Staupitz, on more than one occasion, tried to shock Luther out of his downward spiral of navel-gazing. “God is not angry with you!” he once said. “You are angry with God! Don’t you know that God commands you to hope?” Another time he said, “Look here. If you expect Christ to forgive you, come in with something to forgive—parricide, blasphemy, adultery—instead of all these peccadilloes.”
