Hoen at the Hague, Hinne Rode at Utrecht, Gerard Lister at Zwolle, Melchior Miritzsch at Ghent, were soon in correspondence with Luther and became missionaries of his faith.

His books, which circulated among the learned in Latin, were some of them translated into Dutch as early as 1520.
The German commercial colony at Antwerp was another channel for the infiltration of the Lutheran gospel.

[Sidenote: 1520-1] The many travelers, among them Albert Duerer, brought with them tidings of the revolt and sowed its seeds in the soil of Flanders and Holland.
Singularly enough, the colony of Portuguese Jews, the Marranos as they were called, became, if not converts, at least active agents in the dissemination of Lutheran works.
[Sidenote: Catholic answers] A vigorous counter-propaganda was at once started by the partisans of the pope.

This was directed against both Erasmus and Luther and consisted largely, according to the reports of the former, in the most violent invective.

Nicholas of Egmont, "a man with a white pall but a black heart" stormed in the pulpit against the new heretics.