Thus, five years before Luther posted his theses on the doors of the church at Wittemberg, Jacques Lefèvre had proclaimed, in no equivocal terms, his belief in the same great principles. But Lefèvre's lectures in the college and his written commentary were addressed to the learned. Consequently they produced no such immediate and startling effect as the ninety-five propositions of the Saxon monk. Lefèvre was not himself to be an active instrument in the French reformation. His office was rather to prepare the way for others--not, perhaps, more sincere, but certainly more courageous--to enter upon the hazardous undertaking of attempting to renovate the church. His faithful disciple, indeed, has preserved for us a remarkable prophecy, uttered by Lefèvre at the very time when he was still assiduous in his devotion to the Virgin Mary and the saints. Grasping Farel by the hand, the venerable doctor more than once addressed to him the significant words, which made a deep impression on the hearer's mind: "Guillaume, the world is going to be renewed, and you will behold it!"[136] [Sidenote: Controversy with Beda.] [Sidenote: The Sorbonne's declaration.] Lefèvre did not intermit his biblical studies. In 1518 he published a short treatise on "the three Marys," to prove that Mary the sister of Lazarus, Mary Magdalene, and "the woman which was a sinner," were not one and the same person, according to the common belief of the time. Unfortunately, the Roman church, by the lessons set down for the feast-days, had given its sanction to the prevalent error. Now, the fears and suspicions of the theologians of the Sorbonne had, during the past year, been aroused by the fame of Martin Luther's "heresy," and they were ready to resent any attempt at innovation, however slight, either in doctrine or in practice, as evidence of heretical proclivities. Natalis Beda, the ignorant but pedantic syndic of the theological faculty, entered the lists as Lefèvre's opponent, and an animated dispute was waged between the friends of the two combatants. Of so great moment was the decision regarded by Poncher, Bishop of Paris, that he induced Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, to write an essay in refutation of the views of Lefèvre.[137] But the Sorbonne, not content with this, on the ninth of November, 1521, declared that he was a heretic who should presume to maintain the truth of Lefèvre's proposition. Lefèvre himself would probably have experienced even greater indignities at the hands of parliament--whose members were accustomed to show excessive respect to the fanatical demands of the faculty--had not Guillaume Petit, the king's confessor, induced Francis to interfere in behalf of the Picard professor.[138] [Sidenote: Briçonnet, Bishop of Meauz.]