MARTIN LUTHER died on the 18th of February, 1546, and the first
publication of his “Table Talk”—_Tischreden_—by his friend, Johann
Goldschmid (Aurifaber), was in 1566, in a substantial folio. The talk of
Luther was arranged, according to its topics, into eighty chapters, each
with a minute index of contents. The whole work in a complete octavo
edition, published at Stuttgart and Leipzig in 1836, occupies 1,390
closely printed pages, equivalent to 2,780 pages, or full fourteen
volumes, of this Library.
The nearest approach to a complete and ungarbled translation into English
was that of Captain Henry Bell, made in the reign of Charles the First,
under the circumstances set forth by himself; but even that was not
complete. Other English versions have subjected Luther’s opinions to
serious manipulation, nothing being added, but anything being taken away
that did not chance to agree with the editor’s digestion. Even the folio
of Captain Bell’s translation, from which these Selections have been
printed, has been prepared for reprint by some preceding editor, whose
pen has been busy in revision of the passages he did mean to reprint. In
these Selections every paragraph stands unabridged, exactly as it was
translated by Captain Bell; and there has been no other purpose governing
the choice of matter than a resolve to make it as true a presentment as
possible of Luther’s mind and character. At least one other volume of
_Selections from the Table-Talk of Martin Luther_ will be given in this
Library.
Johann Goldschmid, the Aurifaber, and thereby true worker in gold, who
first gave Luther’s Table-Talk to the world, was born in 1519. He was a
disciple of Luther, thirty-six years younger than his master. Luther was
born at Eisleben in 1483, and his father, a poor miner, presently settled
at Mansfeld, the town in which Goldschmid afterwards was born. Johann
Goldschmid was sent by Count Albrecht of Mansfeld, in 1537, to the
University of Wittenberg, where Luther had been made, in 1508, Professor
of Philosophy, and where, on the 31st of October, 1517, he had nailed his
ninety-five propositions against indulgences to the church door at the
castle. Luther had completed his translation of the Bible three years
before Johann Goldschmid went to Wittenberg. In 1540 Goldschmid was
recalled from the University to act as tutor to Count Albrecht’s
children. In 1544 Goldschmid was army chaplain with the troops from
Mansfeld in the French war; but in 1545 he was sent back to Wittenberg
for special study of theology. It was then that he attached himself to
Luther as his _famulus_ and house-companion during the closing months of
Luther’s life, began already to collect from surrounding friends passages
of his vigorous “Table Talk,” and remained with Luther till the last,
having been present at his death in Eisleben in 1546. He then proceeded
steadily with the collection of Luther’s sayings and opinions expressed
among his friends. He was army chaplain among the soldiers of Johann
Friedrich, of Saxony; he spent half a year also in a Saxon prison. He
became, in 1551, court preacher at Weimar; but in 1562 was deprived of
his office, and then devoted himself to the forming of an Eisleben
edition of those works of Luther, which had not already been collected.
In 1566 he was called to a pastorate at Erfurt, where he had many more
troubles before his death. Aurifaber died on the 18th of November, 1575.