Second Commentary on the Doctrine of Abstinence

that, as far as we have heard, he alone within human memory was called by the surname "the Just." b) Thus Suetonius in the life of Otho: i) He administered the province as quaestor for ten years with singular moderation and ABSTINENTIA. In particular, this same lover of propriety indicates the meaning of the word clearly in Caesar k), whom he denies exercised ABSTINENTIA in his commands and magistracies. Now, to what this virtue pertains, he demonstrates by its contrary vice, by commemorating the robberies and sacrileges of Caesar. From which places, when compared among themselves, it appears that ABSTINENTIA is proper to princes and magistrates, and, to use the words of Schorus, is attributed to those who abstain their hands from the property of others, to which RAPACITAS is opposed. l)

XII

Therefore, while I attribute ABSTINENTIA to the Elector Princes of Saxony, who first undertook and established the doctrine of Luther, I enter into this mind and sentiment: to free them from the nefarious crime of the "sacred hunger for gold," and, as they restrained themselves from the property of others, I deny that they turned to the family of Luther with the intention of converting sacred fortunes to their own use. That this may not be brought into doubt, in the next dissertation I shall collect some general arguments which will be able to remove and drive away, in a universal sense, that which is imputed to them as a vice.