But a young man, twenty-four years of age, of short stature, diffident, and plain in appearance, dared take up the gauntlet which the first college in the world had thrown down. They knew pretty well at Wittemberg what should be thought of these pompous censures; they knew that Rome had yielded to the suggestions of the Dominicans, and that the Sorbonne was led away by two or three fanatical doctors who were designated at Paris by satirical nicknames.[74] Accordingly, in his Apology, Melancthon did not confine himself to defending Luther; but, with that boldness which characterizes his writings, he carried the war into the enemy's camp. "You say he is a Manichean!--he is a Montanist!--let fire and faggot repress his foolishness! And who is Montanist? Luther, who would have us believe in Holy Scripture alone, or you, who would have men believe in the opinions of their fellow-creatures rather than in the Word of God?"[75] [74] Damnarunt triumviri _Beda_, _Quercus_, et _Christophorus_. Nomina sunt horum monstrorum etiam vulgo nunc nota _Belua_, _Stercus_, _Christotomus_. Zwinglii Epp. i. 176. [75] Corp. Ref. i. 396. [Sidenote: VISIT TO WITTEMBERG.] To ascribe more importance to the word of a man than to the Word of God was in very truth the heresy of Montanus, as it still is that of the pope and of all those who set the hierarchical authority of the Church or the interior inspirations of mysticism far above the positive declarations of the Sacred Writings. Accordingly the youthful master of arts, who had said, "I would rather lay down my life than my faith,"[76] did not stop there. He accused the Sorbonne of having obscured the Gospel, extinguished faith, and substituted an empty philosophy in the place of Christianity.[77] After this work of Melancthon's, the position of the dispute was changed; he proved unanswerably that the heresy was at Paris and Rome, and the catholic truth at Wittemberg. [76] Scias me positurum animam citius quam fidem. Ibid. [77] Evangelium obscuratum est, fides extincta......Ex Christianismo, contra omnem sensum spiritus, facta est quædam philosophica vivendi ratio. Ibid. 400.