By the time his second and complete edition of the “Theologia Deutsch” appeared, the printing of which was finished on June 4, 1518, Luther knew with certainty that this booklet was not by Tauler. Nevertheless, in the Preface he heaps exaggerated praise upon it, gives it a place beside the Bible and St. Augustine, and declares that his own teaching, on account of which Wittenberg is being assailed, possesses in it a real bulwark: “Only now” has he discovered that, before his time, “other people” thought just the same as he. Here then we see the alliance which he has entered into with mysticism, now placed completely at the service of his rediscovered Evangel; the sympathy which had attracted him to the German mystics during the last few years here reveals its true character and is led to its overdue triumph. In a certain sense mysticism was always to remain harnessed to his chariot. On the other hand, Luther very soon gave up pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, the mystic whose teaching had spread from the East over the whole of the West. At first, following public opinion, he had esteemed him very highly, the more so since he had taken him for a disciple of the Apostles; but, subsequently to the Disputation at Leipzig, where the Areopagite was urged against him, he shows himself very much opposed to him. According to Luther, he does not allow Christ to come to His rights, he grants too much to philosophy and is, of course, all wrong in his teaching concerning the hierarchy of the Church.[440] Luther, however, always remained true to St. Bernard, with whom he had become acquainted, together with Gerson, in his spiritual reading at the monastery. From St. Bernard, as likewise from Tauler, he borrowed many mystic ideas, yet not without at the same time forcibly misinterpreting them and ascribing to the former, ideas which are altogether foreign to his mind.[441] Gerson’s theologico-mystical introduction, which Luther cites in his glosses on Tauler, did not experience any better treatment at his hands,[442] while Bonaventure, the mystic whom he once prized, came under suspicion on account of his theological teaching, even before the Areopagite.[443] On the other hand, he retained his esteem for Tauler till the end. Some very remarkable references which Luther makes to Tauler’s teaching are in connection with the troubles of conscience which dogged the steps of the Wittenberg Doctor from his first public appearance. These will be mentioned later, together with the means of allaying such torments of soul, which he gives in his “_Operationes in Psalmos_” (1519-21), borrowing them from misunderstood passages of Tauler.