Yet the pious religious who were true to their vows would certainly have been the last to deny that they were mere flesh and blood; they did not pretend to be made of “iron,” nor did they vaunt their “boasted chastity,” but prayed to God, did humble penance, and so acquired the grace necessary for keeping what they had cheerfully vowed in the fear of the Lord and in the consoling hope of an eternal reward. On the other hand, we hear but little of Luther’s praying in the Wartburg, and still less of his having performed penance. And yet those walls were full of the memory of that great Saint, Elizabeth of Hungary, whose life was a touching example of zealous prayer and penance. Luther, during his stay in the Castle, accused himself in very strong terms, which, however, he did not intend to be taken literally, of gluttony and luxurious living, and also of idleness. “I sit here all day in idleness and fill my belly,” he says in hyperbolical language on May 14, 1521, in a letter to Spalatin,[213] soon after his arrival at the Wartburg. Already before this, at Wittenberg, in a letter to Staupitz, he had reproached himself with drunkenness.[214] If, however, the “luxury” with which he reproached himself was no graver than his “idleness,” then Luther is not really in such a bad case, for his “idleness” was so little meant to be taken literally, that, in the same letter, he immediately goes on to speak of his literary projects: “I am about to write a German sermon on the freedom of auricular confession [this duly appeared and was dedicated to Sickingen]; I also intend to continue the Commentary on the Psalms [a plan never realised]; also my postils as soon as I have received what I require from Wittenberg [the German postil alone was published]; I am also awaiting the unfinished MS. of the Magnificat [this also was published later].” It was not in his nature to be really idle. His chief German work, which was to render him so popular, viz. his translation of the Bible, was commenced in the Wartburg, where he started with the translation of the New Testament from the Greek. We shall speak elsewhere of the merits and defects of this translation. The general excellence of its style and language cannot hide the theological bias which frequently guides the writer’s pen, nor can its value as a popular work allow us to overlook the fact that he was often carried away by the precipitation incidental to his temperament.[215]