Melanchthon characterised the Book of Confutation published by the Duke of Saxony in 1558, and finally revised by Flacius, as a “congeries of sophisms” which he had perused with great pain, and as “venomous sophistry.” He therefore once more begged for his dismissal.[996] His longing for death as a happy release from such bitter affliction we find expressed in many of his letters. To Sigismund Gelous of Eperies in Hungary he wrote, on May 20, 1559, that he was not averse to departing this life owing to the attacks on his person, and in order that he might behold “the light of the Heavenly Academy” and become partaker of its wisdom.[997] He looked forward, so he writes to another, to that light “where God is all in all and where there is no more sophistry or calumny.”[998] Only a few days before his death he solaced himself by drawing up some notes entitled: “Reasons why you should fear death less.” On the left of the sheet he wrote: “You will escape from sin, and will be delivered from all trouble and the fury of the theologians (‘_liberaberis ab ærumnis et a rabie theologorum_’)”; and, on the right: “You will attain to the light, you will behold God, you will look on the Son of God, you will see into those wonderful mysteries which you have been unable to comprehend in this life, such as why we are created as we are, and how the two natures are united in Christ.”[999] He finally departed this life on April 19, 1560, from the results of a severe cold. _Review of Melanchthon’s Religious Position as a whole_ Melanchthon’s last work was a “strong protest against Catholicism,” which at the same time embodied an abstract of his whole doctrine—such as it had become during the later years of his life. This work he calls his “Confession”; it is professedly aimed at the “godless Articles of the Bavarian Inquisition,” i.e. was intended to counteract the efforts of Duke Albert of Bavaria to preserve his country from the inroads of Protestantism.[1000] In this “Confession,” dating from the evening of his days, the “so-peaceful” Melanchthon bluntly describes the Pope and all his train (_satellites_) as “defenders of idols”; according to him they “withstand the known truth, and cruelly rage against the pious.”[1001] This book, with its superficial humanistic theology, justifies, like so many of his earlier works, the opinion of learned Catholic contemporaries who regretted that the word of a scholar devoid of any sound theological training should exercise so much influence over the most far-reaching religious questions of the day.