No sooner had Luther, as Cochlæus remarked (p. 38), “deserted to Staupitz” and begun to defend his opinions, the aim of which was to surrender the privileged position of the Congregation and the stringency of the Rule, than his fiery temper led him to constitute himself the champion of the monasteries with whose cause he had allied himself, particularly that of Wittenberg; indeed, he was, if not actually the first, one of the earliest to take up the cudgels on their behalf. The mission to Rome with which he had previously been entrusted lent him special authority, and his expert knowledge of the case seemed to entitle him to a voice on the subject. To this was added the importance of his position at the University, his reputation as a talented and eloquent lecturer, and his power as a preacher. His sociability drew many to him, especially among the young, and his readiness of tongue marked him out as a real party man. In his lectures on the Psalms his fiery nature led him to attack sharply the Observantines, whom he frequently mentions by name; even in the lecture-room his aim was to prejudice the young Augustinians who were his audience against the defenders of the traditional constitution; instead of encouraging the rising generation of monks to strive after perfection on the tried and proved lines of their Congregation, he broke out into declamatory attacks against those monks who took their vocation seriously as they received it from their predecessors, and abused them as Pharisees and hypocrites; according to him, they were puffed up by their carnal mind because they esteemed “fasting and lengthy prayers.” There are Pharisees, he cries, even now who extol fasting and long-drawn prayer; “they make rules,” but “their zeal is directed against the Lord.” There are many in the Church who “dispute about ceremonies and are enthusiastic for the hollowness of exterior observances.” “I am acquainted with still more obstinate hypocrites.”[128] “It is to be feared that all Observantines, all exempted, and privileged religious, must be reckoned among those puffed up in their carnal mind. How harmful they are to the Church has not yet become clear, but the fact remains and will make itself apparent in time. If we ask why they insist upon isolation, they reply: On account of the protection of the cloistral discipline. But that is the light of an angel of Satan.”[129] The following attack on the Observantines in the lectures on the Psalms is on the same lines: There are plenty of “men proud of their holiness and observance, hypocrites and false brothers.”[130] “But the fate of a Divine condemnation” will fall upon “all the proud and stiff-necked, all the superstitious, rebellious, disobedient, also, as I fear, on our Observantines, who under a show of strict discipline are only loading themselves with insubordination and rebellion.”[131]