The unpitying harshness of canonical legislation against the children of Israel was unconsciously based on fear. All-powerful Christianity dreaded the influence which the Jewish mind might exert on the Christian population in too familiar intercourse. What the papacy concealed in the incense-clouds of its official decrees was disclosed by a philosophical writer and cardinal standing in close relation with the papal court. Nicholas de Cusa (from Cues on the Moselle), the last devotee of scholasticism, into which he tried to introduce mystic elements, enthusiastically advocated, in the face of the dissensions of Christendom, a union of all religions in one creed. The church ceremonies he was prepared to sacrifice, nay, he was ready to accept circumcision, if, by such means, non-Christians could be won over to the belief in the Trinity. He feared, as he distinctly said, the stiffneckedness of the Jews, who cling so stubbornly to their monotheism; but he consoled himself with the reflection that an unarmed handful could not disturb the peace of the world. It is true, the Jews were unarmed; but, mentally, they were still powerful, and Nicholas resolved to devote himself to the task of depriving them of intellectual strength. The pope had appointed him legate for Germany, where he was to reform church and cloister (1450-1451). But the cardinal also occupied himself with the Jewish question. At the provincial council of Bamberg he put into force the canonical statute concerning Jew badges, which provided that men should wear round pieces of red cloth on their breasts, and women blue stripes on their head-dresses--as if the branding of Jews could heal the dissolute clergy and their demoralized flocks of their uncleanness. The only result of the isolation of the Jews was their protection from the taint of prevailing immorality. The cardinal was not successful in purifying the clergy, or in putting an end to the fraud of bleeding hosts and miracle-working images, against which he had exclaimed so loudly. The church remained corrupt to the core. There would have been abundant cause to fear the Jews, if they had been permitted to probe the suppurating wounds.