It was a convent of the Augustinian Eremites, perhaps the most highly esteemed of monastic orders by the common people of Germany during the earlier decades of the sixteenth century. They represented the very best type of that superstitious mediæval revival which has been already described.(134) It is a mistake to suppose that because they bore the name of Augustine, the evangelical theology of the great Western Father was known to them. Their leading theologians belonged to another and very different school. The two teachers of theology in the Erfurt convent, when Luther entered in 1505, were John Genser of Paltz, and John Nathin of Neuenkirchen. The former was widely known from his writings in favour of the strictest form of papal absolutism, of the doctrine of _Attrition_, and of the efficacy of papal _Indulgences_. It is not probable that Luther was one of his pupils; for he retired broken in health and burdened with old age in 1507.(135) The latter, though unknown beyond the walls of the convent, was an able and severe master. He was an ardent admirer of Gabriel Biel, of Peter d’Ailly, and of William of Occam their common master. He thought little of any independent study of the Holy Scriptures. “Brother Martin,” he once said to Luther, “let the Bible alone; read the old teachers; they give you the whole marrow of the Bible; reading the Bible simply breeds unrest.”(136) Afterwards he commanded Luther on his canonical obedience to refrain from Bible study.(137) It was he who made Luther read and re-read the writings of Biel, d’Ailly, and Occam, until he had committed to memory long passages; and who taught the Reformer to consider Occam “his dear Master.” Nathin was a determined opponent of the Reformation until his death in 1529; but Luther always spoke of him with respect, and said that he was “a Christian man in spite of his monk’s cowl.”