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The editor of the Commentary also admits, though with limitations, the very remarkable fact that faith does not yet occupy in the Commentary on Romans the position which Luther assigns to it later: “the ‘fides,’ which Luther explains with the help of a number of terms borrowed from his lectures on the Psalms, in the exposition of the Pauline Epistle does not as yet appear in its entire fulness and depth, as the expression of the relation of man to the eternal, at least not to the same extent as it does later; frequently we have a mere reproduction of the Pauline phraseology; there is no lack of reminiscences of Augustine, and the results of an Occamist training are also apparent.”[565]

We certainly cannot say that at the very beginning of the Commentary,[566] faith or even “sola fides” is conceded the high place which it is afterwards to occupy in his system; the expression “sola fides” occurs there by pure accident and does not bear its later meaning; it is only intended to elucidate a sentence which in itself is correct: “iustitia Dei est causa salutis.” By this is meant that “fides evangelii” to which, as Luther says, Augustine ascribes justification, but which the latter, according to Luther’s own admission, did not intend to take in the sense of the later Lutheran “sola fides.” Above all, as already pointed out, faith, in the Commentary on Romans, lacks its chief characteristic and does not of itself alone produce an absolute assurance of the state of grace. It was only in 1518 that Luther arrived at his peculiar belief in justification by virtue of a confident faith in Christ (assurance of salvation).[567]

In the Commentary on Romans Luther understands by faith, first the general submission of the mind to Divine revelation, a faith which he here, as also later, in agreement with the Church’s teaching, accounts as the first preliminary for the state of grace. His opposition to works and self-righteousness frequently urges him to praise the high value of the faith which comes from God, whilst his mysticism likewise makes him accentuate the importance of trust and blind submission. “Credite, confidite” he cries in his exposition of the Psalms—of which the standpoint is still entirely that of the Church—also fervently recommending to his hearers the “fiducia gratiæ Dei.”[568] All that can be complained of is that there, as in the Commentary on the Psalms, he seizes every occasion to speak in favour of the advantages which faith possesses over works.

With regard to his teaching on faith in the Commentary on Romans, Denifle complains of “Luther’s want of clearness in respect of justifying faith,” of his exaggerations and indistinctness, of “his absolute ignorance of wholesome theology.”[569] “The medium in this doctrine of justification,” he says, “is really not faith at all, but the confession that we are always under the works of the law, always unrighteous, always sinners”; “he never, even later, arrived at a correct or uniform idea of faith.... Luther’s assertion of the bondage of the will (complete passivity) renders faith in the process of justification, a mere monstrosity.”[570]

Here we are not as yet concerned with the qualities of faith in the Lutheran process of justification, but it must be pointed out, that the acceptance of complete passivity in justification is a necessary corollary of the above ideas of “humilitas.” “Whereas the Christian,” Denifle says, following the Catholic teaching, “moved and inspired by the grace of God repents of his sins, and, with a trusting faith, turns to God and implores their pardon, Luther excludes from justification all acts whether inward or outward on the part of the sinner; for God could not come into our possession or be attained to without the suppression of everything that is positive. Our works must cease and we ourselves must remain passive in God’s hands.”[571] In the Commentary on Romans passivity in the work of justification is certainly insisted on. Luther does not take the trouble to reconcile this with the activity which man is to exert in steeping himself in humility in order, by his prayers and supplications, to gain salvation.[572] He says of passivity: “God cannot be possessed or touched except by the negation of everything that is in us.”[573] “Then only are we capable of receiving God’s works and plans, when our planning and our works cease; when we are altogether passive with regard to God interiorly as well as exteriorly.”[574] In the Commentary on Galatians, not long after, he calls Christian righteousness a “passive righteousness,” because we “there do nothing, and give God nothing.”[575]