The preponderance of philosophy, and more particularly the excessive authority of Aristotle, in the theological method of his circle offered Luther a second point of attack. Here also it was a question of a rather widely spread abuse which the better class of Schoolmen had prudently avoided. The Nominalistic schools, generally speaking, showed a tendency to a rationalistic treatment of the truths of faith, which affrighted Luther considerably. General ideas, according to the Nominalists, were merely “_nomina_,” i.e. empty words; Nominalists concerned themselves only with what was actual and tangible. Nominalism was fond of displaying its dialectic and even its insolence at the expense of theology on the despised Universal ideas. We can understand the invective with which Luther gives expression to his hatred of Scholasticism, though his right to do so arose only from his limited acquaintance with those few Scholastics whom he had chosen,[323] or, rather, who had been allotted to him, as his masters; the schools he attended were at that time all following the method of the Nominalists, then usually known as “modern.” Already, in 1509 (see above, p. 22), a severe criticism of Aristotle appears in Luther’s marginal notes. This is in a gloss on Augustine’s work “On the City of God” which he was then devouring as a sort of antidote: “Far more apparent is the error of our theologians when they impudently chatter (‘_impudentissime garriunt_’) and affirm of Aristotle that he does not deviate from Catholic truth.”[324]