Israel:  before he began preaching there was peace and quiet, now all is confusion. (9, 587.) He is held responsible for the Peasants’ Revolt and the rise of the Sacramentarian sects. (22, 1602.) A laborer whom his wife had hired became drunk and committed murder; at once the rumor was spread that Luther kept a murderer as his servant. (21b, 2225.) What he writes is represented as having been inspired by envy, pride, bitterness, yea, by Satan himself; those, however, who write against him are regarded as being inspired by the Holy Ghost. (18, 2005.) He observes that beggars become rich, obtain favors from princes and kings, remunerative positions, honors, and bishoprics by turning against him. (18, 2005.) Some attribute the election of Adrian VI as Pope to Luther (this Pope was believed to favor reforms:  he did not last long); and Luther expects that he is helping Dr. Schmid to become a cardinal because he is opposing him. (19, 1347.) Dunces become doctors, knaves become saints, and the most besotted characters are glorified when they try their vile mouths and pens against Luther. (19, 1347.) The easiest way for any man to become a canonized saint even during his lifetime, though he were a person of the stripe of a Nero or Caligula, is by hating Luther. (18, 2005.) On the cover of the pamphlet containing his Sermon on the Sacrament Luther ordered a picture consisting of two monstrances printed; this was promptly explained to mean that he had adopted the Bohemian errors, for Hus had administered the Lord’s Supper in both kinds. (19, 457.) Some pretended that they could see two geese in this picture; the meaning was plain:  one of them signified Hus (Hus in Bohemian means goose), the other, Luther. (19, 458.)

Luther would not have been human if incidents like these had not caused him pain.  Occasionally he would give vent to his grief, but his manly courage, too, would soon assert itself, and he would expose the hollowness, insincerity, and futility of the lying tales that were spread about him.  At a public meeting in Campo Flore he was cursed, sentenced to death, and burned in effigy. (21a, 174.) He has read offensive reports about himself, and puts them down with the calm declaration:  There is not a man that writes against Luther without having to resort to horrible and manifest lies. (19, 583.) He is sure that he has not had an opponent who in an argument would stick to the point; they all had to evade the issue. (22, 658.) Shameful falsehoods are canvassed about him at the court of King Ferdinand (15, 2623); Luther comforts himself with the reflection that others have suffered the same vilification before him, for instance, Wyclif, Hus, and others (5, 308).  Besides, he is able to understand that the real reason why the papists regard him as such a perverse and untractable person is because they are utterly perverse themselves. (4, 1499.)