"But now certain theologians whom I know are neither warning nor teaching Luther, but are only with mad howlings reviling him before the people and tearing him in pieces with the most violent abuse and continually having in their mouths the words 'heresy!', 'heretic', 'heresiarch!', 'schism!', 'antichrist!' It cannot be denied that these clamours were raised among the people chiefly by men who had never seen the books of Luther. It is well proved that things are condemned by these people as heretical in Luther which in Bernard or Augustine are read as orthodox, nay, as pious words. I warned them at the beginning to abstain from clamour of this sort and to carry on the affair rather with writings and arguments. I said they ought not publicly to condemn what they had not read and carefully thought out, I will not say, understood. Then I told them it was unbecoming for theologians to carry anything through by violence, for their judgment ought to be of the most serious kind, and that it was not an easy thing to gain their point by raging against a man whose life was approved by everyone. Finally, that perhaps it was not a safe thing to touch upon such matters before a mixed crowd, in which there are many who greatly dislike the confession of secret sins and if these should hear that there are theologians who say one need not confess all faults, they will readily snatch at it and get a perverted notion. Now though all this must strike every man of spirit as it does me, yet from this friendly admonition they have conceived the suspicion that Luther's books are in great part mine, and produced at Louvain, whereas not one stroke in them is mine or published with my knowledge or my will. Still, acting upon this false suspicion and in spite of all denial, they have raised here disturbances more furious than I have ever seen in my life.