Apart from all this one may even question whether the Landgrave’s disclosures were really honestly meant. Not everyone would have taken them from the outset as intended seriously, or have regarded them as above suspicion. Melanchthon, for instance, soon began to have doubts. (See below.) The readiness, nay, eagerness, shown by Philip later to repeat his Confession to others, to reinforce it by even more appalling admissions of wickedness, and to give it the fullest publicity, is really not favourable to the “Confession” idea; on the contrary, it reminds us of the morbid pleasure which persons habituated to vice and who have lost all respect whether for themselves or for the virtue of others, take in speaking openly of their moral lapses. The most important point to bear in mind is, however, the fact, that with Philip of Hesse it was a question of a marriage which he intended should be kept secret only for a time, and further that the Wittenbergers were aware of Philip’s readiness to lay his case before the Emperor, nay, even the Pope should necessity arise.[93] Owing to this they could not be blind to the possibility of the marriage, and, incidentally, of the Landgrave’s admission of moral necessity, and further of their own “advice” being all disclosed. Thus the “Seal of Confession” was threatened from the very first. Philip himself never recognised a binding obligation of secrecy on the part of the Wittenbergers; on the contrary, his invitation to them was: Speak out freely, now that the step has been taken with your sanction! What was Luther’s answer? He appealed to the Secret of the Confessional and refused to defend the act before the world and the Empire, but merely “before God”; all he was willing to do was to vindicate it “before God, by examples such as that of Abraham, etc., and to conceal it as much as possible.” And yet, to forestall what will be related below, full publicity would surely have been the best thing for himself, as then the world would at least have learnt that he was not desirous of introducing polygamy generally, and that the whole business had only been made common property through Philip’s disregard of the recommendation of secrecy. Instead of this, however, he preferred to profess his readiness (it was probably no more than a threat) to admit publicly that he had been in the wrong all along and had acted foolishly; here again, had he been true to his word, the “Secret of the Confessional” would assuredly have fared badly. Even in his letter of excuse to the Elector Johann Frederick concerning his sanction of the bigamy, Luther explained so much of the incident, that the “Seal of Confession” was practically violated; quite unmindful of the inviolability of the Seal he here declared, that he would have preferred to say nothing of the “counsel given in Confession had not necessity” forced him to do so. But what kind of Seal of Confession was this, we may ask, which could thus be set aside in case of necessity?