Note 202 — Chapter XXXV · (Continued) LUTHER’S ATTITUDE TOWARDS SOCIETY AND EDUCATION (continued 2)

Ib., p. 631=255. He speaks before this of nobles, who, after the peasant risings, had gone too far in their revenge.—Luther inveighs in the strongest language against the way in which the nobles oppressed the poor “burghers, unhappy pastors and preachers,” and says: “Here the lion has caught a mouse and fancies he has overcome the dragon. Germany is now full of such nobles and Junkers, who stink out the beer-houses and draw their steel only on the poor, wretched, defenceless people; such are the nobles. Out on such abandoned people! We Germans are indeed swine and savage beasts, and have no noble thoughts or courage in us, as the world too thinks!” This in the Commentary on the Four Psalms of Consolation, 1526. Weim. ed., 19, p. 604 f.; Erl. ed., 38, p. 439 f.