Munzer also possessed a fiery tongue, which he used with admirable skill, to inflame and arouse the peasants; this time victory remained with the man of the sledge-hammer. And Luther, who wished to terminate the affair at any cost, was reduced, as is well known, to avail himself of the sword of one of his electors. The wrecks which escaped from the funeral obsequies of Thuringia took refuge in a new land. France received and listened to the prophets of Anabaptism. These Anabaptists maintained seducing doctrines. They dreamed of a sort of Jerusalem, very different from the Jewish Jerusalem; a Jerusalem quite spiritual, without swords, soldiers, or civil magistracy: the true city of the elect. Their speech was infected with Pelagianism and Arianism; on several points of dogma they agreed with Catholics--on predestination, for example, and on the merit of works. Some of them taught the sleep of the soul till the day of judgment. It was against these "sleepers" that Calvin determined to measure himself. The _Commentary on Seneca_ is a philological work, a book of the revival, a rhetorical declamation, in which Calvin is evidently aspiring to a place among the humanists, and making his court, in sufficiently fine Latin, to all the Ciceronians of the age: this was bringing himself forward with skill and tact. The Latin language was the idiom of the Church, of the convents, colleges, universities, and parliaments. The _Psychopannychia_ is a religious pamphlet, and now Calvin must expect a rival in the first pamphleteer of Germany, Luther himself. It is certain that Calvin was acquainted with the writings of the Saxon monk against Eck, Tetzel, Prierias, Latomus, and the Sorbonnists. He must be praised for not having dreamed of entering the lists against a spirit of such a temper as his rival. Had he desired, after Luther's manner, to deal in caricature, he would certainly have failed. Sallies, play upon words, and conceits did not suit a mind like his, whose forte was finesse. By nature sober, he could not, like the Saxon monk, fertilize his brain in enormous pots of beer; moreover, beer was not as yet in use beyond the Rhine.