“The faith [which justifies] allows itself to be led in any direction,”[657] he says, “and is ready to hear and to yield; for God does not require great works, but the putting to death of the old man, but to this we cannot attain without submitting our own ideas and judgment to the authority of another....” He then continues, vaguely confusing faith and humility: “The old man is to be put to death by faith in the Word of God. But God’s Word is not only that which sounds from heaven, but everything that comes from the mouth of a good man, more particularly from our ecclesiastical superiors. That is why the quarrelsome will hear nothing of this faith and take offence at the word of faith. Instead of believing they demand proofs and always think their own ideas right, and those of others false. But whoever does not know how to submit himself and always fancies he is not in the wrong, exhibits the plainest signs that the old Adam still lives in him and that Christ has not yet risen in him.”[658] Then follows a long and tedious description of how “man must surrender his mind to the bondage of the word of the Cross and renounce himself and all that is his until he dies to self.”[659] It is surprising to find in the mouth of Luther such an utterance as that we must receive with submission every word of a godly man in order to possess “faith” in its true meaning, but it reappears on another occasion in the Commentary under quite peculiar circumstances. The passage is a still more glaring instance of confusion and is worth quoting in its entirety on account of its mistaken train of thought and of its self-contradiction and jumping from one point to another, so characteristic of Luther.