[1] In the South the movement showed a tendency to drift back into a refined paganism. In the North, however, it was deeply Christian in interest, in feeling, and in its moral aspirations. Erasmus was by far the greatest figure and the most influential person in the group of Humanists of this latter type. [2] Epistle CCVII. [3] Epistle DLXXXVII. [4] 1401-1464. [5] Nicholas belonged to one of these circles. "The Brethren of the Common Life" are treated in my _Studies in Mystical Religion_, chap. xiv. [6] Letter to the Elector Frederick, March 5, 1522. [7] The story that Luther, climbing the _Scala Santa_ in 1510, suddenly was impressed by the words, "The just shall live by faith," is based on a reminiscence of Luther's son Paul. Luther's own reference to the ascent of the _Scala Santa_ makes no allusion to any such experience. He merely says that when he reached the top of the stairs, which he climbed in the hope of getting the soul of an ancestor out of Purgatory, he thought to himself, "Who knows whether this prayer will avail?" Luther began his lectures on _Romans_ in 1515, and his dynamic experience probably belongs near this date. [8] Preface to the _Magnificat_ written in 1521. [9] First given as Lectures in 1516-17, and published in 1519. [10] A _Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians_. [11] Dilthey says in _Archiv fuer Geschichte der Philosophie_, Bd. v. Heft 3, p. 358: "The Justification of which the medieval man had inward experience was the descending stream of objective forces upon the believer from the transcendental world, through the Incarnation, in the channels of the ecclesiastical institutions, priestly consecration, sacraments, confession, and works. It was something which took place in connection with a super-sensible regime. The Justification by faith of which Luther was inwardly aware was the personal experience of the believer standing in the continuous line of Christian fellowship, by whom assurance of the Grace of God is experienced in response to personal faith, an experience derived from the appropriation of the work of Christ." [12] _Saemmtliche Werke_ (Erlangen edition), xxii. p. 20. [13] On Christian Liberty, _Primary Works_, p. 106. [14] See his Preface to _The Epistle to the Romans_. [15] _Wider die himlichen Propheten vom Sacrament_, ii. Anno 1525. [16] See P. Loofs, _Dogmengeschichte_ (Vierte Auflage, 1906), pp. 752-755. [17] In his instructions to Melanchthon for the Cassel Conference with Butzer in 1534, Luther said, "In and with the bread, the body of Christ is truly partaken of, accordingly all that takes place actively and passively in the bread takes place actively and passively in the body of Christ and the latter is distributed, eaten and masticated with the teeth." [18] McGiffert, _Protestant Thought before Kant_ (1911), p. 20. See also the same view in Troeltsch, _Protestantisches Christentum und Kirche in der Neuzeit_ (2nd Auflage), p. 481.