But if anyone seeks to win praise by writing books, then let him pull

his own ears and he will find “a fine long pair of big rough donkey’s

ears”; these he may adorn with golden bells so that everyone may

point at him and say: “There goes the elegant animal who writes such

precious books.” No, so he concludes his preface, “in this book all

the praise is God’s.”

In the preface to the first volume of his Latin works Luther seeks, not

so much to enhance his knowledge of Scripture as he does in the German

preface, but rather to explain in his own way how he was led to take up

the position he did.

He represents the indulgence controversy as the sole cause of his

breach with Catholicism and does so in language in which readers,

unacquainted with the real state of the case, would detect simply a

defence of his struggle against the “fury and wrath of Satan.” Of the

real motive of the struggle, viz. his rupture with the doctrines of

the Church even previous to the Leipzig Disputation, or, indeed, to

the Theses against Tetzel, he says never a word. On the other hand,

he launches out into a dissertation on his Popish views at that time,

which he urges had been deeper and more ingrained than those of Eck

and all his opponents, and, which, unfortunately, had disfigured his

earliest writings. He had been terribly afraid of the Last Judgment

but at the same time had longed ardently to be eternally saved. God

knew that it was only by the merest chance that he had been drawn

into public controversy (“_casu, non voluntate nec studio_”). Only

when beginning his second exposition of the Psalms (1518-19) had the

knowledge dawned upon him of that “Justice of God,” whereby we are

justified; before this he had hated the term “Justice of God.”[1860]

He is at great pains to impress on the reader that he had “gradually

advanced, thanks to much writing and teaching,” and was not one of

those, “who [like the fanatics], from nothing, become all at once the

greatest of men ... without labour, or temptations, or experience.”

No great stress need be laid on the statement he again makes at the

commencement of this preface, viz. that he would fain see all his

books “buried in oblivion,” and that only the urgent entreaties of

friends had won his consent to their bringing out a complete edition

of his “muddled books.”

In the evening of his life Luther could look back with a certain

satisfaction on the numerous popular works he had composed for the

instruction and edification of the masses and the “simple,” and on the

success with which they had been crowned. Again and again his fondness

for thus instructing the populace had drawn him into this sphere of

work; he had always striven with great perseverance and patience to

better, both as to their language and their matter, the little tracts

he composed. How highly he valued such works of instruction we can see

from the writings which appeared from time to time as precursors of

his Catechisms. They show how diligent he was in dealing with popular

religious subjects.

He himself bears witness to his laborious literary labours and their

results in the preface to his Church-Postils of 1543.[1861] Conscious

of what he had achieved he there quotes the passage where St. Paul says

that the faithful were “enriched in all things, in all knowledge and

understanding,” etc. (1 Cor. i. 5). “In the same way we may say to our

Germans that God has richly given us His Word in the German tongue....

For what more can we have or desire?” He points to the catechism which

he has preached “clearly and with power,” to his exposition of the

Commandments, of the Our Father and the Creed; in his writings they

would find explained “Holy Baptism, the Sacrament of the Body and

Blood of our Lord, the keys, the ban, and absolution. We have been

instructed definitely how each one is to understand his own state and

calling and behave himself; whether he be a cleric or a layman, or

of high or low estate. We know what conjugal life is, what widowhood

and maidenhood, and how we are to live and act therein in a Christian

manner.”—Although the people were already sufficiently instructed

on these points, and though Luther’s teaching in so far as it was

something new cannot meet with our approval, yet it must be admitted

that in his writings for the people Luther treated of these things,

according to his light, in language both popular and forcible.

Herewith, so he says in the same preface, you receive from my friend

Cruciger the Church-Postils amended and enlarged, with its “lucid and

amusing” explanations of the Gospel-lessons. Just as a mother pulps the

food for her baby, so the Epistles and Gospels of the year have been

pulped for you. As now they had already in print a corrected edition

of the lives of the Saints, a German version of the Psalter and, in

particular, the whole Bible in “good German,” the preachers should be

better able to teach the people how to be saved. “We have done our part

faithfully and in full measure; let us therefore be for ever thankful

to God, the Father of all mercies.” Luther’s allusion to his Postils as

being “lucid and amusing,” and to the “good German” of his translation

of the Bible, are perfectly justified.

* * * * *

Luther, in 1527, spoke of his Church-Postils as the “best book I ever

wrote ... which, indeed, pleases even the Papists.”[1862] It is obvious

that he bestowed this praise upon it in view of its positive contents.

It is true that, some eight or nine years later, he declared with his

customary exaggeration, he wished the “whole of this book could be

blotted out”; this was, however, at a time when he was already planning

a new edition to be undertaken by Cruciger, “which might be useful to

the whole Church.”[1863] The work, however, even in its first dress,

undoubtedly contained much that was good.

_Good Points and Shortcomings of Luther’s Popular Works_

Not only is the number of popular writings Luther composed surprising,

but they are distinguished by the energy and originality of their

style, and, in many passages where no fault is to be found with what

he says, his instructions and exhortations are admittedly seasoned

with much that is truly thoughtful and edifying. In spite of all the

admixture of falsehood to the ancient treasure of doctrine a certain

current of believing Christianity flows through these popular writings

and contrasts agreeably with both the more or less infidel literature

of recent times and the shallow religious productions of an earlier

date.

The mediæval language, feelings and world of thought, all so instinct

with faith and piety, find a splendid exponent in Luther as soon as,

putting controversy aside, he seeks to seize the hearts of the people;

such passages even make the reader ask whether the author can really

be one and the same with the writer who elsewhere fulminates with

such revolting malice against the Church of the past. Then, again,

the plentiful quotations from the Bible in which he was so much at

home, impart a devout tone to what he says without, however, in the

least rendering it insipid or unnatural. From the latter fault he was

preserved by a certain soberness of outlook, by his native realistic

coarseness and his general tendency to be rude rather than sentimental.

Nor would it by any means be right were Luther’s opponents to

attribute the above favourable traits in his writings exclusively to

the influence of the Catholic past. It is true that it is the latter

which is mainly responsible for the elements of truth found in his

writings, and also, not seldom, for the attractive and sympathetic way

in which he presents his matter to the reader; but to deny that the

author’s peculiar talent for speaking to the people and his rare gift

of adapting himself to his German readers had also its share, would

be to go too far. Luther, who hailed from among the lower class and

had ever been in touch with it, knew the German character as well as

any man (see vol. iii., p. 93 ff.). In his style he embodied to some

extent the nation’s mode of thought and speech. Hence his success

with the Germans, whom he drew by the strongest ties, viz. those of

nationalism, into circles where the motherly warnings of the Church

were no longer heard.

We are, however, unable to discern in his writings the mystical

qualities which some of his admirers find everywhere. Echoes of the

sayings of the olden mystics, such as we have had occasion to quote

from his earlier works, obviously do not suffice to prove his own

mystic gifts. Moreover, these echoes tend to become feebler as time

goes on, and the nearer his literary labours draw to their close the

less can they be considered to bear the character of true mystical

productions. Certain leanings met with in Luther at the beginning, and

even later, we have already had to characterise as the outcome of an

untheological pseudo-mysticism.[1864]

In his Exposition of the Magnificat (1521), for instance, we meet with

trains of thought expressed in words which by their beauty recall

those of the mystics of old. One cannot read without being edified

what he says at the commencement of this little work, of the love of

God which makes “the heart overflow with joy,”[1865] or of the glories

of Mary; of her, nothing greater can be said than that she was the

Mother of God, “even had one as many tongues as there are leaves on

the trees, blades of grass in the field, stars in heaven, or grains of

sand on the sea-shore.”[1866]—Akin to this is the touching conclusion

of his little writing on the Our Father, where he pictures the soul as

pouring forth its desires to God the Father.[1867] Such jewels are,

however, not offered to his readers as frequently as his talent in

this respect would have rendered desirable.

To what good account he put this gift in his earlier years is well

seen even in his controversial “Von der Freyheyt eynes Christen

Menschen” (1520), where he is at pains to expound the sum of the

Christian life, though “only for the plain man.” Our present subject

invites us to return once more to this side of the writing.[1868]

Of works of charity Luther there speaks as follows: “The inward man is

at one with God, is joyful and merry by reason of Christ Who has done

so much for him, and all his joy is in wishing to serve God in return

freely and out of pure love. In his flesh, however, he finds a will

which is quite other and which wishes to serve the world and to seek

what it pleases. But this, faith cannot bear, and it sets vigorously

to work to check and restrain it. As St. Paul says, Rom. vii. [23]: I

see another law in my members fighting against the law of my mind and

ensnaring me in the law of sin.”[1869]

Later, coming to the works imposed upon man by self-restraint, he

says: “So much of works in general, such as it suits a Christian to

practise against his own flesh. Now we have to speak of works which

he does for other men. For on this earth man does not live by himself

but among other folk. Hence he cannot live without performing works

for them, for he has to speak and have dealings with them.... Look

how plainly Paul makes the Christian life to consist in works done

for the good of our neighbour.... He instances Christ as our example

and says [Phil. ii. 6-7]: ‘Let this mind be in you which was also in

Christ Jesus, Who being in the form of God thought it no robbery to be

equal to God, and yet emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant,’

and doing and suffering all things for our sakes alone. In the same

way the Christian man, though he is free, ought willingly to become a

slave in his neighbour’s service, and treat him as God through Christ

has treated us, and all this, too, without reward; to seek nothing

thereby but to be well-pleasing to God, and to think thus: See, God in

and through Christ has bestowed on me, unworthy and guilty wretch that

I am, without any merit, and solely out of pure mercy, an abundance

of riches, piety and salvation.... Hence, in my turn, I will readily,

gladly and without reward do what is well-pleasing to such a Father

Who has heaped upon me His unspeakable riches, and be a Christ to my

neighbour as Christ was to me; only what I see him to need and what

is useful and profitable to him, will I do, now that, by my faith, I

myself have all things abundantly in Christ. See, how joy and love of

God spring from faith, and, how, from love comes a ready, willing,

cheerful life of service towards our neighbour.”[1870]—“It is thus

that God’s gifts must flow from the one to the other and become common

to all, so that each one cares as much for his neighbour as he does

for himself. They flow to us from Christ, Who, in His life, took us

on Him as though He had been what we are. From us they should flow to

those who need them.”[1871]

Though, intermingled with such excellent matter, we find

ever-recurring allusions to his peculiar doctrine of justification by

faith alone, and though he fails to see the true organic connection

between good works and the life of faith and thus condemns to inanity

all works not performed out of perfect charity, yet it cannot be

gainsaid that certain aspects of neighbourly love are here admirably

portrayed.

Later on we often miss this sympathetic tone, for it was blighted

by his polemics. As for his aptitude for instructing the people he

retained it, however, to the end.

In the Exposition of the Our Father, of which the dialogue of the

soul with God forms a part, he lays down at the outset in striking,

popular guise the need of prayer, the value of the simple Paternoster,

the profit to be derived from weighing well its contents, and also the

beauty of the virtue of humility.[1872] His explanation of the Hail

Mary, for all its brevity, contains practical and valuable hints as to

how God is to be honoured in all.[1873]

In a very useful booklet entitled “Einfeltige Weise zu beten”[1874]

(1534), Luther assumes the garb of an instructor on prayer and attempts

to show how the forms in common use, the Our Father, Ten Commandments

and Creed, provide matter for prayer even for busy laymen, and how the

latter, by meditating on each separate word or clause, may rise to

perfect prayer. “When good thoughts press in upon us,” he says, for

instance, explaining the latter practice, “then the other prayers may

be neglected and all our attention given to such thoughts which should

be listened to in silence and on no account be thwarted, for then the

Holy Ghost Himself is preaching to us; one word of His sermon is far

better than a thousand prayers of ours. And I, too,” he adds, “have

often learnt more in one such prayer than I could from much reading and

composing.”[1875]

* * * * *

In the “Vermanunge zum Gebet wider den Türcken,”[1876] exhorting

all to pray for the public needs, he speaks alluringly and with

great religious fervour. Urging his readers to pray for the divine

assistance, he takes one by one, as was indeed his wont, the thoughts

suggested by the Our Father.[1877] “Our comfort and defiance, our

pride, our daring and our arrogance, our insistence, our victory and

our life, our joy, our honour and our glory are seated at the right

hand of God the Father Almighty. There, devil, just you touch a hair

of His!” The power of his words is heightened by his references to

the nearness of the Last Day, the advent of which was foreshadowed

in the downfall of both Papal and Turkish power. He even declares

that the certainty of being heard depended on the spiritual struggle

being waged in defence of the Evangel against the popish “blasphemers,

persecutors and God-forsaken children of the devil”; where these had

their way and were fighting, there nothing was to be looked for save

ruin; there God’s “angry hand was raised in vengeance against all

the devils and Turks, against Mahmed, Pope, Meinz, Heinz and all the

miscreants.”[1878] Hence, even in a tract intended as an exhortation to

prayer and to promote a great work of Christian charity, quite other

sentiments gain for the time the upper hand.

This brings us back to the remark we have frequently had to make when

describing other writings of Luther’s meant for the common people.

All too often his exhortations are disfigured by unmeasured

vituperation or uncalled-for controversy of the most bitter kind.

In the “Vermanunge zum Gebet wider den Türcken,” referred to above,

Luther is seen at his worst in the excursion he makes therein against

the abuses—then indeed very bad—of the usurers, particularly because

they had ventured to say that “Luther does not even know what usury

is.”[1879] He, altogether forgetful of meekness, also attacks the

ungrateful Evangelicals in a highly unseemly manner, because they

refused to submit to the stern reproofs of their preachers: “Let

them fare to the devil and die like pigs and dogs, without grace or

sacrament, and be buried on the carrion-heap.... Those men who wish

to go unreproved thereby admit that they are downright rogues....

They deserve to hear Mahmed, the Turk, the Pope and the devil and his

mother rather than God. Amen, Amen, if they will have it so.”[1880]

Of the Catholics he says in the same “Vermanunge,” that the foes of

the Evangel among the Catholic princes, “traitors, murderers and

incendiaries that they are,” knew full well that his was the “true

Word of God,” yet, instead of accepting it, they would “much prefer to

behave towards us like Turks, or were it possible, like very devils,

not to speak of their being ready to serve, aid, counsel and abet the

Turks”; they said, “If God in heaven won’t help us, then let us call

in all the devils from hell.... This I know to be true.”[1881]

It was no mere passing fit of temper that induced him in his old

age so to disfigure his exhortations. In another pious writing, the

“Circular Letter to the Pastors,” sent around two years previous, and

also dealing with the war against the Turks, he says: “The Papists do

not pray and are so bloodthirsty that they cannot pray”; hence let

_us_ pray, he says; “but, when they start with their bloodthirsty

designs against the Evangel, then all must fall upon them as upon a

pack of mad dogs.”[1882] Such words scattered broadcast over Germany

could not possibly serve to promote union or to strengthen the

resistance to be offered to the danger looming from the East. They

merely throw a lurid light on the chasm Luther cleft in the heart of

the nation, and on the internal dissensions which were weakening the

Empire and making it an object of ridicule to the Turkish unbelievers.

In the preface to his Church-Postils (1543), Luther exhorts the

pastors to leave those, who “wish to be left unpunished,” to “die like

dogs”; the rooks and ravens, jackdaws and wolves would sing the best

vigils and dirges for the souls of such proud wiselings.[1883] He not

only wishes them to fulminate against such men but also desires, that,

in the sermons, “certain instances of the Papal tyranny under which we

once groaned in misery be introduced.”[1884]

Such was his anger with his foes that Luther even goes so far as to

say in his exposition of the Hail Mary, that the Papists “cursed”

instead of blessed, the fruit of Mary’s womb.[1885]—In the tract “How

to pray” “Peter Balbier” is warned to bear in mind the “idolatry of

the Turk, the Pope and all false teachers”;[1886] nor is ridicule of

the praying priestlings wanting;[1887] he then exhorts Peter in the

most pious of language to imitate his example, viz. “to suck at the

Paternoster like a baby, and to eat and drink it like a man,” “never

wearying of it”; he was also “very fond of the Psalter,” turning

“the whole as far as possible into a prayer,”[1888] and, when he had

“grown cold and disgusted with saying prayers,” would take his “little

Psalter and escape into his own room,” etc.[1889]—But even his homely

exposition of the Our Father is not free from a polemical bias.[1890]

With the beautiful and useful thoughts contained in his preface to

the Larger Catechism, to the annoyance of the thoughtful reader, he

mingles abuse of the “lazy bellies and presumptuous saints” of his

own party,[1891] to say nothing of the inevitable outbursts against

Catholic practices. Here, too, the thought of the devil, by which he

is ever obsessed, makes him represent Satan’s wiles as the best and

most powerful incentive to the study of the Catechism.

Even his earlier Exposition of the Magnificat is spoilt by a

controversial colouring,[1892] and, moreover, is overclouded by the

circumstance that he wrote it at the very time when the menace of the

Diet of Worms was at its worse. Looking out for a powerful protector,

he dedicated his writing to Duke Johann Frederick of Saxony, the

future Elector, who had wished him luck in his crusade against the

Papal Ban. Luther extols the Duke’s piety at the beginning of the

work. But was he not anxious to make a good impression himself by his

Exposition of the Magnificat? To impress his readers that he was a man

enlightened by God and living in union with Him? We may notice how

pathetically he depicts the righteous man (and we naturally think of

him) submitting to be persecuted for the Word of God, and awaiting

with heavenly resignation succour from on high, without in the least

striving to protect himself. He who is persecuted, he writes, “must

humble himself before God as unworthy that such great things should be

done through him and commend everything to His mercy with prayer and

supplication.”[1893]

Another motive which inspired the publication of his works of

edification was, as he himself admits, to wrest the Catholic

prayer-books from the people’s hands. It is true, he says, his

intention is “simply and honestly” to supply the people with spiritual

food. But he also alludes to the “manifold wretchedness arising out

of confession and sin,” and the “unchristian stupidity found in the

little prayers offered to God and His Saints,” which he is obliged

to assail. Even where his peculiar doctrine makes no appearance in

his instructions he is not oblivious of its interest, even though he

assures us, seemingly with the utmost sincerity, that he was going

to see whether, by his writings, “he could not do his very foes a

service. For my object is ever to be helpful to all and harmful to

none.”[1894] He saw well of what help the mere existence of pious

books would prove to his party; the more pious and innocent they were,

the more they would promote his cause and smooth the way for him. The

simplicity of the dove thus openly flaunted, nevertheless contrasts

unpleasantly with the wisdom of the serpent which is only too apparent.

As to what is lacking in Luther’s religious writings: Any reader

familiar with the manuals of instruction and piety in use towards the

close of the Middle Ages will at once perceive a great difference

between the importance they attach to self-denial, self-conquest and

the struggle against the evil inclinations of nature and that attached

to them by Luther.

In the “Imitation of Christ,” for instance, the great stress laid

on self-denial gives an effective spur to every inward virtue. In

Luther, with his twin ideas of faith alone and the irresistible power

of grace, this main feature of the religious warfare falls decidedly

into the background. Is it a mere coincidence that in the Larger

Catechism self-denial and penance are not mentioned among the means

for preserving chastity?[1895] Chastity itself is there dealt with

in a curiously grudging fashion. The so-called Evangelical Counsels,

which fell from our Lord’s own lips and had been eagerly pursued in

the past by those seeking to lead a life of perfection, are naturally

altogether ignored by Luther. With him, too, the wholesome incentive to

good provided by the hope of supernatural merit for heaven had also,

owing to his theory, to be set aside. The appeals to the motive of holy

fear which he makes are too rare and too powerless to be of much avail.

He had clipped with a rude hand the two wings of the spiritual life,

viz. fear and the hope of reward, which bear it upwards and without

which man cannot rise above the things of sense.

In Luther’s works of edification, as pointed out above, we miss the

school of virtue, the advance from one step of virtue and perfection

to another, such as had grown up into a wise and recognised system,

thanks to the experience of antiquity and the Middle Ages.[1896] With

him everything begins with a rash breach with the past. Even the use

made of the example of the Saints is painfully defective. An easy-going

tendency hides the poverty of the aims and a shallow mediocrity lames

the upward flight. Here, again, the fact that the author turns his

back so rudely on the traditions of the earliest ages and the holy

practices of his fathers, brings its own punishment. For a multitude of

inspiring and perfectly legitimate acts of prayer and virtue in which

the Christian heart had found strength and gladness are passed over by

him in dead silence, or else scoffed at as mere “holiness-by-works.”

While this is true of his practice, his theory, too, was wanting in

that clear and solid justification and development which the theology

of the older divines had enabled them to introduce into their teaching.

Lovers of Luther can, however, claim that in him two qualities were

united which are rarely to be found combined, and possibly belong to

no other popular religious writer of the age, viz. first, a wealth of

ideas suggested by reminiscences, now of the Bible, now from the pages

of human life; secondly, the writer’s wonderful imagination, which

enables him to clothe all things in the best dress in order the more

easily to win his way into the hearts of his readers.

In consequence of this his writings will always find approving friends,

not only in Lutheran circles but also among those who for literary or

historical reasons are interested in a form of literature bearing so

individual a stamp, and know how to overlook their imperfections. The

reasons, however, are sufficiently obvious why the Church by a general

prohibition (though it does admit of exceptions) has set up a barrier

against the study of any of Luther’s works by her children, and why

she bids her faithful to seek spiritual food only in those books of

instruction and edification which she sanctions.

_The Catechism_

The ignorance of the people in religious things, of which Luther was

made aware during the Visitation in the Saxon Electorate in 1527, led

him to compose a sort of Catechism, “which should be a short abstract

and recapitulation of Holy Scripture.”[1897] He was desirous of

providing in this way a manual for the “instruction of the children and

the simple,” and more particularly of supplying fathers of families

with an easy means “of questioning and catechising their children and

dependents at least once a week (as was their duty), and seeing what

they knew or had learnt of it.”[1898]

Thus, at the commencement of 1529, or possibly as early as 1528, he was

at work, first, on the (Shorter) Catechism “for the rude country-folk,”

as he writes to a friend,[1899] and also preparing mural tablets

(“_tabulæ_”) which set out the matter “in the shortest and baldest

way.”[1900] Of these tablets his pupil Rörer says, on Jan. 20, that

some of them hung on his walls while the Catechism (“_prædicatus pro

rudibus et simplicibus_”) was still in process of making.[1901] It was

in this form that the “Shorter Catechism” first appeared, but, in the

same year (1528) these tablets were collected into a booklet entitled

the “Enchiridion.”[1902]

Luther was at the same time at work on a fuller German Catechism which

was intended to supply the heads of families, and more particularly

the preachers, with further matter for their instructions. This work,

under the title of “Deudsch Catechismus,” was finished and printed in

April, 1529,[1903] and in May appeared a Latin translation of the same.

This was what was eventually termed the Larger Catechism.

In the preface to the Shorter Catechism Luther puts on the shoulders

of the Catholic bishops the blame for the fact, that, the “common

folk, particularly in the villages, knew nothing whatever of Christian

doctrine.” He also admits, however, that, among the Evangelicals,

there were “unfortunately many pastors who are quite unskilled and

incapable of teaching.” Hence it came about that the people “knew

neither the Our Father, the Creed nor the Ten Commandments,” and

“lived like so many brute beasts and senseless swine.” “And how can

it be otherwise,” he asks the pastor and preacher, “seeing that

you snooze and hold your tongue?” He accordingly requires of the

ministers, first, that, in their teaching, they should keep to one

form of the “Ten Commandments, Creed, Our Father and Sacrament,” etc.,

and not “alter a syllable”; and “further, that, when they had taught

the text thoroughly, they should see that the meaning of it is also

understood”; finally, the pastor was to take the Larger Catechism

and study it and then “explain things still more fully to his flock”

according to their needs and their power of comprehension.

In spite of all this he has no wish that the particular method and

form of his Catechism should be made obligatory; here again, according

to his principle, everything must be spontaneous and voluntary.

“Choose whatever form you please and then stick to it for ever.”

Nevertheless whoever refuses to “learn by heart” the text selected

is to be treated as a denier of Christ, “shall be allowed not a

shred of Christian freedom, but simply be handed over to the Pope

and his officers, nay, to the devil himself. Parents and masters

are also to refuse them food and drink and to warn them that the

sovereigns will drive such rude clowns out of the land,” etc. This

agrees with a letter Luther wrote to Joseph Levin Metzsch on August

26, 1529, in which he says that those who despise the Catechism and

the Evangel are to be driven to church by force, that they may at

least learn the outward work of the Law from the preaching of the Ten

Commandments.[1904]

Filled with anxiety for the future of his Church he warmly exhorts

the pastors to provide for a constant supply of preachers and worthy

officials. They were to tell the authorities and the parents, “of what

a gruesome crime they were guilty, when they neglected to help to

educate children as pastors, preachers, and writers, etc.... The sin

now being committed in this respect by both parents and authorities is

quite beyond words; this is one way the devil has of displaying his

cruelty.” We see from this that Luther’s solicitude for the teaching

of the Catechism had a practical motive beyond that lying on the

surface. He wished to erect not only a bulwark but also a nursery for

the Church to come; for this same reason, in his efforts about this

time on behalf of the schools (see vol. vi., xxxv., 3), what he had

in view was, that, with the help of the Bible and the Catechism, they

should become _seminaria ecclesiarum_.

In the preface to the Larger Catechism of 1530 Luther lashes those

among his preachers who turned up their noses at the Catechism.

Many, he says, despise “their office and this teaching, some because

they are so very learned, others out of laziness and belly-love”;

they will not buy or read such books; “they are, in fact, shameful

gluttons and belly-servers, better fitted to look after the pigs and

the hounds than to be pastors having the cure of souls.” To them he

holds up his own example. He too was “a Doctor and preacher, nay,

as learned and experienced as any of them,” and yet he read and

recited every morning, and whenever he had time, “like a child, the

Ten Commandments, Creed, Our Father, Psalms, etc.”; he never ceased

being a student of the Catechism. “Therefore I beg these lazy bellies

or presumptuous saints, that, for God’s sake, they let themselves be

persuaded, and open their eyes to see that they are not in reality so

learned and such great Doctors as they imagine.”

The exhortations in this preface, to all the clergy to make use of and

teach the Catechism diligently, contain much that is useful and to the

point.

In other passages he nevertheless sees fit to emphasise what he says

by false and odious reflections on the Papacy. “Our office is now

quite other from what it was under the Pope; now it is serious and

wholesome, and thus much more arduous and laborious and full of danger

and temptation.”[1905] Before him “no Doctor on earth had known the

whole of the Catechism, that is the Our Father, Ten Commandments

and Creed, much less understood them and taught them as now, God

be praised, they are taught and learnt even by little children. In

support of this I appeal to all their books, those of the theologians

as well as those of the lawyers. If even one article of the Catechism

can be learnt aright from them, then I am willing to let myself be

broken on the wheel or bled to death.”[1906]

In the plan of both the Larger and Smaller Catechism Luther keeps

to the traditional threefold division, viz. the Ten Commandments,

Apostles’ Creed and Our Father. To these he appends a fourth part

on baptism and a fifth on the Supper, the only two sacraments he

recognises. He also slipped in a short supplementary instruction on

the new form of Confession before the chapter on the Supper.[1907] The

Smaller Catechism was provided from the very first with morning and

evening prayers, grace for meals and an eminently practical “Household

Table of Texts,” consisting of appropriate verses for pastors, for

their subordinates and pupils in general, for temporal authorities, for

subjects, married people, parents, masters, children and also for the

“young in general, for widows and for the parishes.”

The language, more particularly of the Shorter Catechism, is throughout

a model of simplicity and clearness.

We may find an example of his brevity and concision at the end of the

“Creed”; the passage will also serve to show how greatly his teaching

differed from that of the Church. After the words: “I believe in the

Holy Ghost, the Holy _Christian_ Church, the communion of saints, the

forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the dead and life everlasting,

Amen,” there follows in the Catechism the usual question: “What means

this?” and the answer, with regard to the Church, is that the Holy

Ghost “calls, gathers together, enlightens, hallows and holds the whole

body of Christians on earth in Jesus Christ in one true faith; in which

body of Christendom He free-handedly forgives me and all the faithful

all our sins daily,” etc. The paragraph ends, as do all the articles on

the Creed, in the usual form: “This is true.”

In spite of all peculiarity of doctrine in the Shorter Catechism all

polemical attacks on the olden Church are carefully eschewed. In the

Larger Catechism, on the contrary, they abound. Even under the First

Commandment, speaking of the worship of God, the author alludes to what

“hitherto we have in our blindness been in the habit of practising in

Popery”; “the worst idolatry” had held sway, seeing that we sought

“help, consolation and salvation in our own works.” In the explanation

of the article on the “Holy Christian Church, the Communion of Saints”

it is set forth at the outset, that, “in Popery,” “faith had been

stuck under the bench,” “no one having acknowledged Christ as Lord.”

“Formerly, before we came to hear [God’s Word] we were the devil’s own,

knowing nothing of God or of Christ.”[1908]

On the other hand, several of Luther’s doctrines find no place whatever

in either of the Catechisms. For instance, those, which, according to

the testimony of Protestant scholars quoted above, necessarily lead

to a “Christianity void of dogma” (above, p. 432 ff.). The people and

the pastors learn nothing here of their right of private judgment

with regard to the text of the Bible and the articles of faith. Nor

is anything said of that view of original sin which constituted the

very basis of the new system, viz. that it is destructive of every

predisposition to what is good; nor of the enslaved will, which is

ridden now by God, now by the devil; nor of the fact that man’s actions

have only the value imputed to them by God; nor, finally, do we find

anything of predestination to hell, of the “Hidden God” Who quashes the

Will of the “Revealed God” that all men be saved, and Who, to manifest

His “Justice,” gloats over the endless torment of the countless

multitudes whom He infallibly predestined to suffer eternally.[1909]

The reason for the suppression of these doctrines in catechisms

intended for the general reader is patent. The dogmas they embody, in

so far as they vary from the traditional, are too contradictory to

form a solid theological structure. To what dangers would not the new

doctrine have been exposed, and what would have been the bad impression

on the reader, had mention been made in the Catechisms of such

theories, even though, in reality, they formed the very backbone of the

new theology?

Luther’s Catechisms were well received and were frequently

reprinted.[1910] Many enactments of the secular rulers, particularly

in the Saxon lands, insisted that his Shorter Catechism should be

learnt by heart and his Larger Catechism be made the basis of the

sermons.[1911]

Mathesius wrote: “If Dr. Luther during his career had done nothing

more than introduce the two Catechisms into the homes, the schools and

the pulpits, reviving prayers before and after meals and on rising

and going to bed, even then the whole world could not sufficiently

thank or repay him.”[1912]—“Luther’s booklet,” declares O. Albrecht,

“became a practical guide to pious patriarchal discipline in the home,

and the very foundation of the education of the people in those German

lands which had come under the influence of his Reformation.... Even

in the Latin schools his _Parvus catechismus_ became, in the 16th

century, one of the most widely disseminated handbooks.”[1913]

In the heyday of their triumph the Catechisms were incorporated in

the Book of Concord, first in German in 1580 and then in Latin in

1584, and were thus bodily incorporated in the Creed of the Lutheran

Evangelical Church. They were accepted “as the layman’s Bible in which

all is comprised that is dealt with in Holy Scripture and which it

is necessary for a Christian man to know.”[1914] Highly as Luther

valued his Catechism,[1915] still he certainly had never intended it

to be enforced as a rule of faith, for we have heard him express his

readiness to sanction the use of any other short and concise form of

instruction. (See above, p. 484.)

Luther had nevertheless taken great pains over his work.

He had been thinking of it long before he actually set to work on it.

As early as 1526 he had spoken in his “Deudsche Messe und Ordnung

Gottis Diensts” of the need of a “rude, homely, simple and good work

on the Catechism” for the congregation of true Christians which he was

planning; indeed, he had already dealt with certain portions of the

Catechism in his “Kurcz Form der czehen Gepott” (1520), and in his

“Betbüchlin” (1522). It was probably owing to his influence that Jonas

and Agricola were entrusted with the drafting of a catechism for boys.

While engaged on this work, in 1528, he, as a final preparation for

it, preached three courses of sermons on the Catechism. These sermons

were first published in 1894 by G. Buchwald in “Die Entstehung der

Katechismen Luthers,” being taken from the notes by Rörer; Buchwald

draws attention to the close connection existing between the sermons

and the text of the Catechism.[1916]

So well did Luther promote the teaching of the elementary truths of

religion, that, in a notice given from the pulpit on Nov. 29, 1528,

he was able to speak of a rule according to which it was the custom

at Wittenberg four times in the year to preach four sermons on the

Catechism spread over a fortnight.[1917]

This custom lasted long and spread to other places.[1918] Bugenhagen,

so it is said on reliable authority, always carried Luther’s Catechism

with him.[1919] He declared, in 1542, that he had already preached

about fifty times on the Catechism,[1920] and he seems to have

organised and kept up the practice of the “catechism weeks” when pastor

of Wittenberg; at any rate the rules he drew up subsequent to 1528

insist repeatedly on such sermons being preached on the Catechism.[1921]

_Luther’s Catechism and Ecclesiastical Antiquity_

In the passage of his “Deudsche Messe” where he speaks of his idea on

the teaching of the Catechism, Luther says, that he knew no better way

to give such instruction than “that in which it had been given from

the earliest days of Christianity and until now, viz. under the three

heads: The Ten Commandments, the Creed and the Our Father”; these three

things contained all that was called for.[1922] Hence he himself was

far from sharing the opinion of certain later Protestants, viz. that,

in the selection and methodical treatment of these three points he had

struck out an entirely new line. He simply adapted the existing form of

instruction to his new doctrines, which he cast into a shape suitable

for popular consumption.

The Decalogue, together with Confession with which it naturally goes

hand in hand, had assumed, ever since the 13th century, an ever-growing

importance in the instructions intended for the people. In esteeming,

as he did, the Ten Commandments, the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer,

Luther was simply following in the footsteps of the 14th and 15th

century. Johann Wolff, the Frankfurt preacher, who is described on

his tombstone as “_Doctor decem præceptorum_,” as his Handbook for

Confession of 1478 shows, was quite indefatigable in his propaganda

on behalf of the use of the Decalogue in confession and in popular

instructions.[1923]

We must here call attention, above all, to the instruction habitually

given in the home by parents and god-parents before Luther’s day;

this “consisted chiefly in teaching the Creed and the Our Father, two

points belonging to the oldest catechetical formularies of the ancient

Church.”[1924] Luther himself had learnt these in the Latin school with

the rest contained in the hornbooks, and on them in turn he based his

own Catechism.[1925]

Melanchthon speaks, in 1528, of the “Children’s manual containing the

Alphabet, the Our Father, the Creed and other prayers,”[1926] as the

first school primer which had come down from the past.

Even Mathesius admits that, “parents and schoolmasters taught their

children the Ten Commandments, the Creed and the Our Father, as I

in my childhood learnt them at school and often repeated them with

the other children, as was the custom in the olden schools”; he

adds, however, that the “tiresome devil” had smuggled additions into

the Catholic “A.B.C. book” and corrupted it with Popish doctrine,

whereby servitors are “turned” towards the Mass; the devil “had also

introduced into the school primer the idolatrous ‘_Salve Regina_’

which detracted from the honour due to Jesus Christ, our one Mediator

and Intercessor.”[1927]

In the 15th and 16th century priests were often urged to recite from

the pulpit every Sunday the Creed and Our Father, sometimes also

the Hail Mary, and the Decalogue was not unfrequently added.[1928]

A work by the Basle parish-priest, Johann Surgant, which appeared

in 1502 and was many times republished, deals exclusively with the

expounding of the above points to the people, supplies each with

explanatory notes, and requires, in accordance with the existing

rules, that the priests should carefully instruct the people in them

(“_diligenter informent_”). It was an old custom to preach on the

Catechism during Lent as Luther also had done in his younger days,

taking for his subject the Ten Commandments and the Our Father; this

custom, too, had probably been handed down from the time, when, during

the weeks preceding the great day for baptism, viz. Holy Saturday,

the catechumens were instructed in the Creed and the Our Father

(“_traditio symboli et orationis dominicæ_”).

The courses of sermons preached four times a year at Wittenberg also

had their analogy in the Church’s past. As early as 1281, a synod

meeting in London under Archbishop Peckham of Canterbury had required,

in the 10th Canon, that the parish-priest should rehearse every three

months the principal doctrines of the Christian faith and morals

simply and concisely.

Even in his Confession or examination before Communion of 1523[1929]

Luther had merely revived, under another form, an institution of the

Mediæval Church, for, in the Confession before Communion, it had been

customary to recite the principal articles of Christian faith.[1930]

As to what Luther says, viz. that the instruction given to the people

had formerly borne only on the three points named above, and that of

the two sacraments treated of in his Catechism “sad to say nothing

had hitherto been taught,”[1931] it is only necessary to say that

numerous prayer-books and manuals on confession dating from the close

of the Middle Ages contain abundant matter both on the sacraments and

on other things touching doctrine.[1932]

Before Luther’s day the term Catechism had not been taken to mean the

book itself, but the subject-matter which was taught by word of mouth

and was confined to the points indicated above. It was in this sense

that he said, for instance in the Table-Talk: “The Catechism must

remain and be supreme in the Christian Church.”[1933] It was he and

Melanchthon[1934] who initiated the custom of applying the term not

only to the contents of the volume but also to the volume itself.[1935]

Hence, it is verbally true, that, before Luther’s day, there existed no

“Catechism”; the religious writings dealing with the subject bore other

and different titles. Nor was the arrangement of question and answer

regarded as essential to the body of instructions which went under

the term of Catechism, a circumstance which also seemed to favour the

assertion, that, before Luther’s day, no such thing was known. But if

question and answer be essential, then, even his own Larger Catechism

could not rightly have borne the title, seeing that it has not this

form. Nevertheless the system of question and answer had always been

highly prized and had sometimes been made use of on the model of the

questions put at baptism.

Amongst the older writings that most nearly approach the ideal of the

Catholic Catechism, deserve to be mentioned two books then widely known

which are constantly making their appearance in the thirty years before

Luther’s day, viz. the “_Fundamentum æternæ felicitatis_” and the

“_Discipulus de eruditione Christi—fidelium compendiosus_,” the second

of which also contains questions and objections. Both go beyond the

three main points given above and include a popular summary, intended

for the use of the clergy, of the seven sacraments, the nine sins, the

works of mercy and the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost.[1936] It was

also the usual thing for books on the Decalogue to include other points

of importance, and thus to deal with almost the whole of the matter

treated of in the Catechism. In fact, as Zezschwitz says, there was

rather an “over-abundance of material in the domain of catechetics”

than any dearth.

Finally, the use of the so-called tables, i.e. sheets printed only on

one side and each giving a different point of the Catechism, which,

as we saw, was the form under which Luther’s Shorter Catechism first

appeared (above, p. 483), was nothing new either. “Luther followed

in this respect a custom then widespread,”[1937] as is shown by the

studies of Geffcken, Cohrs and Falk (1908); Falk, in particular,

carefully sought out the Catholic tablets of the kind still in

existence. So far only one example of Luther’s printed tablets, and

that in Low German, has been brought to light.[1938]

Hence the statement that Luther’s Catechism was his own “creation”

calls for considerable revision.

The directness and concision of his style must, however, always commend

themselves to the reader, even to those who regret that in this work

he tampered with the doctrines of the olden Church. But, as regards

the division, the work rests on a foundation hallowed by centuries of

ecclesiastical usage. This even Protestants have now begun to see.

According to F. Cohrs, even in Luther’s “Kurcz Form,” we see

“Evangelical catechetics springing up on the soil of the popular

religious literature of the Middle Ages.”[1939]

Otto Albrecht, like others, admits, that, in his appreciation of

the three chief points of instruction, and more particularly of

the Decalogue, Luther “is in agreement with the similar efforts

made in the 14th and 15th century.” It was according to him “only

natural” that Luther, in his “Kurcz Form” of 1520 and again in his

“Deudsche Messe” of 1526, should protest, that, “in these three

points, he was safeguarding the heirloom of the Church.” In this

instance his critical attitude towards the past comes out only in

his exclusion of the Hail Mary, in his rearrangement of the three

parts, and, of course, above all, in the new meaning he gives to them.

Moreover, according to Albrecht, Luther’s gradual enlargement of his

“Betbüchlin” shows that the latter was but an “Evangelical version

of the mediæval prayer and confession handbooks, which themselves, in

turn, had led up to the Catechisms of the 16th century.”[1940]

Such a view also fits in with Luther’s own words far better than did

the exaggerations formerly current. He says, for instance, in 1532,

in his “Brieff an die zu Franckfort am Meyn”: “This we have received

even from the first beginnings of Christianity. For there we see that

the Creed, the Our Father and the Ten Commandments were summarised as

a short form of doctrine for the young and the simple, and were, even

from the very first, termed the Catechism.”[1941] Even in the original

preface to the Larger Catechism he had declared that, “for the sake of

the common people he was keeping to the three points which have ever

been the rule in Christendom in ages past.”[1942]

3. The German Bible

Already at the Wartburg Luther had begun the great work of substituting

for the existing vernacular translations of Holy Scripture one written

in good German and based on the original languages of the books of the

Bible.

The idea seems to have dawned on him during his enforced rest at the

Wartburg, when, as he tells a friend, he passed his time reading the

Bible in Greek and Hebrew and in studying these two languages.[1943]

Just then he was entirely under the sway of those new views of

his which prompted him to set up the Bible in the stead of all

ecclesiastical authority. Melanchthon, too, so it would appear, had

also some share in his resolution.

_The Work of Translation and its Conclusion_

In his solitude Luther first broached the New Testament, first because

its contents more nearly touched the controversy in which he was

engaged, and, secondly, because the New Testament could be translated

more easily without learned assistance. When first announcing his

plan, on Dec. 18, 1521, he mentions, that, “our people are asking

for it.”[1944] “I shall put the Bible into German,” so he tells his

Wittenberg colleague, Canon Nicholas Amsdorf, on Jan. 13, 1522, “though

in so doing I am taking upon myself a burden beyond my strength. Now

I see what translating means, and, why, so far, no one who undertook

it ever put his name to it. As for the Old Testament I cannot touch it

unless you are here and give me your help. Could I find a hiding-place

with one of you, I would come at once so as to start the work of

translation from the outset with your assistance. The result ought to

be a translation worthy of being read by all Christians. I hope we

shall give our German folk a better one than that which the Latins

have. It is a great and glorious work at which we all should toil, for

it is a public matter and is meant to serve the common weal. Tell me

what hopes you have of it.”[1945]

In barely three months, with the aid of the few helpers he was able

to secure in his Patmos, he had finished the first rough draft of

the New Testament, which he took with him on leaving the Wartburg

for revision among his friends at Wittenberg. “Philip and I,” so he

wrote from Wittenberg, on March 30, 1522, to Spalatin, who was then

Court preacher, “have now begun to furbish the translation of the New

Testament; it will, please God, turn out a fine work. We shall need

your help too, here and there, for the choice of words; hence get

ready. But send us simple words, not the language of the men-at-arms

or of the Court; the translation must, above all, be a homely one.

May I ask you to send me straightaway the [German] names and the

colours of the precious stones mentioned in Apocalypse xxi., or better

still the stones themselves, if you can get hold of them at Court or

elsewhere.”[1946] Luther finally received specimens of the stones

through the good offices of Cranach. In order the better to understand

certain texts, he also wrote to Spalatin, Mutian and Dr. George

Sturz on the subject of ancient coinage.[1947] He also incidentally

consulted the Court preacher as to the exact German translation of the

names of various wild animals with which the latter would probably

be acquainted owing to the hunts indulged in by the Court in that

neighbourhood.[1948]

The printing of the New Testament was begun at Wittenberg by Melchior

Lotther in the first days of May. Proofsheets were sent to Spalatin

and Duke Johann of Saxony. From the beginning of July three printing

presses are said to have run off daily 10,000 “chartæ,” i.e. 5000

folio sheets, so as to produce an edition of 3000 copies. On Sep. 21,

1522, the New Testament appeared with a frontispiece and a number of

woodcuts by Lucas Cranach; the title-page bore the words: “Das Newe

Testament Deutzsch. Vuittemberg.” Neither year nor printer’s name were

given, nor even the name of the translator, probably in order not to

prejudice the sale of the book in those regions where Luther stood in

bad odour. Luther received no fee for the work any more than for his

other writings. As the first edition was at once sold out a new and

amended one was published in Dec.; the two editions afterwards became

known as the September and December Bibles. Editions still further

amended were published at Wittenberg in 1526 and 1530. Altogether some

sixteen editions of the New Testament were printed in this town before

1557, while at the same time more than fifty reprints saw the light in

Germany, for instance, fourteen at Augsburg, thirteen at Strasburg and

twelve at Basle.

While still busy on the New Testament Luther set to work on the Old,

this time with the regular and expert assistance of Melanchthon and

Matthæus Aurogallus, the Wittenberg Professor of Hebrew. Owing to the

difficulty of the work and the constant hindrances encountered by the

author, the work did not appear all at once, but only piecemeal. As

early as 1523 the Books of the Pentateuch were published at Augsburg

and Basle in two successive editions, four times reprinted in the same

year. The historical books from Josue to Esther followed in 1524. The

remainder, comprehensively described as the “Prophets,” followed in

separate parts, Job, the Psalms and the “Books of Solomon” in 1524, and

the Prophets, properly so-called, only at longer intervals.[1949]

The difficulties of the work and the unwearied pains taken by the

compiler are frequently apparent in Luther’s letters to his friends.

He writes, for instance, to Spalatin: “Job gives us much trouble

owing to the exceptional grandeur of his style; he seems as reluctant

to submit to our translation as to the consolations of his friends;

he refuses to march and wants to remain for ever seated on his

dunghill; it almost seems as though the writer of the book had wished

to make a translation impossible. For this reason the printing of

the third part of the Bible [i.e. of the Old Testament] proceeds but

slowly.”[1950]—Later, in the preface to the Book of Job, he said:

“In our work on ‘Hiob,’ we, Master Philip, Aurogallus and I, were

sometimes barely able to get through three lines in four days. But

now, my friend, that it is translated into German everyone can read

it and master it and run his eyes over three or four pages without

meeting a single obstacle, nor does he perceive what hindrances and

stumbling-blocks lay in the path he now glides along as easily as down

a greasy pole; to us, however, it cost much toil and sweat to remove

all the hindrances and stumbling-blocks.”[1951]

He writes to his friend Wenceslaus Link of his difficulties with

the prophet Isaias on which, with Melanchthon,[1952] he was hard at

work in June, 1528: “We are now sweating at the translation of the

prophets. Good God, what a great and arduous task it is to cram the

Hebrew writers into a German mould! They absolutely refuse to submit

to the barbarism of the German tongue. It is as though a nightingale

were being forced to exchange its sweet melodies for the call of the

cuckoo.”[1953]

With particular care did Luther devote himself to polishing up

each new edition of the Psalms; it is easy to see his efforts, not

merely to render the words accurately, but also to breathe into his

translation some of the fervour and poetic feeling of the sacred text.

As to the prophets; with the exception of Isaias, he set to work on

them only in 1530, beginning with Ezechiel during his stay at the

Coburg. In Feb., 1532, he had finished the prophets, which appeared

in a volume apart. He was now at last able to set to work on what

he called the “Apocrypha”; regarding them as popular tales his

translation of them was very free. Among these he included Judith, the

Book of Wisdom, Tobias, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the first and second

Book of the Machabees, portions of Esther, etc. They found a place at

the end of his Old Testament.

At the commencement of 1534 his Bible, which was now finished, was

published for the first time as a complete work under the title:

“Biblia, das ist die gantze Heilige Schrift Deudsch,” with his name

and that of the printer, Hans Luft (Lufft). The Old, like the New

Testament, was illustrated by Lucas Cranach, the subjects having been

selected and distributed by Luther himself. The Old Testament was also

furnished by Luther with marginal glosses in the form of short notes

explanatory of the text, or giving his own commentary on it. Prefaces

were prefixed to each division. A new edition of the Old Testament was

ready as early as 1535.

New reprints of the whole Bible or of portions of it were constantly

making their appearance, those appearing at Wittenberg always embodying

the author’s latest emendations. From 1530-40 the latest bibliographer

of Luther’s Bible enumerates thirty-four Wittenberg editions and

seventy-two reprints in other parts of Germany; from 1541-46 there were

eighteen Wittenberg editions and twenty-six similar reprints.[1954]

According to a fairly reliable authority no less than 100,000 complete

Bibles left Lotther’s press at Wittenberg between 1534 and 1584.[1955]

The same bibliographer describes in the Weimar edition eighty-four

original editions and 253 reprints as having appeared during Luther’s

lifetime. Since each edition may be reckoned to have comprised from one

to five thousand copies, one is almost justified in saying that Germany

was flooded with the new work or portions of it. Half the South-German

printers found a living in printing Bibles. In this respect the history

of Luther’s works supplies the best data for the history of the

printing and bookselling trade in that age.

It is true, no doubt, that many bought Bibles, because, among

Protestants, it was considered the right thing for every man of

means to have his Family-Bible. In the case of many alienated from

the practices of the Church, the possession and the reading of the

Bible constituted, as a Protestant recently put it, a sort of “_opus

operatum_,” yet, according to the same writer, “the contradiction

between the Bible and the moral behaviour” of some of its most zealous

readers “cannot in many instances be questioned.”[1956] Others,

however, no doubt provided themselves with the new Bible from really

religious motives and interests, and refreshed and fortified themselves

with its sublime and edifying eloquence. We may assume this to have

been the effect of Luther’s Bible in the case of the simple folk who

had been led unconsciously into Lutheranism, or had grown up in it, and

who owed their acquaintance with the work to its use in public worship,

though they themselves may have been unable to read, or, maybe, not

rich enough to purchase a Bible of their own.[1957]

His success encouraged Luther, diligently to revise his work. So far,

not a single edition had appeared without some alterations, and, as

we see from certain recently discovered data, he again went through

the Psalter in 1531, “with great pains and labour,” and also set about

revising the whole of his Bible subsequent to Jan. 24, 1534—being

assisted in both these undertakings by Melanchthon and Cruciger.

Nevertheless another revision of the Bible on a large scale was

begun in 1539, as we have fully learnt only in our own day from two

witnesses and from the notes in Luther’s own private copy.

One of the witnesses is George Rörer, the Wittenberg deacon who

corrected the Bible proofs, and who declares: “In 1539 they went

through the Bible once more, from the beginning even to the Apocrypha

[i.e. the Old Testament], and gave a clearer German rendering to

certain words and phrases, as may be seen from the book with the

sermons [i.e. the notes] delivered by this same man in 1541-2.”[1958]

The other witness is Mathesius, who had been a guest at Luther’s

table in the spring of 1540 and whose detailed account was already

generally known, though, owing to the fresh data discovered, it now

appears in a stronger light. “When first the whole German Bible had

appeared and temptations had improved it day by day, the Doctor

once more gathered the Holy Books, and, with great earnestness,

diligence and prayer, went through them again; and ... D. Luther

formed a sort of Sanhedrin of his own, composed of the best men

then to be had, who met for several hours once a week before supper

in the Doctor’s monastery, namely, D. Johann Bugenhagen, D. Justus

Jonas, D. Cruciger, Master Philip, Matthæus Aurogallus and also M.

George Rörer, the proof-reader. Doctors and learned men from outside

frequently took part in this sublime work, for instance, Dr. Bernard

Ziegler [Professor of Hebrew at Leipzig], D. Forstemius [Professor at

Tübingen, who in 1540 became Provost of Nuremberg].... The Doctor,

having first gone through the Bible already published, ... came into

the consistory with his old Latin and new German Bibles, always

bringing also the Hebrew text along with him. Mr. Philip brought with

him the Greek text, and Dr. Cruciger both the Chaldean and the Hebrew

Bible. The professors had also their Rabbinic books with them. D.

Pommer had also a Latin copy before him with which he was very well

acquainted. Each one had prepared beforehand the text to be discussed

and had consulted the commentators, Greek, Latin and Jewish. Then the

President propounded a text and listened to what each one in turn

had to say on the peculiarity of the language or on the commentaries

of the ancient doctors. Beautiful and instructive things are said to

have been said during this work, some of which M. George [Rörer] noted

down, which were afterwards printed as short glosses and notes in the

margin of the text.”[1959]

At the meetings the minutes were taken by Rörer, a capable amanuensis.

What has been preserved of them gives us a glimpse into the workshop,

where, from 1539 to 1541, the revision of the Bible undertaken by

Luther was carried out. Of Rörer’s minutes those are still extant

which record the conferences on the revision of the translation of the

Psalms, and also a considerable portion of those on the work of 1539 on

the Old Testament of which Mathesius speaks.[1960]

The account, as is so often the case with the Table-Talk, is written

in a mixture of Latin and German; it is also distinguished by the

same spontaneity and absence of constraint. It records discussions on

all the books of the Old Testament saving Chronicles, Esdras and the

“Apocrypha.” We have, in all, notes of meetings held on thirty-two

various dates. Very often the sessions were broken owing to the

members being otherwise engaged, or absent on journeys. The speakers

mentioned by name, Luther in particular, often give their views on the

sense of the original or on its German rendering. As a rule Luther

first submits his proposals or difficulties and then listens to the

views of the rest. At times interesting side-lights are thrown on

contemporary history, and we also meet some noteworthy _obiter dicta_.

On Genesis xii. 11 ff. Melanchthon, alluding to Abraham’s lie in Egypt

when he declared his wife to be his sister, says: “I think he did

this rather out of greatness than out of weakness of faith.” Luther,

who elsewhere does not blame Abraham for this[1961] and also sees

its reason in the greatness of his faith,[1962] here nevertheless

disagrees with Melanchthon and says, “I prefer to regard it as

weakness, for, we are all of us in the same hospital.”

Regarding the building of Solomon’s Temple (3 Kings vi.), he says: “We

shall have much trouble over this horrid building. I should like to

know where the seventy or eighty thousand carpenters with their axes

came from. Did the whole land ever hold so many inhabitants? It is a

queer business. Maybe the Jews corrupted the text. They cannot have

had any carts but must have carried everything. I wish I had done with

the book. I am a very unwilling builder at Solomon’s Temple.... It was

finished about Pentecost. It must have been very lofty, some hundred

cubits in height; our tower here is not much over sixty cubits.”

Now and then Luther brings the words of the Bible into relation with

his own experiences. This he does especially in the minutes of the

meetings held for the revision of the Psalter, which, of course, lends

itself more easily to such application. In one passage (Ps. xviii.

[xvii.] 15) he says, referring to his “combats”: “At the Coburg I

saw my devils flying over the forest.” When discussing Ps. lxxiv.

(lxxiii.) he lets fall the words: “I will send this as a farewell to

my Papists and hope they will howl Amen to it, if God so will. Amen.”

Of Ps. ciii. (cii.) he remarks: “I recite this Psalm daily when I

am merry; it is a fine, cheerful Psalm for a poor soul.” Of Isaias

xi. he says, extolling the prophet: “No prophet speaks so grandly as

‘Jesaia,’” and, on 1 Kings iii., again having a fling at the Papists:

“Things went on pretty much the same as they do in Popery; nobody

studied and the Bible was thrust aside.”

Only excerpts of the records of these meetings have so far appeared

in print. They are, however, to be published in the Weimar edition of

Luther’s works.[1963]

Besides the minutes, a small copy of both Testaments with notes

which Luther made use of in his revision has been discovered at

Jena. It is an edition printed in 1538-9, or possibly in 1540, then

the most recent edition. The notes show a great many alterations in

the text, chiefly such as had been agreed upon at the meetings, in

Genesis, for instance, no less than two hundred. The entries, so far

as they represent the result of the conferences, constitute the link

between Rörer’s minutes and the new edition subsequently published.

The alterations in the latter seem to be taken, sometimes from the

minutes, sometimes from Luther’s copy. “The Jena Old Testament,” says

O. Reichert, is “a document that exemplifies Luther’s way of working;

it proves that he felt he had never done enough for his best work,

that he was always busy at it and was indefatigable in his efforts to

produce a German Bible from the original text.”[1964]

The outcome of the work of revision was a great improvement in the

Wittenberg Bible of 1540 and 1541 printed by Hans Lufft. Another

edition, dating from 1542, embodied in the main most of the new

emendations. The edition most highly prized is, however, the last

that appeared during Luther’s lifetime, viz. that of 1545, which also

contains new corrections. It has been called the “_editio typica_” of

Luther’s Bible, though, possibly, that of 1546, with new alterations by

Rörer, to which Luther is supposed to have given his approval, should

be regarded as such.

The detailed account of this revision is not the only witness we have

to the care and pains Luther bestowed on the work, for we have also

the recently discovered manuscript copy of his translation, which

Luther sent to the printers. The latter consists of portions of the

Old Testament written with his own hand: Part of the Book of Judges,

then Ruth, Kings, Paralipomena, Esdras, Nehemias and Esther, also Job,

the Psalter, Proverbs, the Preacher and the Canticle of Canticles.

They were published by the Magdeburg pastor, E. Thiele, in the Weimar

edition from two MSS. at Zerbst and Berlin.[1965] Here we see how

assiduously Luther corrects and deletes, how frequently he wrestles,

so to speak, after the correct expression and cannot at times satisfy

himself.[1966] Luther’s manuscript copy of the New Testament has not so

far been discovered.

In consequence of the above publications the examination into the

origin of the text of Luther’s Bible and into the principles which

determined its compilation enters upon a new phase. In the same way the

significance of the text for the history of the German language stands

out more clearly because such discoveries bear the strongest testimony

to Luther’s untiring endeavours to adapt himself to the true German

mode of expression, to his dexterity in finding synonyms and to his

skill in construing.

_On the Language and the Learning Displayed in Luther’s Bible_

The excellence of Luther’s translation of the Bible from the point of

view of its German is unquestionable.

For, what the author above all aimed at, viz. a popular rendering of

the text which should harmonise with the peculiarities of the German

language, that he certainly achieved. Through his Bible, too, owing to

its general use throughout so large a portion of the nation, he exerted

a greater influence on the upbuilding of the German tongue than by all

his other vernacular works.

In his other writings, in which he was ever striving to improve his

mode of speech, we may often find real models of good German, which,

consciously or not, had a widespread influence on the language. In the

case of his Bible, however, this was far more noticeable, for not only

was his language there more polished, but the fact of the text being so

frequently committed to memory, quoted from the pulpit and surrounded

by that halo which befits the Word of God, helped to extend its sway.

Not only did he take infinite pains to translate aright such phrases as

ring unfamiliar to Western ears, but he was also assisted by his happy

gift of observation and his knack of catching the true idiom. His habit

of noting the words that fell from the lips of the populace, or, as he

says, of “looking into the jaw of the man in the street,”[1967] was of

the utmost service to him in his choice and use of terms. “No German

talks like that,” “that is not put ‘_germanice_,’” “the German tongue

won’t stand that,” and similar utterances, frequently recur in the

minutes of the conferences when he is finding fault with the renderings

proposed by others or even with his own earlier ones.

It was fortunate for him, that, as his medium of intercourse, he chose

to use a kind of German, not indeed unknown before, but, which, with

his rare gifts, he exploited with greater independence and vigour.

Wittenberg was favourably situated from the geographical point of view,

and the students who flocked thither from every part of Germany were

ever bringing Luther fresh elements, thus enabling him to select among

the various dialects what was common to all. The short journeys he made

and his correspondence with so many people in every part of Germany

were also of assistance to him.

“I have,” Luther says himself, “no particular, special German language

of my own, but I use the common German language so that both the Upper

and the Lower Lands may understand me. I write according to the speech

of the Saxon Chancery which is used by all the princes and kings of

Germany. All the Imperial Cities and Royal Courts in writing make use

of the language of the Saxon Chancery and of our sovereign; hence this

is the kind of German most widely spoken. The Emperor Maximilian, the

Elector Frederick and the Duke of Saxony, etc., have fused all the

different modes of German speech in the whole Roman Empire into a

uniform language.”[1968] Hence, on his own admission, the language was

not new. “The language of Upper Germany,” he says, “is not the real

German; it is broad and uncouth and sounds harsh. But the Saxon tongue

flows quietly and easily.”[1969]

When we try to determine in detail the language of which Luther made

use, and how much he actually did to further its development, we are

met by great difficulties. German philologists have not yet been able

thoroughly to explore this domain, because so little is known of the

German prints of the 15th century, of the manuscripts and the various

groups of writers.[1970] Protestant theologians have often contented

themselves with a few quotations from certain German philologists and

historians, which exaggerate the case in Luther’s favour.[1971] Of such

exaggerations Protestant scholars had been guilty even in the 16th

century;[1972] for instance, the German preacher and grammarian, Johann

Clajus, says, in 1578: “As the Holy Ghost spoke pure Hebrew through

Moses and Greek through the Apostles, so He spoke pure German through

His chosen instrument Martin Luther. It would not otherwise have been

possible for a man to speak so accurately.”[1973]

In answer to the question, “What is the task imposed upon learned

research by Luther’s Bible?” Risch, an authority on this subject,

remarks: “The historical connection of the language used by Luther in

his Bible with the German language of yore has still to be brought

to light”; the studies undertaken so far have dealt too exclusively

with one particular side of the question, viz. with the vowel sounds

used by Luther and by his predecessors; too much stress has also been

laid on the Middle-High German diphthongs (î, û, ìu[ü], becoming

ei, au, eu).[1974] Luther’s relations with the past in the matter

of the construction of sentences and arrangement of words, and more

particularly in his vocabulary and the meaning he gives to his words,

have not been set forth scientifically enough, though abundant material

for so doing is to be found in Grimm’s German dictionary, in Hermann

Paul’s and elsewhere.

Then again, as Paul Pietsch points out in the introduction to the 1st

volume of Luther’s Bible in the Weimar series, we have not been sure

hitherto even of the exact text of Luther’s translation. Owing to the

divergencies in the text it was “not possible, with the help of the

various editions scattered throughout the world, to arrive at any

final opinion concerning the language employed in the Bible or the

alterations it underwent.” Hence, only on the completion of the Weimar

series shall we be able to form “an adequate idea of the position

Luther’s translation holds in the history of New High German.”[1975]

Finally, there is still some doubt as to what Luther actually meant

by his statement concerning the German of the Chanceries of Saxony,

the Empire and the Imperial Cities being the model on which his own

language was based, and as to how far he was speaking the truth. We

must in all probability go much further back than the time of the

Emperor Maximilian of whom Luther speaks, viz. to the Chancery of the

Luxemburg kings of Bohemia, for it was the latter who established,

about the middle of the 14th century, a sort of New High German which

later on spread to Silesia, to Upper and Lower Lusatia, and, then,

thanks to the Emperor Frederick III, to the Chancery of the Hapsburgs

and to those of the Saxon Electorate, Hesse and Mayence. In those

early days the new language was a mixture of the dialects of Upper and

Central Germany, of those of Austria and of Meissen.[1976]

Chancery German, however, restricted as it was by its very nature

within certain well-defined limits and hampered by the stiffness of the

Court, was not likely to prove of much service to Luther, who sought

a language which should be understood by the people and be full of

strength and variety. Hence we are driven to surmise that it was rather

in the homes of the people that he sought his language, turning to good

account his gift for coining what he needed from the various German

dialects.

As regards the state of the language in Germany at that time, E.

Gutjahr has recently endeavoured to prove that the efforts at

colonisation and the movement of the people, more particularly from

the 12th to the 14th century, had paved the way in Saxony for the rise

and spread of a new, common language (New High German), and that in

towns like Halle a new patrician type of language had sprung up which

Luther had only to assimilate. In his “Anfänge der neuhochdeutschen

Sprache vor Luther” (1910), the author gives us an outline of the

conclusions he has reached and which he hopes to set forth at greater

length later. Whether he will succeed in making out his case remains,

however, to be seen.

The language of the Saxon Chancery was, according to Gutjahr, even in

Luther’s day, not merely the “polite language of general intercourse,”

but one in which all the German Courts were versed, the Imperial,

Austrian one of Maximilian, as much as that of the Saxon Electorate

under Frederick the Wise.[1977] From this language, “into which he

infused new elements taken from the mouth of the people,” Luther

forged a mighty weapon for his work, being all the more readily led

to do so seeing that the “reforming movement found its mainstay among

the patrician classes of the Saxon Electorate.”[1978] Nevertheless we

must not assume the existence in Luther’s day of any common written

language in the modern sense. The foundation for such a common

language had indeed been laid, but as yet it did not exist. Before our

nation could lay claim to a common language of its own—our Modern

High German as written—a long time had still to elapse.[1979]

The language used by Luther in his Bible was made still more widely

known owing to the work being at once reprinted even where other

dialects prevailed, though as a rule some alterations were made to

bring it into line with the idiom in use; at times the printers did no

more than append a short vocabulary explaining such Saxon phrases as

might be strange to the reader. In this way the new Bible, the language

of which was so admirably suited to become a common one, penetrated

everywhere, even into out of the way districts where the most divergent

dialects obtained.[1980]

Its influence was all the more important now that small principalities

were springing up at the expense of the unity of Germany and threatened

the language with further disintegration. The Lutherans were the first

to perceive and work against this danger, though the Catholics were by

no means unmindful of it too. Catholics, too, sought to take advantage

of the translation, and, in some cases, even went too far in this.

Luther once declares in his usual vein: “Our opponents read it more

than do our own people”;[1981] he also mentions that Duke George had

said: “Let the monk finish translating the Bible into German and then

get himself gone.”[1982]

What in the case of Protestants favoured the influence Luther’s Bible

exerted on the language, was, on the one hand the profound interest

aroused in the reader by his inspiring pen, and, on the other, its

appearance at a time when, though the art of printing had been

invented, the whole world, and more particularly Germany, judged from

a literary, theological standpoint, was still lying to a large extent

fallow and was thus more readily dominated by such a work as his,

and that not merely as regards the matter but also as regards the

style. Men of learning, owing to humanistic influences, wrote almost

exclusively in Latin. The use of the German language for theological

and religious subjects, save in sermons and popular writings, was

something unusual; in fact, such a thing was rather discountenanced

owing largely to the publication of German works which had made a wrong

use of Scripture.

In Lutheranism the New High German of the Bible found its way not only

into educated, ecclesiastical circles but also to the common folk, into

whose ears the preachers assiduously dinned countless favourite texts

in their new form; it also became familiar to the teachers and children

in the schools. No more powerful lever for the furtherance of New High

German could have been found. A century after, New High German had

become the language of the churches and schools in the regions subject

to Luther’s influence, whilst the South German and Low German dialects

had largely lost their hold.

When all is said, however, the secret of such success is not to be

entirely understood unless we also take into account the religious

position Luther occupied in the eyes of his followers. All who

venerated him as having thrown a new light on religion, valued and

honoured the language used by a mind so imperious, so strong and

versatile, and, when it so pleased, so sympathetic. H. Böhmer says very

truly of the old German Protestants: “Luther became for the Germans the

authority on speech because he was their supreme authority on faith

and personal conduct. Had he not been a religious reformer and had he

not bequeathed to Evangelical Germany in his Bible a book, which,

on account of its religious importance was bound to be looked upon

as a model of language, he would never have exercised so powerful an

influence on the written and spoken language.”[1983]

Nevertheless, to assert, that, by his German Bible and his other

writings Luther was the actual founder of New High German is to go

too far, quite apart from the fact that German, as now written, is no

longer identical with the German of Luther’s Bible and other writings.

We cannot take seriously Grimm’s assertions that “New High German may

in point of fact be called the Protestant dialect,” or that “Luther’s

language, owing to its noble, almost marvellous purity and its mighty

influence, was both the germ and the foundation of the New High German

tongue.”[1984]

“Protestants,” says Pastor Risch, “have hitherto been disposed to

undervalue the literary use made of the German language before Luther’s

day, particularly in the religious domain, and to exaggerate Luther’s

importance in the history of the tongue. Only in so far as he succeeded

in seizing upon and bringing out all the forces and possibilities

latent in the language, was it possible for his work to be truly

creative and epoch-making. To catch the idiom of the people, not to

force a new language upon it with his German Bible, was, on his own

admission, Luther’s aim. The German language prepared the way for

Luther to a greater extent than at first sight appears.”[1985]

Two other considerations will serve still further to curtail the

importance of Luther’s services to the German tongue.

First of all it must be pointed out that many very coarse elements

found their way into his popular works, and thus, unhappily, into the

written language, and, secondly, that a large number of words and

phrases peculiar to South Germany and which were accordingly unknown to

Luther, find, for this reason, no place in works, with the result that

the German language suffered.

We may speak with less reserve of the merits of the new translation

so far as it is based on the original languages of the Bible, and on

the Latin Vulgate then in general use. Even before Luther started on

his work attention had been called to the original text; indeed,

as it happens, the scholar who was the primary cause of Luther’s

studying the original language was his Catholic opponent, Erasmus, who

himself brought out the Greek edition of the New Testament. To Luther,

however, belongs the honour of having been the first to tread the new

philological paths with a German version.

In his somewhat hurried version of the New Testament he used the Greek

text as well as the Vulgate. In the same way, in his translation of the

Old Testament, he went back to the original so far as his knowledge of

Hebrew allowed, and, where this was insufficient, sought the help of

others.

* * * * *

The principle he followed, viz. to make the Bible plain to the German

reader by explaining its meaning, so far as this can be done by a

translation, brings us, however, face to face with other questions.

Luther had a high opinion of the accuracy and clearness of his work.

He says of it: “I can with a good conscience testify that I have shown

the utmost fidelity and diligence therein, and have never thought to

deceive.”[1986]

“No one would believe what labour it has cost except those who worked

with us,” so he said in his last years according to Mathesius, when

looking back on the success of his undertaking. “This Bible—not that

I would praise myself but the work speaks for itself—is so good that

it is better than the Greek or Latin translation, and more is to be

found in it than in all the commentaries. For we remove the hindrances

and stumbling-blocks out of the way so that other people may be able

to read without difficulty.”[1987] Reducing this eulogy to its proper

proportions we may indeed allow that Luther eliminated the “hindrances

and stumbling-blocks” from his German translation, being no literalist,

but anxious above all to put into plain German what sounded strange or

difficult.

Yet such a system of translation can only within certain limits be

regarded as the right one. As to whether Luther always kept within

these limits, and as to how we are to regard the use he made of this

freedom in particular instances, is a point on which even the greatest

admirers of the German Bible disagree. Pastor Risch, the expert

repeatedly referred to above, remarks pessimistically: “Scarcely any

of those who have written on Luther’s method of translating have gone

beyond mere generalities. They are satisfied with dishing up again

more or less skilfully Luther’s principles as set forth in his ‘Von

Dolmetzscheñ.’ Not even my own work on the German Bible (1907) do

I exempt from this criticism. Research must bring us by inductive

reasoning to the recognition of the root principle which alone can

explain the many thousand variant readings we meet with to-day in the

[Weimar] German Bible (vols. i. and ii.), and in Bindseil’s critical

edition,”[1988]—It is, however, to be feared that in very many

instances the “root principle” supposed to underlie Luther’s work

will fail in practice. His hasty, precipitate work in the Wartburg

(the completion of the New Testament in three months) puts any real

scholarly method out of the question. The fact that barely a week

was allotted to each Gospel precludes the use of any well-considered

principles in the work of translation.

Again, Luther often deviates far too much from the original text and

takes too many liberties in his efforts to be plain. To this must be

added the fact, that, owing to his insufficient linguistic attainments,

he fails in many instances to reach the real sense of the original

sacred text, to say nothing, of course, of the numerous critical

emendations made at a later date in the texts. Hence Protestants have

sometimes judged the scholarship of Luther’s Bible rather harshly.

Josias Bunsen, for instance, called Luther’s translation “one of

the most inaccurate, though showing signs of great genius,” and

declared that, in it, there are “three thousand passages which call

for revision.”[1989] E. Nestle, the Protestant philologist and Bible

expert, referring to the revision which had taken place in Germany,

says of the defects of Luther’s Bible: “A comparison with the English

or Swiss work of revision shows how much further we might and ought to

have gone.”[1990]

The most outspoken critic is, however, Paul de Lagarde, the Protestant

theologian and Orientalist of Göttingen. In an article likewise

dealing with the so-called “Revised Bible” of 1883,[1991] he devotes

more than five pages to a list of passages from Isaias, the Book of

Proverbs and the Psalms, which Franz Delitzsch had been compelled to

retranslate even earlier.[1992] To this list he appends another long

one of passages, which he holds to be manifestly mistranslations of

the original.

Thus, to quote only one important instance, the Messianic prophecy of

Jacob in Genesis xlix. 10, should be rendered: “The sceptre shaשll not

be taken away from Juda ... till he come that is to be sent,” or “that

is prayed for” (ילתש), whereas Luther translates תלש֗ incorrectly

by “hero” and thus robs the wonderful text of some of its force. De

Lagarde notes, that elsewhere Luther himself renders Malachias iii.

1: “The Lord Whom you seek shall speedily come to His temple, and the

angel of the covenant whom you desire.” Beside such mistakes Luther’s

allusion to the hedgehog that builds nests and lays eggs (Isaias

xxxiv. 15) can only be regarded as a curiosity and a slip on his part.

This hedgehog was among the victims sacrificed in the revised Bible of

1883.

The same critic also complains, that, Rom. iii. 23, even in the

revised Bible, has: “For they are sinners,” whereas the Aorist demands

the translation: “They all have sinned.” He shows how, as early as

1839, Tholuck had drawn attention to the vast dogmatic importance of

Luther’s suppression of this Aorist.[1993]

With still greater show of reason De Lagarde finds fault with other

wilful deviations from the text; he refers to those pointed out by

Döllinger in “Die Reformation” and again insisted on by Janssen, and

then by Paulsen in his “Geschichte des gelehrten Unterrichts.” These

false renderings have, however, out of a wrong regard for Luther, been

retained in the Lutheran Bible even to the present day.

Luther’s scant concern for the text where it runs counter to his ideas

calls for further discussion.

_Luther’s German Bible Considered Theologically_

Bearing in mind Luther’s character we can well understand how sorely

he was tempted during his work to make the text square with his own

doctrine, the more so since the translation was intended as a popular

explanation of the Bible. When, moreover, one remembers his arbitrary

way of proving his doctrine, and the entire freedom with which he was

wont to handle other religious matters connected with antiquity, which,

though not in the Word of God, were nevertheless historical facts easy

of verification, it will not greatly surprise even those readers who

are prejudiced in his favour to find, that, in his treatment of the

original text of Holy Scripture—which most people are not able to

verify—he did not scruple here and there to introduce ideas of his

own. “What does it matter,” so he said later in his blind conviction of

being in the right, in reply to those who accused him of having altered

the text, “so long as at bottom the thing is clear,” so long as “it

evidently is so,” and “is demanded by the state of the case?” “Not only

is it right but even highly necessary that it should be set forth in

the clearest and fullest manner,” etc.[1994]

It is chiefly in the question of justification by faith alone that he

twists his text so much that his version ceases in reality to be a

translation. He indeed speaks of his additions as “commentaries,” but

no one could thus have “commented” on the passages who was not, like

Luther, entirely taken up with the new dogma of grace, justification

and faith.

In his efforts to provide his doctrine with a firm foundation in the

eyes of his readers, he added the word “only” in Rom. iv. 15 and

Rom. iii. 20, thus making these Pauline texts into a condemnation of

the Law: “The law worketh _only_ wrath,” “by the law _only_ is the

knowledge of sin.”

Again, in Rom. iii. 25 f., the Apostle speaks of Christ “whom God

hath proposed to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to

the showing of his justice for the remission of former sins through

the forbearance of God for the showing of his justice in this time,

that he himself may be just and the justification of him who is of

the faith of Jesus Christ.” Luther, however, in the interests of his

new doctrine, makes him say that God had “set up Christ as a mercy

seat through faith in his Blood, in order that he may present the

righteousness which is acceptable to him, forgiving the sins which

had remained till then under divine forbearance, that he might in his

season offer the righteousness which is acceptable to him that he

might himself alone be just and the justifier of him that is of the

faith of Jesus.” The offering of the righteousness that is acceptable

to God—an expression twice repeated—is not found in the original

text, but of course is highly favourable to Luther’s doctrine of a

merely imputed righteousness.[1995] In the same way he here speaks of

God as “alone” being just, an interpolation of which the origin must

also be sought in the translator’s theology.[1996]