e, had been brought to bear on the elector
Frederick[25] to induce him not to take the part of Luther, and the
chief agent chosen for working on the Elector and the emperor Maximilian
was the papal legate, Cardinal Thomas Vio of Gaeta, called Cajetan, who
had made his appearance in Germany. The University of Wittenberg, on the
other hand, interposed on behalf of their member, whose theology was
popular there, and whose biblical lectures attracted crowds of
enthusiastic hearers. He had just been joined at Wittenberg by his
fellow-professor Philip Melanchthon, then only twenty-one years old, but
already in the first rank of Greek scholars, and the bond of friendship
was now formed which lasted through their lives. The university claimed
that Luther should at least be tried in Germany. Luther expressed the
same wish through Spalatin[26] to his sovereign.

The Pope meanwhile had passed from his previous state of haughty
complacency to one of violent haste. Already, on August 23d, thus long
before the sixty days had expired, he demanded the Elector to deliver up
this "child of the devil," who boasted of his protection, to the legate,
to bring away with him. This is clearly shown by two private briefs from
the Pope, of August 23d and 25th, the one addressed to the legate, the
other to the head of all the Augustinian convents in Saxony, as
distinguished from the vicar of those congregations, Staupitz, who
already was looked on with suspicion at Rome. These briefs instructed
both men to hasten the arrest of the heretic; his adherents were to be
secured with him, and every place where he was tolerated laid under the
interdict.

In the summer of 1518 a diet was held at Augsburg at which the papal
legate attended. The Pope was anxious to obtain its consent to the
imposition of a heavy tax throughout the empire, to be applied
ostensibly for the war against the Turks, but alleged to be wanted in
reality for entirely other objects. The demand for a tax, however, was
received with the utmost disfavor both by the diet and the empire; and a
long-cherished bitterness of feeling now found expression. An anonymous
pamphlet was circulated, from the pen of one Fischer, a prebendary of
Wuerzburg, which bluntly declared that the avaricious lords of Rome only
wished to cheat the "drunken Germans," and that the real Turks were to
be looked for in Italy. This pamphlet reached Wittenberg and fell into
the hands of Luther, whom now for the first t