Now each party seemed to Erasmus to be trying to catch him by stirring him up against the other. They told him his books had been burnt in Brabant by Hoogstraaten, hoping to make him write something against the inquisitor which would drive him over definitely into the Lutheran camp. Poor Botzheim at Constance wrote, _pene exanimatus_ ("scared almost to death,"), that Erasmus' books had been publicly condemned at Rome by papal order. These traps had been sprung in vain. He had seen through the trick and kept his peace and the truth had come out. Far from condemning him, the papal party at Rome had done its best to win him to its service, even offering him a considerable benefice if he would come. Then this again had produced countercharges of bribery, which he very properly dismisses by saying: "If I could have been drawn into this fight by bribes I should have been drawn in long ago." Now he hears a third rumour, worse than the other two: the pope has written some kind of a pamphlet against him! but again he sees the trick; they want to make him say something against the pope. Others say that Lutherans are flocking to Basel to consult with him, some even that Luther is in hiding there. "Would that it were true that all Lutherans and anti-Lutherans too, would come for my advice and agree to follow it; the world would be far better off in my opinion. Many persons have come hither to see and to salute me, sometimes in companies and generally unknown to me; but never has one called himself a Lutheran in my presence; it is not my business to make inquiries and I am no prophet. Before this trouble broke out I was in literary correspondence with almost all the scholars of Germany, to me a most agreeable relation. Of these some have given me the cold shoulder, some are quite estranged from me, and some are my open enemies and seeking my ruin. Some were good friends of mine, who are now more severe towards Luther than I could wish and more than is good for their cause. I dismiss no one from my friendship either because he is too friendly or too hostile to Luther; each acts in good faith.