Luther himself spoke of him after his death, on the strength of the reports received, and, perhaps, also from a desire to reckon him amongst his followers, in a letter to the Nuremberg Humanist Eobanus Hessus, as “the best of men,” and one to be congratulated “for that Christ allowed him to die so happily after such preparation” (“_tam instructum et beato fine_”), sparing him the sight of the evil days to come. “Therefore may he rest in peace with his fathers, Amen.”[107] Melanchthon says a few words of regret on the death of the great artist, but from them nothing definite can be gathered. Venatorius, the Lutheran preacher at Nuremberg, preached his panegyric.[108] In his letter to Tschertte, in 1530, on the other hand, Pirkheimer counts him, like himself, among those who were at first good Lutherans, but were afterwards disappointed in their hopes. “The close friendship which united Dürer to this passionate and conceited scholar, who could not brook the slightest contradiction, is, in fact, a proof which we must not undervalue, of a certain affinity in their views with regard to the cardinal question of faith and religious belief.”[109] It is not impossible that Dürer, like Pirkheimer, began to have doubts, and withdrew at last the open support he had previously given the Reformers. The spiritual experiences of Pirkheimer and Dürer help to bring before our eyes typical instances of the false paths followed by many of their contemporaries and the struggles through which they went. CHAPTER XII EXCOMMUNICATION AND OUTLAWRY SPIRITUAL BAPTISM IN THE WARTBURG 1. The Trial. The Excommunication (1520) and its Consequences ON June 15, 1520, Leo X promulgated the Bull condemning forty-one Propositions of Luther’s teaching, and threatening the person of their author with excommunication.[110] The Bull was the result of a formal suit instituted at Rome on the details of which light has been thrown in recent times by Karl Müller, Aloys Schulte and Paul Kalkoff.[111] The trial had taken a long time, much too long considering the state of things in Germany; this delay was in reality due to political causes, to the Pope’s regard for the Elector of Saxony, the approaching Imperial Election and to the procrastination of the German Prince-Bishops. Even before Dr. Johann Eck proceeded to Rome to promote the case the negotiations had been resumed in the Papal Consistories at the instance of the Italian party. The first Consistory was held on January 9, 1520.