The treatment of the sectarians in the Saxon Electorate was in keeping with the theories and counsels of Luther and his theologians. Relentless measures were taken against them on account of their deviation from the faith even when no charge of sedition was forthcoming. On Jan. 15, 1532, the Elector Johann admitted the following as his guiding principle for interfering: “It is the duty of the authorities to punish such teachers and seducers, with God and with a good conscience.… For were heretics and contemners of the Word of God not punished we should be acting against the prescribed laws which we are in every way bound to observe.”[893] As early as 1527 twelve men and one woman, who had received baptism at each other’s hands, were beheaded.[894] Similar executions took place in 1530, 1532 and 1538.[895] In 1539 the members of the Wittenberg High Court wrote concerning three Anabaptists then in prison at Eisenach: “If they do not recant or allow themselves to be reduced to obedience, it will be right and proper that they be put to death by the sword, on account of such blasphemy and because they have allowed themselves to be baptised elsewhere.” Of any seditious teaching there was no question in these proceedings.[896] One Anabaptist, Fritz Erbe, who had only gone astray in matters of faith, was kept in jail from 1530 to 1541, when death set him free.[897] Hans Sturm and Peter Pestel, both of Zwickau, were harmless sectarians without any seditious leanings; the first was put in prison in 1529 and died there; the latter was beheaded on June 16, 1536.[898] Hans Steinsdorf and Hans Hamster, were condemned to death in 1538 as “stubborn blasphemers.”[899] In the ’forties Duke Henry of Saxony caused an Anabaptist to be burnt as a heretic at Dresden.[900] The Saxon lawyer, Matthias Coler (†1587), taught in his “_Decisiones Germaniæ_,” that, according to the laws of Saxony those were to be punished by death at the stake (“_de iure saxonico cremandi veniunt_”) who openly denied either the Divinity of Christ, or other important truths of faith; before being burnt they were, however, to be questioned under torture concerning their confederates in order that the land might be purged of such wicked men.[901] In thus interfering the sovereigns were well aware that they had the warm official approval of Luther and his fellows. To this, for instance, the Elector Johann Frederick appealed in 1533 when milder measures were suggested. He referred to the memorandum which his father had obtained from the Wittenberg theologians and lawyers concerning the execution of the Anabaptists; their decision had been, “that His Highness might with a good conscience cause those charged with Anabaptism to be punished by death,” and, soon after, several of them were executed.[902] The person who had thought otherwise, and to whom this vindication was accordingly addressed, was no less a man than Landgrave Philip of Hesse.