of the humanist circle, and in his student days was personally unacquainted with its leading members. He had none of the humanist enthusiasm for the language and the spirit of the past; what he cared for was the knowledge of human life which classical authors gave him. Besides, the "epicurean1' life and ideas of the young humanist circle displeased him. They, on their part, would evidently have received him gladly. They called him "the philosopher," they spoke about his gifts of singing and lute-playing, and of his frank, engaging character. In later days he could make use of humanism; but he never was a humanist in spirit or in aim. He was too much in earnest about religious matters, and of too practical a turn of mind.
Luther's course of study flowed on regularly. He was a bright, sociable, hard-working student and took his various degrees in an exceptionally short time. He was Bachelor in 1502, and Master in 1505, when he stood second among the seventeen successful candidates. He had attained what he had once thought the summit of earthly felicity and found himself marching in a procession of University magnates and civic dignitaries clothed in his new robes. His father, proud of his son's success, sent him the costly present of a Corpus Juris. He may have begun to attend lectures in the faculty of Law, when he suddenly retired into a convent and became a monk.
This action was so unexpected that his student friends made all sorts of conjectures about his reasons, and these have been woven into stories which are pure legends. Little or nothing is known about Luther's religious convictions during his stay at Erfurt. This is the more surprising since Luther was the least reticent of men. His correspondence, his sermons, his commentaries, all his books are full of little autobiographical details. He tells what he felt when a child, what his religious thoughts were during his school-days; but he is silent about his thoughts and feelings during his years at Erfurt, and especially during the months which preceded his plunge into the convent. He has himself made two statements about his resolve to become a monk, and they comprise the only accurate information obtainable. He says that the resolve was sudden, and that he left the world and entered the cloister because "he doubted of himself"; that in his case the proverb was true, "doubt makes a monk."
What was the doubting? The modern mind is tempted to imagine intellectual difficulties, to think of the rents in the Church's theology which the criticisms of Occam and of Biel had produced, of the complete antagonism between the whole ecclesiastical mode of thinking and the enlightenment from ancient culture that humanism was producing, and Luther's doublings are frequently set down to the self-questioning which his contact with humanism in Erfurt had produced. But this idea, if not foreign to the age, was strange to Luther. He doubted whether he could ever do what he thought had to be done by him to save his soul
