Several years before, two friends of Luther, who were his noble assistants in the work of the Reformation, Melanchthon and Carlstadt, had written treatises against clerical celibacy. Their books on this subject were equally as unexpected, and created as much excitement among the clergy, as Luther’s Theses against Indulgences had done six years before. Luther was not the first priest of those days who practically rejected celibacy. As early as 1521, one of his friends and fellow-laborers, Bernhardi, superintendent of the churches at Kemberg, had the boldness to marry. He was the first ecclesiastic in Saxony who took this step, and his wedding-day was long regarded as the _Pastors’ Emancipation Day_; but Caspar Aquila, a priest residing near Augsburg, was married as early as 1516, Jacob Knabe in 1518, and Nicolas Brunner in 1519. Luther was free from all participation in Bernhardi’s marriage, for at that time he was a prisoner in Wartburg Castle, and the first intelligence came so unexpectedly, that whilst he admired the courage of his friend, he was very apprehensive it would occasion him and his cause many severe trials. Not long after, Bernhardi’s metropolitan, the Cardinal Archbishop Albert, of Mainz and Magdeburg, demanded of the Elector of Saxony, Frederick the Wise, to send Bernhardi to Halle, to answer for his presumptuous act. Frederick did not yield to the demand of the Archbishop, and the latter professed to be satisfied with an anonymous defence of Bernhardi. Luther himself sent a petition to Albert in behalf of the clergy who had already married and of those who intended to marry. Subsequently, however, Bernhardi suffered severely. When, in 1547, more than twenty years after his nuptials, the Emperor Charles V. captured Wittenberg, his savage Spaniards seized Bernhardi, and bound him fast to a table. His wife rescued him from their murderous hands; but, soon after, others laid hold of him, and after cruelly beating him, tied him to a horse and dragged him to the camp at Torgau. A German officer, after much trouble, had him liberated, and he finally, after unexampled suffering, reached his family at Kemberg. A considerable number of priests followed the example of Bernhardi. They were not deterred by the ban of the bishops, nor by the fear of deposition and imprisonment. But all this would not have created such immense excitement if Luther himself, to whom all eyes were directed, had not resolved, by his own example, to strike a deadly blow at priestly celibacy.