A closer examination of this darker side of his soul seems to promise further information concerning his inner life. Here, too, it is advisable to sum up the phenomena, retracing them back to their very starting-point. Though much of what is to be said has already been mentioned, still, it is only now, towards the end of his life, that the various traits can in any sense be combined so as to form something as near a complete picture as possible. We have to thank Luther’s communicativeness, talkativeness and general openness to his friends, that a tragic side of his inner life has been to some extent revealed, which otherwise might for ever have been buried in oblivion. It is true that, to forestall what follows, few nowadays will be disposed to follow Luther and to look on the devil as the originator of his doubts and qualms of conscience. His fantastic ideas of the “diabolical combats” he had to wage, form, as we shall see (below, p. 329 ff.), part of his devil-mania. Nevertheless his many references to his ordinary, nay, almost daily, inward combats or “temptations,” as he is accustomed to style them, are not mere fabrications, but really seem to come from a profoundly troubled soul. In what follows many such utterances will be quoted, because only thus can one reach a faithful picture of his changing moods which otherwise would seem barely credible. These utterances, though usually much alike, at times strike a different note and thus depict his inner life from a new and sometimes surprising side. 2. The Subject-matter of the “Temptations” The spiritual warfare Luther had to wage concerned primarily his calling and his work as a whole. “You have preached the Evangel,” so the inner voice, which he describes as the devil’s tempting, says to him; “But who commanded you to do so, ‘_quis iussit_?’ Who called upon you to do things such as no man ever did before? How if this were displeasing to God and you had to answer for all the souls that perish?”[1299]