Any pretext, or even none at all, serves to bring him back again and again in the work to the “Pelagian-minded _iustitiarii_.” It is possible that amongst these the “Observantines” ranked first. Our thoughts revert to those of his brother monks, whose cause he had at first defended in the internal struggle within the Congregation, only to turn on them unmercifully afterwards. On one occasion he mentions by name the “Observants,” reproaching them with trying to outshine one another in their zeal for God, while at the same time they had no love of their neighbour, whereas, according to the passage he is just expounding, “the fulness of the law is love.”[497] He would also appear to be referring to them, when, on another occasion, he rails at such monks, who by their behaviour bring their whole profession into disgrace. “They exalt themselves against other members of their profession,” he cries, “as though they were clean and had no evil odour about them,”[498] and continues in the style of his monastic discourse on the “Little Saints” mentioned above (p. 69 f.). “And yet before, behind and within they are a pig-market and sty of sows ... they wish to withdraw from the rest, whereas they ought, were they really virtuous, to help them to conceal their faults. But in place of patient succour there is nothing in them but peevishness and a desire to be far away (‘_quærunt fugam ... tediosi sunt et nolunt esse in communione aliorum_’). They will not serve those who are good for nothing nor be their companions; they only desire to be the superiors and companions of the worthy, the perfect and the sound. Therefore they run from one place to another.”[499] The struggle of which this is a picture continued among the German Augustinians. In the spring, 1520, a similar conflict broke out in the Cologne Province, one side having the sympathy of the Roman Conventuals.[500] We can well understand how the General of the Order in Rome was not disposed to grant the exemptions claimed by the Observantines of the Saxon Congregation against his own Provincials. Luther brandishes his sharp blade against the “spiritually minded, the proud, the stiff-necked, who seek peace in works and in the flesh, the _iustitiarii_,”[501] without making any sharp distinction between the actual Observantines and the “self-righteous.” With regard to himself, he admits that he is so antagonistic to the “_iustitiarii_,” that he is opposed to all scrupulous observance of “_iustitia_,” to all regulations and strict ordinances: