It follows from this circumstance that he was already acquainted with Tauler’s sermons during the time that he was busy on this Epistle. He had come across them somewhat earlier, probably in the course of 1515, when he was nearing his inward crisis. In this passage of the Commentary[413] he declares that God works secretly in man and without his knowledge, and that what He does must be borne, i.e. must be accepted with humility and neglect of self. How we are thus to suffer what God sends, “Tauler,” he says, “explains in the German language better than the others. Yes, yes, we do not know how to pray in the way we should. Therefore God’s strength must come to the assistance of our misery. We, however, must acknowledge our despair and utter nakedness.” But without actually mentioning Tauler by name, he frequently in this Commentary, utilises ideas which he supports by his teaching. Thus, when in Romans v. 3 he describes in far-fetched terms the self-annihilation of the soul, its fears and pains, from which finally its firm hope in God emerges. The “_tribulatio patientiam operator_” of the Apostle he takes there to mean mystical inward tribulation; one must desire to be as nothing, in order that the honour of the Eternal God as Creator may remain.[414] Only the self-righteous and the hypocrites shun the mystical death which lies in a renunciation of all self-merit; according to a mystical interpretation of a certain Bible passage the “strong man armed” (Luke xi. 21 f.) will destroy the “mountains of their works”; but the good, in their absolute destitution and tribulation, rejoice in God only, because, according to Paul, “the charity of God is poured forth” in the hearts of the sorely proved; they are drawn into the mysterious darkness of the Divine union and recognise therein not what they love, but only what they do not love; they find nothing but satiety in what they know and experience, only what they know not, that they desire.[415] Such language simply misinterprets some of Tauler’s profound meditations. As, in his Commentary on the Psalms, Luther does not yet refer either directly or indirectly to Tauler, although the matter frequently invited him to do so, this confirms the supposition that it was only after the termination of those lectures, or towards their conclusion in 1515, that he became acquainted with the Master’s sermons—which alone come under consideration. Probably, as mentioned elsewhere, he owed his knowledge of them to Johann Lang.[416] One of the books used by Luther in his youth and preserved in the Ratsschul-Library at Zwickau is a copy of Tauler’s sermons in the 1508 Augsburg edition with Luther’s annotations made about 1515.[417] The notes prove how strongly his active imagination was caught up into this new world of ideas, and how, with swelling sails, he set out for the port he thought lay beyond the mystic horizon.