Finally we come to the charge that Erasmus, in his paraphrase of the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, had allowed "a little something" to the freedom of the human will. This is our first encounter with a strictly dogmatic question, the one by which the whole Lutheran position was to stand or fall. We have, however, prepared ourselves for Erasmus' inevitable attitude on this point by noting his insistence, throughout all his moral teaching, upon the individual will as the dominant motive. For the moment he defends himself only by declaring that in his Paraphrase he is merely following all the best authorities in the Church from Origen to Aquinas. He wrote the passage in question in 1517, before Luther had appeared, so that it can in no way be thought of as an attack upon him. Moreover, it is the mildest possible statement of a free-will doctrine. "_Some_ weight is to be given to our will and our endeavour, but so little that in comparison with the grace of God it seems to be as nothing. No man is condemned, except by his own fault; but no one is saved, except by God's grace.... I saw on the one hand Scylla luring us on to confidence in works, which I believe to be the worst plague of religion. On the other hand I saw Charybdis, a worse monster yet, by whom many are now being attracted, who say: Let us follow our own lusts; whether we torment ourselves or indulge our wills, what God has decreed will happen all the same." So his language has been moderate, and he has hoped simply to aid men to virtue. The close of this letter is a really eloquent bit of self-analysis.