He continued to rifle St. Augustine’s writings for passages which were apparently favourable to his views. He says, later, that he ran through the writings of this Father of the Church with such eagerness that he devoured rather than read them.[801] He certainly did not allow himself sufficient time to appreciate properly the profound teachings of this, the greatest Father of the Church, and best authority on grace and justification. Even Protestant theologians now admit that he quoted Augustine where the latter by no means agrees with him.[802] His own friends and contemporaries, such as Melanchthon, for instance, admitted the contradiction existing between Luther’s ideas and those of St. Augustine on the most vital points; it was, however, essential that this Father of the Church, so Melanchthon writes to one of his confidants, should be cited as in “entire agreement” on account of the high esteem in which he was generally held.[803] Luther himself was, consciously or unconsciously, in favour of these tactics; he tampered audaciously with the text of the Doctor of the Church in order to extract from his writings proofs favourable to his own doctrine; or at the very least, trusting to his memory, he made erroneous citations, when it would have been easy for him to verify the quotations at their source; the only excuse to be alleged on his behalf in so grave a matter of faith and conscience is his excessive precipitation and his superficiality. Luther’s lectures on the Epistle to the Galatians commenced on October 27, 1516. These he published in 1519 in an amended form,[804] whereas those on the Epistle to the Romans never appeared to him fit for publication. Notes of the original lectures on Galatians are said to be in the possession of Dr. Krafft of Elberfeld, and will in all probability appear in the Weimar edition of Luther’s works.[805] The lectures on the Epistle to the Hebrews and on that to Titus followed in 1517. Notes of the former, as stated above, exist at Rome, and their approaching publication will throw a clearer light on the change in the theological views of their author. In the printed Commentary on Galatians Luther’s teaching appears in a more advanced form. His development had not only progressed during the course of the lectures, but the time which elapsed before their publication brought him fresh material which he introduced into the Commentary. It would be essential to have them in the form in which they were delivered in order to be able to follow up the process which went forward in his mind. It is nevertheless worth while to dwell on the work and at the same time to compare parallel passages from Luther’s other Commentary on Galatians—to be referred to immediately—were it only on account of the delight he takes in referring to this Epistle, or of the fact that his exposition of it runs counter to the whole of tradition.