I admit that for some years I was very favorably inclined to Luther's enterprise [wrote Crotus Rubeanus in 1531] [Sidenote: Rubeanus], but when I saw that nothing was left untorn and undefiled . . . I thought the devil might bring in great evil in the guise of something good, using Scripture as his shield. So I decided to remain in the church in which I was baptized, reared and taught. Even if some fault might be found in it, yet in time it {104} might have been proved, sooner, at any rate, than in the new church which in a few years has been torn by so many sects. Wilibald Pirckheimer, the Greek scholar and historian of Nuremberg, hailed Luther so warmly at first that he was put under the ban of the bull _Exsurge Domine_. By 1529, however, he had come to believe him insolent, impudent, either insane or possessed by a devil. I do not deny [he wrote] that at the beginning all Luther's acts did not seem to be vain, since no good man could be pleased with all those errors and impostures that had accumulated gradually in Christianity. So, with others, I hoped that some remedy might be applied to such great evils, but I was cruelly deceived. For, before the former errors had been extirpated, far more intolerable ones crept in, compared to which the others seemed child's play. [Sidenote: Appeal to Erasmus] To Erasmus, the wise, the just, all men turned as to an arbiter of opinion. From the first, Luther counted on his support, and not without reason, for the humanist spoke well of the Theses and commentaries of the Wittenberger. On March 28, 1519, Luther addressed a letter to him, as "our glory and hope," acknowledging his indebtedness and begging for support. Erasmus answered in a friendly way, at the same time sending a message encouraging the Elector Frederic to defend his innocent subject.