[405] “Opp. Lat. var.,” 6, pp. 397, 399, 400, 425; Weim. ed., 10, 2, pp. 188, 189, 190, 206. Contra regem Henricum.
[406] Lauterbach, “Tagebuch,” p. 18. After speaking of Occam as “ingeniosissimus” he says: “illius studium erat, res dilatare et amplificare in infinitum.”
[407] H. Böhmer, “Luther im Lichte der neueren Forschungen (1910), p. 53. “What made such a deep impression on him? [in the works of Augustine]. First, if we may believe the notes in his own hand in the copy he chiefly used (‘Werke,’ Weim. ed., vol. ix.), more particularly Augustine’s mystico-philosophical considerations on God, the world, the soul, the worthlessness of all earthly things, and felicity in God. These ideas, however, were hardly quite new to him. He had already met with them, for instance, in Bernard of Clairvaux and other mystics.” That they should have “impressed him so forcibly,” as Böhmer rightly remarks, was largely owing to the fact that his ear caught in them echoes of the ideas germinating in his own mind.
[408] Cp., e.g., Tauler’s complaint against those who misuse the directions of the mystics in the sense of ethical passivity, i.e. of Quietism: “They blindly mislead their nature and become careless of all good works,” etc. “They sink into a dangerous natural quietude ... without the practice of virtue.” “Man,” on the contrary, “must recognise the commandments of God and the Church and resolve to keep the same.” “Tauler’s Sermons,” ed. Hamberger, 1, p. 194 f. Cp. J. Zahn, “Einführung in die christl. Mystik,” Paderborn, 1908, p. 313 ff.
[409] To George Leiffer, April 15, 1516, “Briefwechsel,” 1, p. 31.
[410] With regard to his ideas of the supposed animosity of mysticism for Scholasticism, W. Köhler says (“Luther und die Kirchengesch.,” 1, 1, Erlangen, p. 285): “the opposition between mysticism and Scholasticism, which has become historic, was never so acute as it appeared to Luther’s imagination. In principle, Scholasticism and mysticism stand on the same ground, one being the necessary complement of the other.”
[411] From Dungersheim’s “Dialogus adversus M. Lutherum”; Enders, “Briefwechsel,” p. 180.
[412] “Briefwechsel,” 1, p. 55: “iuxta Taulerum tuum.”
[413] “Schol. Rom.,” p. 205.
[414] “Schol. Rom.,” p. 135, he says of the earthly minded: “Nullus [est] eius Deus creator, quia non vult esse nihil, cuius ille sit creator. Nullius [read nullus] est potens, sapiens, bonus, quia non vult in infirmitate, stultitia, penalitate sustinere eum.”