Note 76 — Chapter XXXV · (Continued) LUTHER’S ATTITUDE TOWARDS SOCIETY AND EDUCATION

The violence of the tone in which Luther speaks of the Universities in the writings which followed his “An den Adel,” as the real strongholds of the devil on earth, has perhaps never been equalled in any attack on these institutions either before or after his day. See passages in Janssen, ib., Engl. Trans., iii., passim. Some of the preachers of the pure Gospel, who soon sprang up in great numbers, went a step further: “The Word of God alone was sufficient and in order to understand it what was required was, not learning, but the spirit.” Paulsen, “Gesch. des gelehrten Unterrichts,” 1², p. 185.