At first Luther was loath under the circumstances to advise the setting up in Naumburg of a bishop of the new faith. To him and to his advisers the step appeared too dangerous. Nevertheless, on hearing of the election of Pflug, he wrote as follows to the Elector: These Naumburg canons “are desperate people and the devil’s very own. But what cannot be carried off openly, may be won by waiting. Some day God will let it fall into your Electoral Highness’s hands, and the devil’s wiseacres will be caught in their own wisdom.”[694] When, however, the Elector obstinately insisted on putting into execution his plan, contrary to justice and to the laws of the Empire as it was, and when his agents had already begun to govern the new territory, Luther’s views and those of the Wittenberg theologians gradually changed. It was difficult, they wrote, to “map out beforehand the order” of the German Church; the question whether they would have bishops, or do without, had not yet been decided; meanwhile the Prince had better establish a consistory. Later on, however, they advised the appointment of a bishop, for the Church cannot be without its bishop and the Chapter had forfeited its rights; there was, nevertheless, to be a real and genuine election at which the faithful were to be represented.[695] Luther and his friends wanted to have as bishop Prince George of Anhalt, Canon of Magdeburg and Merseburg, who shared the Wittenberg views. To the Elector, however, who had other plans of his own, it seemed, that, owing to his position, this Prince might not prove an easy tool in his sovereign’s hands. Nicholas Amsdorf, preacher at Magdeburg, who for long years had been Luther’s associate, was accounted one of his most determined supporters and, as time went on, even gained for himself the reputation of being “more Lutheran than Luther,” appeared a more likely candidate. It was no difficult matter to secure Luther’s consent. He gave Amsdorf the following testimonial: “He was richly endowed by God, learned and proficient in Holy Scripture, more so than the whole crowd of Papists; also a man of good life and faithful and upright at heart.” The fact that he was unmarried was a recommendation for the post, even from the point of view of “Papal law.”[696] It has already been mentioned that Amsdorf was later on to write the book “That good works are harmful to Salvation,” and that, previously, about 1525, he was active in making matches between the escaped nuns and the leaders of the innovations. Melanchthon, writing to Johannes Ferinarius, says: “He was an adulterer, and lay with the wife of his deacon at Magdeburg”; of this we hear from the Luther researcher J. K. Seidemann, who quotes from a Dresden MS.[697] _The Ceremony at Naumburg_