Augustine’s “On the Spirit and the Letter,” a work dedicated to Marcellinus, and dating from the end of 412, with which Luther had become acquainted in 1515, had a lasting influence on him. In this book the great Doctor of the Church strikes at the very root of Pelagianism and shows the necessity, for the accomplishment of supernatural good works (“_facere et perficere bonum_”), of inward grace which he calls “_spiritus_” in contradistinction to outward grace which he terms “_littera_.” Luther, however, referred this necessity more and more to everything good, even to what is purely natural, hence his loud accusations soon after against the theology of the Church as savouring of Pelagianism. Humanism at that time stood for a Pelagian view of life and therefore could not be altogether sympathetic to Luther. Its influence on him, especially in his youth, cannot, however, be altogether disregarded; he had been brought into too close contact with it in his student days and also during his theological course at Erfurt, and his mind was too lively and too open to the currents of the time for him not to have felt something of its effects. The very extravagance of his criticism of things theological may, in part, be traced back to the example of the Humanists. From Luther’s lectures on the Psalms, as well as from his sermons and letters till 1516 inclusive, we have adduced various elements which may be considered to forebode the greater and more important change yet to come. They are, indeed, not exactly precursors of what one designates usually as the Reformation, but rather of the new Lutheran theology which was responsible for that upheaval in the ecclesiastical, ethical and social sphere which became known as the Reformation. 6. The Theological Goal Before continuing in a more systematic form the examination of the origin of Luther’s new theology, of which we have just seen some of the antecedents, we must cast a glance at the erroneous theological result which Luther had already reached in 1515-16, and which must be considered as the goal of his actual development.