that some other theologians defended views which were not correct.[779] But whether such theologians exerted a positive or negative influence on Luther we do not know. One thing is certain, however, namely, that he was influenced chiefly by his own desire to free himself from what he looked upon as an oppressive yoke and that his self-sufficiency and ignorance speedily led him to fancy it his duty to confront the theology of previous ages with his epoch-making discovery regarding the doctrine of fear and penance. This process is confirmed by a letter of his addressed to Staupitz, his esteemed Superior, at a time when the commotion caused by his Indulgence theses was in full swing, which gives us a picture of his mental state.[780] In it he says: “The word which I hated most in all the Scriptures was the word penance. Nevertheless [when performing penance and going to confession], I played the hypocrite bravely before God, attempting to wring out of myself an imaginary and artificial love.” He also grumbles here about the “works of penance and the insipid satisfactions and the wearisome confession”; such a prominent position ought not to be assigned to them; the ordinary instructions and the _modus confitendi_ contained nothing but the most oppressive tyranny of conscience. He had always felt this, and in his trouble it had been to him like a ray from heaven when Staupitz once told him: “True penance is that only which begins with the love of God and of justice, and what the instructions represent as the last and crown of all is rather the commencement and the starting-point of penance, namely, love.” This precious truth he had, on examination, found to be absolutely confirmed by Holy Scripture (“_s. scripturæ verba undique mihi colludebant_”)—Luther had a curious knack of finding in Scripture everything he wanted—even the Greek term for penance, metanoia, led up to the same conclusion, whereas the Latin “_pœnitentiam agere_” implied effort and was therefore misleading. Thus Staupitz’s words had turned the bitter taste of the word penance into sweetness for him. “God’s commandments always become sweet to us when we do not merely content ourselves with reading them in books; we must learn to understand them in the wounds of our Sweetest Saviour.” The Monk was well aware that such mystical utterances were sure of finding a welcome echo with the influential Vicar of the whole Augustinian Congregation, himself a mystic. He sends him with the same letter his long Latin defence of his Indulgence theses (_Resolutiones_), which Staupitz was to forward to the Pope.