In connection with the legend of his kindliness, Loesche refers to a remark made by Melanchthon, according to the “_Dicta_,” about the year 1553: “Whoever murders a tyrant, as did those who murdered N. in Lithuania, offers a holocaust to God.”[1189] Such views regarding the lawfulness of murdering tyrants he seems to have derived from his study of the classics. He had, moreover, already given expression to them long before this, referring to Henry VIII. of England, who had ceased to favour the Reformation as conducted in Germany. In a letter to his friend Veit Dietrich he wishes, that God would send a brave assassin to rid the world of the tyrant.[1190] Melanchthon was in reality far from tolerant, and in his demands for the punishment of heretics he went to great lengths. It is generally known how he gave it as his opinion, in 1557, that the execution of the Spanish doctor, Michael Servetus, which took place at Geneva in 1553 at the instance of Calvin, was a “pious and memorable example for posterity.”[1191] He wrote to Calvin, on October 14, 1554, concerning the proceedings against Servetus, who had denied the Trinity as well as the divinity of Christ, as follows: “I agree entirely with your sentence; I also declare that your authorities have acted wisely and justly in putting this blasphemous man to death.”[1192] When the severity of the step was blamed by some, he expressed his surprise at the objectors in a letter of August 20, 1555, to Bullinger at Zürich, and sent him a little treatise defending and recommending similar sentences.[1193] He there proves that false doctrines should be treated as notorious blasphemies, and that the secular authorities were accordingly bound by the Divine law to punish them with the utmost severity; Divine chastisements were to be apprehended should the authorities, out of a false sense of pity, show themselves remiss in extirpating erroneous doctrines. Such was indeed the teaching at Wittenberg, as evinced, for instance, by a disputation at the University, where Melanchthon’s friend and colleague, George Major, branded the contrary opinion as “impudent and abominable.”[1194]