Thus the outlines of the strongest assertions which he makes later as to the imputing of the righteousness of Christ are already apparent in his interpretation of the Epistle to the Romans. Christ alone has assumed the place of what the Catholic calls saving grace. He already teaches what he was to sum up later in the short formula: “Christ Himself is my quality and my formal righteousness,” or, again, what he was to say to Melanchthon in 1536: “Born of God and at the same time a sinner; this is a contradiction; but in the things of God we must not hearken to reason.”[548] His Commentary on Romans prepares us for his later assertions: “The gospel is a teaching having no connection whatever with reason, whereas the teaching of the law can be understood by reason ... reason cannot grasp an extraneous righteousness and, even in the saints, this belief is not sufficiently strong.”[549] “The enduring sin is admitted by God as non-existent; one and the same act may be accepted before God and not accepted, be good and not good.” “Whoever terms this mere cavilling (‘_cavillatio_’) is desirous of measuring the Divine by purblind human reason and understands nothing of Holy Scripture.”[550] * * * * * How then are we to obtain from God the imputation of the righteousness of Christ? There is surely some condition to be supplied by man which may allow it to be conferred, for it cannot rule blindly and unconsciously. Or are we never certain of this imputation? Luther’s answer is very pessimistic: Man never knows that it has been bestowed upon him. He can only hope, by sinking himself in his own nothingness (“_humilitas_”), to placate God and obtain this imputation. Thus the author of the Commentary on Romans is still very far from that absolute assurance of salvation by faith which he was subsequently to advocate.[551] He insists so much on the uncertainty of salvation that he blames Catholic theologians severely for the assurance and confidence which their teaching induces in man, and refuses to admit any of the customary signs which moralists and ascetics look upon as conclusive testimony of a soul being in a state of grace.