Writing to Cardinal Sadoleto, Johann Fabri, Bishop of Vienna, says, “Would that Melanchthon had pursued his studies on the lines indicated by his teacher Capnion [Reuchlin]! Would that he had but remained content with the rhetoric and grammar of the ancients instead of allowing his youthful ardour to carry him away, to turn the true religion into a tragedy! But alas ... when barely eighteen years of age he began to teach the simple, and, by his soft speeches, he has disturbed the whole Church beyond measure. And even after so many years he is still unable to see his error or to desist from the doctrines once imbibed and from furthering such lamentable disorders.”[1002] To this letter Fabri appended excerpts from various writings of Melanchthon’s as “specimens of what his godless pen had produced against the truth and the peace of the Church.” Others, for instance Eck and Cochlæus, in their descriptions of Melanchthon dwell on the traits that displeased them in their personal intercourse with him. Johann Eck compares the way in which Melanchthon twice outwitted Cardinal Campeggio to the false arts of Sinon the Greek, known to us from Virgil’s account of the introduction of the wooden horse into Troy.[1003] Johann Cochlæus, who had met him at Augsburg, calls him the “fox,” and once warns a friend: “Take care lest he cheat you with his deceitful cunning, for, like the Sirens, he gains a hearing by sweet and honeyed words; he makes a hypocritical use of lying; he is ever planning how he may win men’s hearts by all manner of wiles, and seduces them with dishonest words.”[1004] About the same time in a printed reply to Melanchthon’s “Apologia,” he drew an alarming picture of the latter’s trickery at the Diet of Augsburg. By worming himself into the confidence of the Princes and great men present, Melanchthon learned, so he says, things that were little to the credit of the Catholic Church; these he afterwards retailed to Luther, who at once, after duly embellishing them, flung the tales broadcast amongst the people by means of the press. Melanchthon made not the slightest attempt to correct his statements, as he was in duty bound to do, and his honeyed words merely fed the flames.[1005] “Most people,” he writes elsewhere, “if not all, have hitherto supposed Melanchthon to be much milder and more moderate than Luther”; such persons should, however, study his writings carefully, and then they would soon see how unspeakably bitter was his feeling against Catholics.[1006]