful, first, about John the Baptist; second, about Christ; third about the apostles. "Lay not your hand upon this divine Aeneid, but bow before it, adore its every trace."

We are beggars. That is true.

Eisleben, Feb. 16, 1546