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Melanchthon, it is true, admitted that he was reading it
a good deal; and he and Oecolampadius agreed that it contained
many good points; but any slight praise was soon drowned by
the general chorus of denunciation. To Luther it seemed “an
abominably wicked book”; Melanchthon foresaw (correctly
enough, as the event proved) great tragedies resulting from
it; Oecolampadius saw the whole Reformation imperiled by this
new Hydra, if he were tolerated, since the Emperor would hold
the Protestant churches responsible for these odious blasphemies;
Bucer said from his pulpit that the author deserved to be
drawn and quartered; and the vocabulary in general was exhausted
for offensive epithets to heap upon him. It was charged that
he must have gone to Africa and learned his doctrine from
the Moors, and that he was in secret league with the Grand
Turk who was just then threatening to conquer Christian Europe.
As soon as the character of the book became generally known
the sale of it was forbidden at Basel and Strassburg; and
when it was brought next year to the notice of Quintana, to
his infinite chagrin that it should have been written by one
who had been his protégé, he had “that
most pestilent book” at once prohibited throughout the
Empire. So thoroughly was it suppressed that some twenty years
later, when a copy was eagerly wanted at Geneva in the trial
of Servetus for heresy, not one could be found.
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