Even before the close of 1580, Selneccer published a Latin Concordia
containing a translation of the Formula of Concord begun by Lucas
Osiander in 1578 and completed by Jacob Heerbrand. It was a private
undertaking and, owing to its numerous and partly offensive mistakes,
found no recognition. Thus, for instance, the passage of the Tractatus
"De Potestate et Primatu Papae" in sec. 24: "Christ gives the highest
and final judgment to the church," was rendered as follows: "Et Christus
summum et ultimum ferculum apponit ecclesiae." (p. 317.) Besides,
Selneccer had embodied in his Concordia the objectionable text of the
Augsburg Confession found in the octavo edition of 1531, which
Melanchthon had altered extensively.
The necessary revision of the Latin text was made at the convention in
Quedlinburg during December, 1582, and January, 1583, Chemnitz giving
material assistance. The revised edition, which constitutes the Latin
_textus receptus_ of the Formula of Concord, was published at Leipzig in
1584. Aside from many corrections, this edition contains the translation
of the Formula of Concord as already corrected by Selneccer in 1582 for
his special Latin-German edition, and afterwards thoroughly revised by
Chemnitz. The texts of the Augsburg Confession and the Apology follow
the _editio princeps_ of 1531. The 8,000 signatures, embodied also in
the Latin edition of 1580, were omitted, lest any one might complain
that his name was appended to a book which he had neither seen nor
approved. In keeping herewith, the words in the title of the Book of
Concord: "_et nomina sua huic libro subscripserunt_--and have subscribed
their names to this book," which Mueller retained in his edition, were
eliminated. The title-page concludes as in the edition of 1580, the word
"denuo" only being added and the date correspondingly changed. On the
last two pages of this edition of 1584 Selneccer refers to the edition
of 1580 as follows: "Antea publicatus est liber Christianae Concordiae,
Latine, sed privato et festinato instituto, Before this the Book of
Concord has been published in Latin, but as a private and hasty
undertaking." In the edition of 1584, the text of the Small Catechism is
adorned with 23 Biblical illustrations.
Among the later noteworthy editions of the Book of Concord are the
following: Tuebingen 1599; Leipzig, 1603, 1622; Stuttgart 1660, 1681.
Editions furnished with introductions or annotations or both: H.
Pipping, 1703; S.J. Baumgarten, 1747; J.W. Schoepff, Part I, 1826, Part
II, 1827; F.A. Koethe, 1830; J.A. Detzer, 1830; F.W. Bodemann, 1843. In
America the entire Book of Concord was printed in German by H. Ludwig,
of New York, in 1848, and by the Concordia Publishing House of St.
Louis, Mo., in 1880. In Leipzig, Latin editions appeared in the years
1602, 1606, 1612, 1618, 1626, 1654, 1669, 1677. Adam Rechenberg's
edition "with an appendix in three parts and new indices" (_cum
appendice tripartita et novis indicibus_) saw five editions--1678, 1698,
1712, 1725, 1742. We mention also the edition of Pfaffius, 1730;
Tittmann, 1817; H.A.G. Meyer, 1830, containing a good preface; Karl
Hase, in his editions of 1827, 1837, and 1845, was the first to number
the paragraphs. Reineccius prepared a German-Latin edition in 1708. This
was followed in 1750 by the German-Latin edition of Johann Georg Walch.
Mueller's well-known German-Latin Concordia saw eleven editions between
1847 and 1912. Since 1907 it appears with historical introductions by
Th. Kolde.