in his character. Accompanied by a companion of his order he started
on his long journey across the Alps. As he reached the heights of
Monte Mario and surveyed the Popes he fell on his knees, according to
the custom of the pilgrims, and hailed "the city thrice sanctified by
the blood of martyrs." He had looked forward with pleasure to a stay
in Rome, where he might have an opportunity of setting his scruples to
rest by a general confession of his sins, but, unfortunately, his
brother Augustinians in Rome and those with whom he came most in
contact seemed to have been more anxious to regale him with stories
about the real or imaginary scandals of the city than to give him
spiritual consolation or advice. Yet in later life, when he had
definitely separated from the Church and when he was most anxious to
blacken the character of Rome and the Popes, it is remarkable that he
could point to very little detrimental to them of which he had
personal knowledge, and was forced to rely solely on what had been
told him by others. Nor did he leave Rome as a declared enemy of the
Papacy, for even so late as 1516 he defended warmly the supremacy of
the Pope as the one safeguard for the unity of the Church.[6] Many of
his biographers, indeed, assert that, as he stood by the /Scala
Sancta/ and witnessed the pilgrims ascending on their bare knees, he
turned aside disgusted with the sight and repeated the words of St.
Paul, "the just man lives by his faith"; but such a statement, due
entirely to the imagination of his relatives and admirers is rejected
as a legend by those best qualified to judge.[7] The threatened union
of the strict and unreformed that had occasioned Luther's journey to
Rome was abandoned; but it is worthy of note that Staupitz had
succeeded in detaching him from his former friends, and that he
returned to Germany a convinced and violent opponent of the party of
strict observance, who had sent him to Rome as their representative.
During his stay in the city there is good reason for believing that on