Note 262 — Chapter III

Various passages which are supposed to prove Luther’s moral faults, or defects in his character, have simply been passed over in the above as insufficient. Thus what he says regarding his state in the monastery: “Even where it was only a question of a small temptation of death or sin, I fell” (“Werke,” Erl. ed., 31, p. 279). This “fall,” according to the context, does not refer to a yielding to the attacks of evil desires, but the ostensible melting away of his trust in a merciful God. It is quite apparent that “a temptation of death” cannot be understood in the former, but only in the latter sense. Luther once says that the doctrine that sin is expelled all at once and that grace is infused also all at once in justification drives a man to despair, as his own experience teaches; for it is clear that sin dwells in the heart together with good, anger with mildness, sensuality with chastity (“Werke,” Weim. ed., 4, p. 664; “Opp. Lat. var.,” 1, p. 73 seq.); but he refers this whole explanation not to actual giving way to concupiscence, but simply to the inevitable continuance of concupiscence in the righteous, which he, it is true, calls sin. We may also mention here the text wrongly quoted in which, as a proof of his haughty bearing, speaking of a certain theological interpretation, he says: “legi mille auctores,” though he was then but a young man (“Werke,” Weim. ed., 9, p. 62; gloss to the Sentences). What he really says is: “lege mille auctores,” i.e. you will not find it otherwise in a thousand writers; the “legi” is only a misprint.