The debate on justification sparked off by Luther in the early sixteenth century is by no means over yet. Ecumenical dialogue has largely, though not entirely, replaced polemic as the medium of debate, but passions still run high. The whole domain is a theological minefield which the historian is, or ought to be, nervous of entering. There is no universal agreement on the content and development of Luther's teaching, and still less on how authentically Christian, Pauline or Augustinian it may have been, or on how well his opponents (not to mention his adherents) understood it. Indeed, despite the return ad fontes characteristic of the historiography since the ‘Luther renaissance’ began earlier this century, the study of Luther and his opponents remains bedevilled by misconceptions born either of dogmatic presuppositions or of traditional misrepresentations. His opponents have suffered even more from this than has Luther himself. Ecumenical concerns have led to the paying of disproportionate attention to the so-called ‘irenicists’ among the Catholic theologians, and to the consequent denigration of the polemicists. This has in turn fostered a tendency to dismiss the early polemical opponents of Luther on justification as Pelagians who failed even to appreciate, much less to understand, the issues – a tendency that reflects both an uncritical acceptance of Luther's own evaluation of his opponents and a naive identification of the doctrine he preached with that of Augustine.