Catholics can see easily enough why the rise of Protestantism tended to bring back many Humanists, among them Erasmus himself, to a firmer and more clearly defined religious standpoint and to a more whole-hearted support of the Church. Erasmus, as stated above, frequently spoke of Luther’s work as a “remedy” (p. 249). It was a remedy above all for himself and for the more serious elements among his own party, whom the sight of the outward effects and internal consequences of the new teaching served to withdraw from the abyss towards which they were hurrying. In his Annotations on the New Testament, Erasmus had clearly expressed both his fundamental antagonism to Luther’s denial of free-will and his own position. It so happens that the contrast between Luther and Erasmus becomes apparent for the first time in Luther’s correspondence of the famous year 1517. Luther had at that time been devoting some attention to his future opponent’s interpretation of Romans ix., of which the words concerning Divine election had confirmed him in his false teaching, while supplying Erasmus with an opportunity to lay stress on the freedom of the will under the influence of grace. The Wittenberg professor, full of the spirit of his recently completed Commentary on Romans, had, during his reading of it, written to his friend Lang concerning Erasmus in words which seem to presage the coming encounter: “I am reading our Erasmus, but every day he pleases me less. That he should so boldly attack the religious and the clergy for their ignorance pleases me, but I fear he does not sufficiently vindicate the rights of Christ and the grace of God.... How different is the judgment of the man who concedes something to free-will from one who knows nothing besides grace!”[729]--In these words we hear, as it were, the distant muttering of the storm which broke out seven years later, when the two exchanged their thunderbolts, clearing the air and plainly disclosing the difference between the Catholic and the Lutheran standpoint. * * * * * When a report reached Luther in 1522 that Erasmus was about to oppose his teaching on free-will, he was carried away to say certain things in his letters which greatly provoked his opponent.