Whilst the New Testament was still in the press, Luther set zealously to work on the Old. Here he encountered more difficulties, on account of the language; but he had long been studying Hebrew with devotion and zeal, and moreover he could now get the assistance of his new colleague, Aurogallus, who was especially famous for teaching Hebrew. Before Christmas the five Books of Moses were ready for press; these were to be published by themselves. In 1524 they were followed by two other parts, containing the biblical books (according to the present German order) up to the Song of Solomon. His translation of the prophets, interrupted by other work, was delayed for several years. Nor was Luther's sharp pen long idle against Rome, as indeed might have been anticipated from his letter to Kronberg. He found his chief occasion for attack in a series of new edicts and other measures of the German bishops against the innovations--the abolition of clerical celibacy, the transgression of the laws of fasting, and so on. For this purpose ecclesiastical visitations were undertaken by the Bishops of Meissen and Merseburg, such as have already been alluded to when Luther went to Zwickau. Luther's sermons against the abuse of Christian liberty were followed by a small tract entitled 'On the necessity of avoiding human doctrine.' He did not mean it, as he said, for those 'bold, intemperate heads;' but he wished to preach Christian liberty to the poor, humble consciences, enslaved by monkish vows and ordinances, that they might be instructed how, by God's help and without danger, to escape and to use their liberty discreetly. Against the existing Romish episcopacy he declared war to the knife in a treatise 'Against the Order, falsely called Spiritual, of Pope and Bishops.' He who had been robbed of his title of priest and doctor by the displeasure of Pope and Emperor, and from whom, by Papal bulls, the 'mark of the beast' (Rev. xiii. 16) was washed off, confronts the 'popish bishops' now, as 'by God's grace, preacher at Wittenberg.' Luther's further writings against the Romish Churchdom and dogma do not possess the same interest for us as his earlier ones, inasmuch as they no longer show the progress and development of his own views on the Church. In the violent language he now employs he vents his chief anger in complaining that he, and the truth he represented, 'had been condemned unheard--an unexampled proceeding--unrefuted, and in headlong and criminal haste.' With reference to the attack he had made on the 'episcopal masqueraders' in the tract above mentioned, Luther remarked in a letter to Spalatin on July 26 that he had purposely been so sharp in it, because he saw how vainly he had humbled himself, yielded, prayed and complained. And he added that he would just as little flatter, the King of England.