The initial proceedings of Carlstadt had vexed Luther's soul, but he was violently antipathetic to the Zwickau enthusiasts. He vehemently repudiated their appeal to force in order to regenerate the Church. He recalled the fact that by spiritual methods alone he had routed Tetzel and his minions and defied with impunity both Emperor and Pope. He probably foresaw that the Reformation would be. ruined by its association with the crude social democracy of Münzer and Storch, but in any case his personal instincts would alone have been sufficient to make him hostile; and when he had made up his mind to a course, no considerations of prudence or of his own safety could deter him from pursuing it. Braving the ban of the Empire and disregarding the Elector's stringent commands he left the Wartburg and reappeared at Wittenberg on March 6, 1522. His action required at least as much courage as his journey to Worms, and the demonstration of his influence was far more striking. In a course of eight sermons he rallied almost the whole of the town to his side. Zwilling confessed his errors; Carlstadt, Münzer, and Stübner soon departed to labour in other fields, and most of the work of destruction was repaired. Luther himself retained his cowl and lived in the Augustinian monastery, and scope was afforded for every man's scruples regarding the Mass; in one church it was celebrated with all the old Catholic rites, in another the Eucharist was administered in one or in both forms according to individual taste, and in a third the bread and the wine were always given to the laity.
Luther had vindicated the conservative character of the Reformation as he conceived it; he had checked the swing of the pendulum in one direction, and had thereby moderated the force of its recoil; but he could not prevent it from swinging back altogether. It had gone too far for that under the impetus supplied by himself, and a reaction based upon real conviction was slowly developing itself and coming to the rescue of the storm-tossed Catholic Church. The first force to react under the antagonism produced by the rejection of Catholic dogma was the humanist movement. The body was shattered, and some of its members joined the doctrinal Reformers; but the majority, including the great leader of the movement, took up a more and more hostile position. When Luther was thought to have been killed, many turned to Erasmus as Luther's successor. "Give ear, thou knight-errant of Christ," wrote Dürer, "ride on by the Lord Christ's side; defend the truth, reach forth to the martyr's crown." But that was a crown which Erasmus never desired; still less would he seek it in a cause which threatened to ruin his most cherished designs. Theology, he complained, bade fair to absorb all the humanities; and the theology of Luther was as hateful to- him as that of Louvain. The dogmas, which appealed to men of the iron cast of Luther and Calvin, repelled cultured men of the world like Erasmus; for scholars and artists are essentially aristocratic in temperament and firmly attached to that doctrine of individual merit which Luther and Calvin
