Reformation could have easily been derailed. While Luther’s was hiding in Wartburg Castle, the town of Wittenberg was in an uproar as wild rumours about his death abounded. In the void left by his absence stepped the so-called “Zwickau prophets,” three semiliterate men from Zwickau who believed that God spoke to them. They preached an urgent apocalypticism and rejected infant baptism as a “dog’s bath.” Clergy and citizens alike were deeply confused. The university was close to collapse. At the behest of Elector Friedrich, who was concerned about the lack of order, Luther came back, denounced the prophets and had them expelled from town.