True and real mysticism could not take root in him because, to start with, the necessary predisposition, concerning which the other mystics and Tauler are agreed, was wanting, viz. above all humility, calmness and that holy indifference, which allows itself to be led by God along the path of the rules of its calling without any ulterior, private aims; peaceableness, composure of mind and zeal in prayer were not his. What mysticism left behind in Luther was scarcely more than the fragrance of its words, without any real fruit. What took root and grew in him was rather the hard wood from which lances are made, ready for every combat that may arise. His mysticism itself gives the impression of being part of the battle which his antagonism to the Occamists led him to give to Scholasticism. Those who contradicted his new ideas—even his brother monks, like the Erfurt philosophers and theologians—appeared to him to be opposed on account of their Scholasticism. The most effective way of escaping or overcoming them seemed to him the replacing of the older theology by another, in which, together with Holy Scripture and St. Augustine, mysticism should occupy a chief place. By this, however, we do not mean that the mysticism of Luther was merely a fighting weapon. From his letters we may gather that he lived in the belief that his new road would conduct him to a joyous nearness to God. The letter is dated December 14, 1516, in which he exhorts his friend Spalatin, at the Court of the Elector, to taste in Tauler “the pure, thorough theology, which so closely resembles the old, and to see how bitter everything is that is ourselves,” in order to “discover how sweet the Lord is.”[430] He is already so mystically inclined that he will not even advise his friend in answer to a query, which little religious books he should translate into German for the use of the people; this advice lay in the counsel of God, as what was most wholesome for man was generally not appreciated; hardly was there one who sought for Christ; the world was full of wolves (these thoughts certainly seem to have remained with him in his public career); we must mistrust even our best intentions and be guided only by Christ in prayer; but the “swarm of religious and priests always follow their own good and pious notions and are thereby miserably deceived.” His letter to George Spenlein, which is saturated with an extravagant mysticism of grace, also belongs to the same year, 1516.[431]