eventually he was appointed professor of Bible at the University of Wittenberg—a tiny school of sixty students with little reputation or promise. Sometime between 1514 and 1516, through his studies of Psalms and Romans, Luther discovered that we are justified by faith alone. That is, God declares us to be perfectly righteous in his eyes, not on account of our actual righteousness (which is insufficient) but only on the basis of the perfect righteousness of Christ, which is transferred to our account