At the very commencement of the Diary of Cordatus, Luther is recorded as saying: “The Pope has lost his cunning. It is stupid of him still to seek to lead people astray under the pretence of religion, now that mankind has seen through the devil’s trickery. To maintain his kingdom by force is equally foolish because it is impracticable.”[999]--He proceeds in a similar strain: “The Papists, like the Jews, insist that everyone who wishes to be saved must observe their ceremonies, hence they will perish like the Jews.”[1000]--He maliciously quotes an old rhyme in connection with the Pope, who is both the “head of the world” and “the beast of the earth,” and, in support of this, adduces abundant quotations from the Apocalypse.[1001]--When Daniel declared that Antichrist would trouble neither about God nor about woman (xi. 37), this meant that “the Pope would recognise neither God nor lawful wives, that, in a word, he would despise religion and all domestic and social life, which all turned on womankind. Thus may we understand what was foretold, viz. that Antichrist would despise all laws, ordinances, statutes, rights and every good usage, contemn kings, princes, empires and everything that exists in heaven or on earth merely the better to extol his fond inventions.”[1002]--It is difficult to assume that all this was mere rhetoric, for, then, why was it persisted in? Intentionally hyperbolical utterances are as a rule brief. In these conversations, however, the tone never changes, but merely becomes at times even more emphatic. On the same page in Cordatus we read: “Children are lucky in that they come into the world naked and penniless; for the Pope levies toll on everything there is on the earth, save only upon baptism, because he can’t help it.”[1003] And immediately after: “The Pope has ceased to be a teacher and has become, as his Decretals testify, a belly-server and speculator. In the Decretals he treats not at all of theological matters but merely pursues three self-seeking ends: First, he does everything to strengthen his domination; secondly, he does his best to set the kings and princes at loggerheads with each other whenever he wants to score off one of the great, in doing which he does not scruple to show openly his malice; thirdly, he plays the devil most cunningly, when, with a friendly air, he allays the dissensions he had previously stirred up among the sovereigns; this, however, he only does when his own ends have been achieved. He also perverts the truth of God’s Word [thus invading the theological field]. This, however, he does not do as Pope, but as Antichrist and God’s real enemy.”[1004]