This step was taken on his return from Heidelberg. His first theses on indulgences had been misunderstood, and he determined to explain their meaning with greater clearness. The outcry raised by the blind hatred of his enemies had convinced him how important it was to gain the most enlightened part of the nation in favour of truth, and he resolved to appeal to its judgment by calling attention to the foundation on which his convictions rested. It was, indeed, necessary for once to appeal to the decision of Rome; and he hesitates not to send all his explanations. Presenting them with one hand to the enlightened and impartial among his countrymen, he with the other lays them before the throne of the sovereign pontiff. These explanations of his theses, which he denominated _Solutions_,[478] were written with great moderation. Luther tried to soften the passages which had caused most irritation, and gave proof of genuine modesty. At the same time, he showed that his convictions were immovable; and he courageously defended all the propositions which truth obliged him to maintain. He again repeated, that every Christian who truly repents possesses the remission of sins without indulgence; that the pope, like the humblest of priests, can only declare simply what God has already pardoned; that the treasure of the merits of the saints administered by the pope was a chimera, and that Holy Scripture was the only rule of faith. Let us hear himself on some of these points. [478] Luth. Op., (Leips.) xvii, pp. 29-113. He begins with establishing the nature of true penitence, and contrasts the divine act, which renews man, with the mummery of the Romish Church. "The Greek word μετανοειτε," says he, "signifies-- be clothed with a new spirit and new feelings; have a new nature; so that, ceasing to be earthly, you may become heavenly.... Christ is a teacher of the spirit and not of the letter, and his words are spirit and life."[479] He, therefore, inculcates, not those external penances which the proudest sinners can perform without being humbled, but a repentance according to spirit and truth--a repentance which may be fulfilled in all the situations of life, under the purple of kings, the cassock of priests, and the coronet of princes, amid the magnificence of Babylon, where a Daniel lived, as well as under a monk's frock and a beggar's tatters. [479] On the First Thesis.