Of this passionate reversal of the old exegesis, Denifle, after having pointed out the real state of the question by quoting the commentators, says: “Luther merely exhibits his ignorance, prejudice and prepossession ... he was not acting in the interests of learning at all.”[650] Of Luther’s twelve arguments in favour of his interpretation he remarks: “in order to convince oneself that the [opposite] view, now almost universally held, is the correct one, it is only necessary to glance at Luther’s twelve proofs. They are utterly fallacious, beg the question and take for granted what is not conceded.”[651] This judgment is amply justified. Yet Luther, at the end of his long demonstration, exclaims: “It is really surprising that anyone could have imagined that the Apostle was speaking in the person of the old and carnal man.” “No, the Apostle teaches regarding the justified that they are at the same time righteous and sinners, righteous because Christ’s righteousness covers them and is imputed to them, sinners because they do not fulfil the law and are not without concupiscence.”[652] We can only say of Luther’s remarks on the Scholastics that, without really being acquainted with them, he here again blindly abuses them because they were opposed to his new theological views. It was merely his prejudice against the Scholastics which led him to continue: “Their stupid doctrine has deceived the world and caused untold mischief, for the consequence was, that whoever was baptised and absolved at once looked upon himself as free from sin, became sure of his righteousness, folded his arms, and, because he was unconscious of any sin, considered it superfluous to trouble to struggle or to purify himself by sighs and tears, by sorrow for sin and efforts to conquer it. No, sin remains even in the spiritual man,” etc. He appeals to St. Augustine, indeed to the very passage to which the Scholastics were indebted for their interpretation of St. Paul’s words concerning the righteous. As remarked before (p. 98), Augustine is, however, very far from teaching that there is in the righteous real guilt and sin, when, following St. Paul, he speaks of the sinful concupiscence which dwells in the regenerate. Luther would have avoided a great number of mistakes in his interpretation of the Epistle to the Romans had he conscientiously studied the older expositors instead of blindly opposing them.