come to nought.”[421] The first place, however, belongs to the account of Cœlius, who, by his mention of the tears Luther shed, sets vividly before the reader the commotion into which the apparition, which had occurred shortly before, had thrown him. Excitement and trouble of mind were then pressing heavily on the aging man. His frame of mind was caused not merely by the quarrel between the “wrangling Counts” of Mansfeld with whom “no remonstrances or prayers brought any help,”[422] not merely by his usual “temptations,” but also, as Ratzeberger tells us, by the healing up of the incision in the left leg, he (Ratzeberger) had made, and which now led to bodily disorders. The disorders now made common cause with his “annoyance melancholy and grief.” The “violent mental excitement,” together with the bad effects of the healing up of the artificial wound, were, according to this physician, what “brought about his death.” Ratzeberger was not, however, then at Eisleben and we are in possession of more accurate accounts of the circumstances attending Luther’s death. In explanation of Luther’s singular delusion regarding the jeering devil we may remark that he is fond of attributing the obstacles in the way of peace to the devil’s wrath and envy. “It seems to me that the devil is mocking us,” he writes of the difficulties on Feb. 6, “may God mock at him in return!”[423] The Eisleben councillor, Andreas Friedrich, writes to Agricola on Feb. 17 (18) of these same concerns, that Luther, when he found there was still no prospect of a settlement, had complained: “As I see, Satan turns his back on me and jeers as well.”[424] Here, curiously enough, we have exactly what occurred at the fountain. If the apparition, as is highly probable, belongs somewhat later, then we may assume that the vivid picture of the devil under this particular shape with which Luther was so familiar led finally to some sort of hallucination. His extravagant ideas of Satan generally might, in fact, have been sufficient. Everything that went against him was “Satanic,” and his only hope is that “God will make a mockery of Satan.”[425]