Often enough he does not even make an attempt to follow up the thoughts of the Apostle and arrive at their sense. His character is too impatient of restraint and too predisposed to rhetoric. Thus he descends to the religious and political questions then being debated at Wittenberg and says by way of excuse: “I will explain the meaning of the Apostle to you in its practical sense, in order that you may understand the matter better by the help of some comparisons.”[634] These words occur in the passage in which he admonishes Duke George of Saxony regarding his quarrels with Edgard, Count of East Frisia (1514-15), telling him he ought to have recognised the Will of God in the Count’s “malicious revolt” and have patiently suffered himself to be vanquished by his foe—as though it were the duty of princes to become mystics like himself.[635] If we now examine the actual value of the Commentary, we find much that is excellent and calculated to elucidate the Pauline text. It is especially praiseworthy in Luther that he should have made the Greek text edited by Erasmus the basis of his work as soon as it was published during the course of his lectures. He also makes frequent, diligent and intelligent use of the “exegetical ability” of Nicholas of Lyra,[636] following him for the text as well as for the interpretation and division of the subject; this was the author whose assistance he had formerly declined with far too much contempt. Other authorities whom he also consults are Paul of Burgos, Peter Lombard, for his explanations of the Epistle to the Romans, and, for the division of the matter, particularly the Schemata of Faber Stapulensis. His own linguistic training and his knowledge of ancient literature were of great service to him, as also was his natural quickness of judgment combined with sagacity. He frequently quotes passages from St. Augustine, and through him, i.e. at secondhand, from Cyprian and Chrysostom; in his interpretations the mediæval authorities of whom he makes most use are the Master of the Sentences and St. Bernard.[637] The way in which Aristotle and the Scholastics are handled is already plain from what we have said. Reminiscences of the works of his own professors, Paltz, Trutfetter and Usingen, are merely general, and he freely differs from them. As an Occamist he feels himself in contradiction to the Thomists and to some extent also to the Scotists; in addition to Occam, d’Ailly, Gerson and Biel have a great influence on him, even in his interpretation of the Bible. Tauler, who has so frequently been mentioned, also left deep traces of his influence not only in the matter of the Commentary, but also in the language, which is often obscure, rich in imagery and full of feeling, while here and there we seem to find reminiscences of the “Theologia Deutsch” which Luther was to publish at the close of his lectures. The latter was, “to his thinking, the most exact expression of the great thoughts of the