The thoughts of retaliation which were aflame in Luther, i.e. his expectation of a “Divine judgment” on his adversaries, he committed to writing in a letter which he forwarded to Franz von Sickingen on June 1, 1521, together with a little work dedicated to him, “Concerning Confession, whether the Pope has the power to decree it.”[164] In it he reminds Sickingen that God had slain thirty-one Kings in the land of Chanaan together with the inhabitants of their cities. “It was ordained by God that they should fight against Israel bravely and defiantly, that they should be destroyed and no mercy shown them. This story looks to me like a warning to our Popes, bishops, men of learning and other spiritual tyrants.” He feared that it was God’s work that they should feel themselves secure in their pride, “so that, in the end, they would needs perish without mercy.” Unless they altered their ways one would be found who “would teach them, not like Luther by word and letter, but by deeds.” We cannot here go into the question of why the revolutionary party in the Empire did not at that time proceed to “deeds.” 3. Legends The beginning of the legends concerning the Diet of Worms can be traced back to Luther himself. He declared, only a year after the event, shortly after his departure from the Wartburg, in a letter of July 15, 1522, intended for a few friends and not for German readers: “I repaired to Worms although I had already been apprised of the violation of the safe-conduct by the Emperor Charles.” He there says of himself, that, in spite of his timidity, he nevertheless ventured “within reach of the jaws of Behemoth [the monster mentioned in Job xl.]. And what did these terrible giants [my adversaries] do? During the last three years not one has been found brave enough to come forward against me here at Wittenberg, though assured of a safe-conduct and protection”; “rude and timorous at one and the same time” they would not venture “to confront him, though single-handed,” or to dispute with him. What would have happened had these weaklings been forced to face the Emperor and all-powerful foes as he had done at Worms? This he says to the Bohemian, Sebastian Schlick, Count of Passun, in the letter in which he dedicates to him his Latin work “Against Henry VIII of England.”[165] It is worth noting that Luther did not insert this dedication in the German edition, but only in the Latin one intended for Bohemia and foreign countries where the circumstances were not so well known.