On May 31, 1523, was canonised the venerable bishop Benno of Meissen, a contemporary of Gregory VII. Luther was incensed to the last degree at the thought of the special celebration to be held in 1524 in the town—the Duchy being still Catholic—in honour of the new Saint. He accordingly published his “Against the new idol and olden devil about to be set up at Meyssen.”[452] His use of the term “devil” in the title he vindicates as follows on the very first page: Now, that, “by the grace of God, the Gospel has again arisen and shines brightly,” “Satan incarnate” is avenging himself “by means of such foolery” and is causing himself to be worshipped with great pomp under the name of Benno. It was not in his power to prevent Duke George setting up the relics at Meissen and erecting an artistic and costly altar in their honour. The only result of Luther’s attack was to increase the devotion of clergy and people, who confidently invoked the saintly bishop’s protection against the inroads of apostasy. The attack also led Catholic writers in the Duchy to publish some bitter rejoinders. The rudeness of their titles bears witness to their indignation. “Against the Wittenberg idol Martin Luther” was the title of the pamphlet of Augustine Alveld, a Franciscan Guardian; the work of Paul Bachmann, Abbot of Alte Zelle, was entitled “Against the fiercely snorting wild-boar Luther,” and that of Hieronymus Emser, “Reply to Luther’s slanderous book.” The last writer was to some extent involved in the matter of the canonisation through having published the Legend of the famous Bishop. This he had done rather uncritically and without testing his authorities, and for this reason had been read a severe lesson by Luther. Luther’s opposition to this canonisation was, however, by no means dictated by historical considerations but by his hatred of all veneration of the Saints and by his aversion to the ideal of Christian self-denial, submissive obedience to the Church and Catholic activity of which the canonised Saints are models. He himself makes it easy to answer the question whether it was zeal for the moral reformation of the Church which drove him to assail canonisation and the veneration of the Saints; nowhere else is his attempt to destroy the sublime ideal of Christian life which he failed to understand and to drag down to the gutter all that was highest so clearly apparent as here. The real Saints, so he declared, were his Wittenbergers. Striving after great holiness on the part of the individual merely tended to derogate from Christ’s work; the Evangelical Counsels fostered only a mistaken desertion of the world.