He goes so far in speaking of faith and grace in the larger Commentary on Galatians, as to brand the most sublime and holy works, namely, prayer and meditation, as “idolatry” unless performed in accordance with the only true principle of faith, viz. with his doctrine regarding justification by faith alone. This can be more readily understood when we consider that according to him, man, in spite of his resistance to concupiscence, is, nevertheless, on account of the same, guilty of the sins of avarice, anger, impurity, a list to which he significantly adds “_et cetera_,”[816] He had expressed himself in a similar way in the shorter Commentary, but did not think his expressions in that book strong enough adequately to represent his ideas.[817] As he constantly connects his statements with what he looks upon as the main contentions of St. Paul in the Epistles to the Romans and the Galatians, we may briefly remind our readers of the interpretation which the older theology had ever placed upon them. The Apostle Paul teaches, according to the Fathers and the greatest theologians of the Middle Ages, that both Jews and heathen might attain to salvation and life by faith. He proves this by showing that the heathen were not saved by the works of nature, nor the Jews by the works of the Mosaic Law; but he does not by any means exclude works altogether as unnecessary for justification. In the important passage of the Epistle to the Romans (Rom. i. 17) where Paul quotes the words of Habacuc: “The just man liveth by faith,” there was no call to define more clearly the nature of justifying faith, or to explain to what extent it must be a living faith showing itself in works in charity and in hope. To exclude works from faith, as Luther assumes him to do, was very far from his intention in that passage. Nor is this idea involved in the saying which Luther so frequently quotes (Rom. iii. 28): “We account a man to be justified by faith without the works of the law,” for here he merely excludes the works “of the law,” i.e. according to the context such works as do not rest on faith but precede faith, whether the purely outward works of the Mosaic ceremonial law, or other natural works done apart from, or before, Christ. We shall speak later of Luther’s interpolation in this passage of the word “alone” after “faith” in his translation of the Bible (see vol. v., xxxiv. 3).