In the letter to Cardinal Campeggio he even assures him: “We reverence the authority of the Pope of Rome and the whole hierarchy, and only beg he may not cast us off.... For no other reason are we hated as we are in Germany than because we defend and uphold the dogmas of the Roman Church with so much persistence. And this loyalty to Christ and to the Roman Church we shall preserve to our last breath, even should the Church refuse to receive us back into favour.” The words “Roman Church” were not here taken in the ordinary sense, however much the connection might seem to warrant this; Melanchthon really means his pet phantom of the ancient Roman Church, though he saw fit to speak of fidelity to this phantom in the very words in which people were wont to protest their fidelity to the existing Roman Church. He further asked of the Cardinal toleration for the Protestant peculiarities, on the ground that they were “insignificant matters which might be allowed or passed over in silence”; at any rate “some pretext might easily be found for tolerating them, at least until a Council should be summoned.”[1098] Campeggio and his advisers refused to be led astray by such assurances. On the other hand, some representatives of the Curia, theologians or dignitaries of the German Church, allowed themselves to be cajoled by Melanchthon’s promises to the extent of entering into negotiations with him in the hope of bringing him back to the Church.[1099] Such was, for instance, in 1537, the position of Cardinal Sadolet. To Sadolet, Johann Fabri sent the following warning: “Only the man who is clever enough to cure an incurable malady, will succeed in leading Philip—a real Vertumnus and Proteus—back to the right path.”[1100] Melanchthon was nevertheless pleased to be able to announce that Cardinal Campeggio had stated he could grant a dispensation for Communion under both kinds and priestly marriage.[1101] With this Luther was not much impressed: “I reply,” he wrote to his friends in the words of Amsdorf, “that I s—— on the dispensation of the Legate and his master; _we_ can find dispensations enough.”[1102] His own contention always was and remained the following: “As I have always declared, I am ready to concede everything, but they must let us have the Evangel.”[1103] To Spalatin, he says later: “Are we to crave of Legate and Pope what they may be willing to grant us? Do, I beg you, speak to them in the fashion of Amsdorf.”[1104] On the abyss which really separated the followers of the new faith from the Church, Luther’s coarse and violent writing, “Vermanũg an die Geistlichen zu Augsburg,” throws a lurid light. Luther also frequently wrote to cheer Melanchthon and to remind him of the firmness which was needed.