As early as December 14, 1518, Luther, under the charm of his friend’s talents, had spoken of him in a letter to Johann Reuchlin as a “wonderful man in whom almost everything is supernatural.”[1057] On September 17, 1523, he said to his friend Theobald Billicanus of Nördlingen: “I value Philip as I do myself, not to speak of the fact that he shames, nay, excels me by his learning and the integrity of his life (‘_eruditione et integritate vitae_’).”[1058] Five years later Luther penned the following testimony in his favour in the Preface at the commencement of Melanchthon’s Exposition of the Epistle to the Colossians (1528-29): “He proceeds [in his writings] quietly and politely, digs and plants, sows and waters, according to the gifts which God has given him in rich measure”; he himself, on the other hand, was “very stormy and pugnacious” in his works, but he was “the rough hewer, who has to cut out the track and prepare the way.”[1059] In the Preface to the edition of his own Latin works in 1545 he praises Melanchthon’s “_Loci_” and classes them amongst the “methodic books” of which every theologian and bishop would do well to make use; “how much the Lord has effected by means of this instrument which He has sent me, not merely in worldly learning but also in theology, is demonstrated by his works.”[1060] The extravagant praise accorded by Luther to his fellow-worker was returned by the other in equal measure. When deprived of Luther’s company during the latter’s involuntary stay at the Wartburg, he wrote as follows to a friend: “The torch of Israel was lighted by him, and should it be extinguished what hope would remain to us?... Ah, could I but purchase by my death the life of him who is at this time the most divine being upon earth!”[1061] A little later he says in the same style: “Our Elias has left us; we wait and hope in him. My longing for him torments me daily.”[1062] Luther was not unwilling to figure as Elias and wrote to his friend that he (Melanchthon) excelled him in the Evangel, and should he himself perish, would succeed him as an Eliseus with twice the spirit of Elias. We cannot explain these strange mutual encomiums merely by the love of exaggeration usual with the Humanists. Luther as a rule did not pander to the taste of the Humanists, and as for Melanchthon, he really entertained the utmost respect and devotion for the “venerable father” and “most estimable doctor” until, at last, difference of opinion and character brought about a certain unmistakable coolness between the two men.