The latter assertion is only too fully confirmed by the extracts already put before the reader, particularly by those from his Schmalkalden tract on the Pope, from his Introduction to the new edition of Luther’s “Warnunge” and from the “Confession” just alluded to.[1007] Here there glows such deep hatred of the faith and practices of the Catholic Church that one seeks in vain for the common ground on which his professed love for union could thrive. His conciliatory proposals were, however, in fact nothing more than the vague and barren cravings of a Humanist. In connection with this a characteristic, already pointed out, which runs through the whole of Melanchthon’s religious attitude and strongly differentiates him from Luther, merits being emphasised anew. This is the shallow, numbing spirit which penetrates alike his theology and his philosophy, and the humanistic tendency to reduce everything to uniformity. That, in his theological vocabulary he is fond of using classical terms (speaking, for instance, of the heavenly “Academy” where we attend the “school” of the Apostles and Prophets)[1008] is a detail; he goes much further and makes suspiciously free with the whole contents of the faith, whether for the sake of reducing it to system, or for convenience, or in order to promote peace.[1009] It would have fared ill with Melanchthon had he applied to himself in earnest what Luther said of those who want to be wiser than God, who follow their crazy reason and seek to bring about an understanding between Christ and ... the devil. But Melanchthon’s character was pliant enough not to be unduly hurt by such words of Luther’s. He was able, on the one hand, to regard Bucer and the Swiss as his close allies on the question of the Supper and, on the other, while all the time sticking fast to Luther, he could declare that on the whole he entirely agreed with the religious views of Erasmus, the very “antipodes of Luther.” It was only his lack of any real religious depth which enabled him so to act. In a sketch of Erasmus which he composed for one of his pupils in 1557, he even makes the former, in spite of all his hostility to Luther, to share much the same way of thinking, a fact which draws from Kawerau the complaint: “So easy was it for Melanchthon to close his eyes to the doctrinal differences which existed even amongst the ‘_docti_.’”[1010]