His pupils and Wittenberg adherents treasured up such assurances of his extraordinary mission in order to excite their own enthusiasm. Even Albert Dürer, who was further removed from the sphere of his influence, spoke of him in the third decade of the century as “a man enlightened by the Holy Ghost and one who has the Spirit of God.”[388] Long after his death the chord which he had struck continued to vibrate among those who were devoted to him. On his tomb at Wittenberg might be read: “Taught by the Divine inspiration and called by God’s Word, he disseminated throughout the world the new light of the Evangel.” Old, orthodox Lutheranism honoured him as God’s own messenger; the Protestant Pietists, at the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, attributed to Luther, to quote the words of Gottfried Arnold, a truly “apostolic call,” received by means of a “direct inspiration, impulse or Divine apprehension”; this Divine mission, Arnold says, was “generally” admitted, although he himself, as a staunch Pietist, was willing to allow to Luther “the power and illumination of the Spirit” only during the period previous to the dispute with Carlstadt, who was equally enlightened from above. “For a while,” says Arnold, i.e. for about seven years, Luther was “in very truth mightily guided by God and employed as His instrument.”[389] Other Lutheran theologians, Gerhard and Calovius, for instance, refused to see in Luther’s case anything more than an indirect call; about the middle of the eighteenth century the editor of Luther’s Works, Consistorialrat Prof. J. G. Walch, of Jena, asserted openly of Luther’s mission that he “was not called directly by God as had been the case with the Prophets and Apostles”; his call had only in so far been beyond the ordinary in that “God, after decreeing in His Divine plans the Reformation, had chosen Luther as His tool”; hence Luther’s providential mission was only to be inferred from the “divinity of the Reformation,” which, however, was apparent to all who “did not wantonly and maliciously shut their eyes to facts.” Extraordinary gifts had not indeed been bestowed upon him by God, though he had all the “gifts pertaining to his office” in rich measure, and likewise the “sanctifying gifts” and the “spiritual graces”; the latter Walch then proceeds to dissect with painstaking exactitude.[390] Such a view marks the transition to the modern conception of Luther so widely prevalent among Protestants to-day, which, while extolling him as the powerful instrument of the Reformation, naturalises him, so to speak, and takes him down from the pedestal of the God-illumined teacher and prophet, who proclaims a Divine interpretation of Scripture binding upon all.[391] _Apocalyptico-Mystic Vesture._ Against Catholics Luther also used certain pseudo-mystic elements drawn from his consciousness of a higher mission and based principally on Holy Scripture.