According to one dictum of his, he had been a strict and right pious monk for fifteen years, i.e. from 1505-20, during which time he had never been able “to do enough” to make God gracious to him.[680] Again, elsewhere, he assures us that the period of misery during which he sought justification through his works had lasted “almost fifteen years.”[681] On another occasion, however, he makes it twenty years (i.e. up to 1525): “The twenty years I spent in the convent are lost and gone; I entered the cloister for the good and salvation of my soul and for the health of my body, and I fondly believed … that it was God’s Will that I should abide by the Rule.”[682] What a contrast this alleged lengthy period of fifteen or even twenty years during which he kept the Rule presents to the reality must be sufficiently clear to anyone who remembers the dates of the events in his early history. To make matters worse, in one passage[683] he actually goes so far as apparently to make the period even longer during which he had “been a pious monk,” and had almost brought about his death by fasting, thus bringing us down to 1526 or 1527 if the reading in the text be correct. It certainly makes a very curious impression on one who bears in mind the dates to see Luther, the excommunicate, after his furious attack on religious vows and the laws of the Church, and after his marriage, still depicted as an over-zealous and pious monk, whose fasting is even bringing his life into jeopardy. But if Luther was so careless about his dates does not this carelessness lead one to wonder whether the rest of the statements he makes in conjunction with them are one whit more trustworthy?