at for some years I was very favorably
inclined to Luther's enterprise [wrote Crotus Rubeanus in
1531] [Sidenote: Rubeanus], but when I saw that nothing
was left untorn and undefiled . . . I thought the devil
might bring in great evil in the guise of something good,
using Scripture as his shield. So I decided to remain
in the church in which I was baptized, reared and taught.
Even if some fault might be found in it, yet in time it
{104}
might have been proved, sooner, at any rate, than in the
new church which in a few years has been torn by so many sects.

Wilibald Pirckheimer, the Greek scholar and historian of Nuremberg,
hailed Luther so warmly at first that he was put under the ban of the
bull _Exsurge Domine_. By 1529, however, he had come to believe him
insolent, impudent, either insane or possessed by a devil.

I do not deny [he wrote] that at the beginning all
Luther's acts did not seem to be vain, since no good man
could be pleased with all those errors and impostures that
had accumulated gradually in Christianity. So, with
others, I hoped that some remedy might be applied to
such great evils, but I was cruelly deceived. For, before
the former errors had been extirpated, far more intolerable
ones crept in, compared to which the others seemed
child's play.

[Sidenote: Appeal to Erasmus]

To Erasmus, the wise, the just, all men turned as to an arbiter of
opinion. From the first, Luther counted on his support, and not
without reason, for the humanist spoke well of the Theses and
commentaries of the Wittenberger. On March 28, 1519, Luther addressed
a letter to him, as "our glory and hope," acknowledging his
indebtedness and begging for support. Erasmus answered in a friendly
way, at the same time sending a message encouraging the Elector
Frederic to defend his innocent subject.

Dreading nothing so much as a violent catastrophe, the humanist labored
for the next two years to find a peaceful solution for the threatening
problem. Seeing that Luther's two chief errors were that he "had
attacked the crown of the pope and the bellies of the monks," Erasmus
pressed upon men in power the plan of allowing the points in dispute to
be settled by an impartial tribunal, and of imposing silence on both
parties. At the same time he begged Luther to do nothing {105} violent
and urged that his enemies be not allowed to take extreme measures
against him. But after the publ