chapter xviii

. these same buildings are shown in flames.[2056]

In Luther’s Bible the Catholic rulers were directly attacked in the heading chosen in 1529 for the book of Wisdom: “The Wisdom of Solomon for the Tyrants.” “The book should above all be read,” he here says, “by the big Johnnies who rage against their subjects and against the guiltless on account of the Word of God”; for “in this book the tyrants are violently taken to task and scourged.” “Hence this book is very much in place in our day.”[2057]

The introduction to Romans (1522) not only exposes at length the doctrine of faith alone, which Luther supposed Paul to have taught in this Epistle, but also warns all against the “verminous medley of men-made laws and ordinances under which the whole world groans.” Rightly enough had Paul said of the makers of these laws, that their God is their belly.[2058]

As we are here less concerned with the theological importance of Luther’s German Bible than with the spirit which inspired its composition, we shall only remind the reader briefly, that the work of translation was intended as a solemn expression of the author’s root ideas according to which the Bible was the only true source of faith. From the Bible alone, so he taught, all must derive their faith and find the way of salvation under the direct inspiration of the spirit from on high; it ought to be in the hands of all, even of the unlearned. Hence, in his “To the German Nobility” of 1520, he had declared that the Bible, and particularly the Gospel, ought to be in the hands of everybody, even of the boys and girls.[2059]

We find Luther, says Risch, regarding the Bible and its use from “a new standpoint diametrically opposed to the Catholic, and which found its ripest expression in his German Bible.”[2060]

O. Reichert likewise has it, that the “chief incentive to his translation of the Bible,” was the determination in which his whole life’s work centred, of unlocking for the German people by means of a thoroughly German translation, that book with the help of which “each one could live up to his faith and be assured of his salvation.”[2061]

“Only now,” says Hausrath, speaking of the spread of Luther’s Bible,[2062] “could the burghers feel that they had attained to manhood in the matter of religion, and that the universal priesthood had become a reality. The head of each household had now the well-spring of all religious truth brought to his very door. To the Papists this seemed an abomination, as Cochlæus admits when he says, that every cobbler and old crony was poring over the New Testament as a source of all truth.[2063] Even the populace took part in the controversies of the learned, having now begun to see that the faith concerned them too. For a while this could lead to strange excesses, as the theology of the New Prophets showed.” Still, “the advent of the German Bible was the dawn of freedom.”

Johann Fabri, who had recognised Luther’s aims, was at one with Cochlæus and Emser in lending support to the prohibition issued against the German Bible. To Luther he said: “Your Testament works more harm than all the idolatrous books of Ephesus (Acts xix. 19), nay, than the hail in Egypt.”[2064] This was, as it were, his answer to the wish Luther had expressed to his friend Lang as early as Dec. 18, 1521: “Oh, that every little town had its translator! Oh, that this book might be found on the lips of all, in their hands, before their eyes, and in their ears and hearts.”[2065]

A surprising psychological trait is the haughty self-satisfaction evinced by Luther with his grand achievement when objections were raised.

He had repeatedly proclaimed that he intended everything solely for the honour of God.[2066] But woe to anyone who in any way attacked his own honour! For, by this work, Luther had vindicated his mission as the appointed preacher to the Germans; only at Wittenberg, where the Bible was taken really seriously, were people able to fathom the secrets of this sealed book.

“What is needed,” he says in 1530, in his “Sendbrieff von Dolmetzscheñ,” speaking of the work of translation, “is a truly pious, faithful, God-fearing, Christian, learned, tried and experienced heart. Hence I hold that no false Christian or sectarian can translate faithfully.”[2067] Not only does he deem himself qualified for the task, but, as he declares in 1523, he knows nobody else who “can, within a twentieth part,” do as well as he, though many find fault with his Bible. “I know that I am more learned than all the Universities, those sophists by the grace of God.” True enough, “even if we all set to work with a will, we should still have enough to do to bring the Bible to light, one by means of his reason, another by his knowledge of languages.” But all these critics, “who blame me here and there,” “know that they themselves are unable to do it, yet they would fain make themselves out to be proficient in an art that is entirely foreign to them.” To him their objections were but “the mud that clings to the wheels.”[2068]

Thanks to himself, he says, “the German language has now a better Bible than the Latin [the Vulgate]; in support of this I appeal to the reader.”[2069]

Of the superiority of his Bible over the Latin Vulgate in the matter of accuracy he had not the slightest doubt. “St. Jerome,” he wrote in 1533, “and many others from among the masses, have made more mistakes in translating than we, both in the Latin and in the Greek.”[2070]—Should anyone attempt to translate the Psalms and refuse to be guided in his work by Luther’s German Psalter, so he says in the same passage, “he would translate the Psalter in such a way that precious little would remain in it either of German or of Hebrew.” “But a man who is unable to do anything good himself likes to court praise and to appear an adept by abusing and crying down the good work of others.”[2071]

Of Emser he remarked, that he had admitted by his amended edition of the German Bible that, “my German is good and sweet; he saw plainly that he could not better it, and yet he wished to dishonour it, hence he took my Testament and copied it almost word for word.” “I am glad to see even my very foes compelled to further my work.”[2072]

“If anyone will translate me 72 or 73 verses aright,” he assures his friends, “I will give him 50 florins. But, for this, he must not make use of our translation.”[2073]—“Since the heathen Church has existed we have never had a Bible that could be read and understood so easily and readily as that which we have produced at Wittenberg, and, praise be to God, put into German.”[2074]

To irritate (“_irritare_”) the Papists by his work, to rouse them to fury (“_furiam concitare_”) and to let loose their “calumnious attacks” on his translation, was a real pleasure to him.[2075] As in the case of the Papists, so also in that of rivals within his fold, his work for the Bible spelt their undoing. This it was which justified him against all opponents.

People like Osiander, he told his friends in 1540, single out one word of my translation “in order to find a ground for disagreeing with us. They dispute about a single word but they are after more. They should be compelled to translate the whole Bible and then we should see what they are able to do. And Amsdorf said: If I were the sovereign I should clap these wiseacres into cells and order them to translate Holy Scripture without making use of Luther’s Bible. Then we should soon see what they could do.”[2076] “When we were at Marburg [at the religious Conference in 1529],” Luther once remarked, “Zwingli always spoke in Greek”; he declared he had studied the Greek Testament for thirteen years; “Oh, no, something more is needed than the mere reading of the Testament, but these people are blinded by ambition”; that was why Zwingli had used Greek and Hebrew when preaching at Marburg.[2077] Carlstadt, too, was always making a display of his Greek and Hebrew,[2078] but all of them were only able to “pick holes in the Scriptures” which Luther had translated.[2079]

He was determined that nobody should be allowed to interfere in his Bible and protests in his own way against any alterations. He wrote in 1539: “I beg all my friends, foes, masters, printers and readers to look upon this New Testament as my own; if they have any fault to find with it, then let them make a new one for themselves. I know full well what I am about, and I can also see what others are able to do. But this Testament is to be Luther’s own German Testament! For of criticism and cavilling there is now no end.”[2080]

Which of his rivals had ever had to contend with “temptations” when engaged on the Bible? He, however, had to thank his “combats” for having been his instructors.[2081] Münster, so Luther said in 1536, accused him of making certain mistakes in his translation of the book of Jonas. “Yes, dear Münster, you have never been through these temptations. I, like Jonas, have looked into the belly of the whale where all seemed given over to despair.”[2082] “The pious are like unto Jonas; they are cast into the sea of despair, nay, into hell itself.”[2083]

Discontent and vexation—temptations of another kind—frequently overwhelmed him whilst engaged on his Bible. Even his unprecedented success did not satisfy him; the Bible did not seem to him to be selling quick enough, nor to be made use of to the extent he wished; again, he feared, that in the future, it would lose its interest.

“I fear,” he said in Nov., 1540, “that the Bible will not be much read, for people are very weary of it and no one reprints it now.”[2084] His views regarding the future were even more gloomy: “When I die there will not be a curate, teacher or sacristan who will not set to work to render the Bible on his own. Our version will no longer be valued. All our works will be thrown aside, yea, even the Bible and the Postils, for the world ever yearns for something new.”[2085]—“I am sick of Holy Scripture; see that you make a good use of it after my death. It has cost us enough toil yet is but little regarded by our own people.”[2086] “So profitable is the German Bible that no one knows how to esteem it high enough; no one sees what knowledge it has unlocked to the world. What formerly we sought with much trouble and constant study and even then were unable to find, is now offered to us in the plainest language; though we looked for it in vain in the obscurity of the olden version.”[2087]—He does not tell us whether it is the Vulgate or the mediæval German Bible which he here refers to as so obscure in comparison with his own Bible.

What appears to have afforded him most satisfaction was that he had been able to counteract the false translations and commentaries of the Jews. Often does he mention this as one of the advantages of his Bible, and it is perfectly true that his felicitous and correct exposition

## particularly of the Messianic predictions based on the Hebrew text is

deserving of all praise.

He pointed out incidentally to his friends, that, in his Bible, he had “protested very strongly against the Rabbis,”[2088] and, in his “On the Last Words of David,” he congratulated himself when comparing his own interpretation with that of the Jews: “The Jews, because they do not accept Christ, cannot know or understand what is said by Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.... Scripture must seem to them as an epistle does to a man who cannot read.” “Unless we devote our energies to bringing the Hebrew Bible, wherever this is possible, into touch with the New Testament in a sense contrary to the Rabbinists, then it would be better to keep to the old version [the Vulgate] which, after all, is the best.”[2089]—His statement here, provided of course that the proviso “wherever this is possible,” be rigidly observed, is not altogether devoid of truth.

In spite of this, however, his conscience often told him that his acquaintance with Hebrew was not equal to that of the Jewish commentators. He admitted even in later years that he was no “grammatical or regular Hebraist.”[2090] “His familiarity with the language of the Old Testament was due, for the most part, as he himself says, to his constant reading of it and to his comparing together the different passages in order to arrive at their true meaning.”[2091]

Julius Köstlin, Luther’s best-known biographer, from whom the words just quoted are taken, declares, that, in his translation of the Bible, Luther “bestowed on his German people the greatest possible gift”; Luther wished to make of the Book of Books “an heirloom of the whole German nation.”[2092] Similar enthusiastic allusions to “the gift to the nation” are often met with in Protestant writers. They, however, overlook the fact that it was only to a fraction of the German nation, viz. to his co-religionists, that Luther offered this gift; moreover, they seem forgetful of a remark once made by Luther to a very intimate friend, which is far from enthusiastic and anything but complimentary to his German fellow-countrymen. The remark in question occurs in a letter of Luther’s dated Feb. 4, 1527, and addressed to Johann Lang of Erfurt; evidently he was extremely annoyed at the time. It runs as follows: “I am busy with Zacharias [the translation of which was then in the press] and have begun the translation of the Prophets, a work that is quite in keeping with the gratitude I have hitherto met with from this heathenish, nay, utterly bestial nation.”[2093] Even so severe a stricture must not be lost to sight by the historian desirous of tracing a psychological picture of the author’s feelings at the time he was engaged on the translation.

Finally it is instructive from the psychological standpoint to trace the development in Luther’s mind of the fable—to be dealt with more fully below—that, under Popery, the Bible had been discarded and that he, Luther, had brought it once more to light.[2094]

To begin with, he merely claimed to have discovered the true meaning of Scripture on the controversial points he himself had raised.[2095] It was the more easy for him to attribute to his Catholic contemporaries ignorance of the Bible, seeing that in those years the exegetical side of sacred learning had been to some extent neglected in favour of the discussions of the schoolmen. When afterwards he had been dazed by his great success with his translation of the Bible he was led to fancy that he was the first to open up the domain of Holy Scripture. This impression is closely bound up with the arbitrary pronouncements, even on the weightiest questions of the Canon, which we find scattered throughout his prefaces to the books of the Bible. He frequently repeats that he had forced all his opponents to take up the study of the Bible and that it was he alone who had made them see the need of their devoting themselves to this branch of learning—so as to be able to refute him. Here of course he is exaggerating the facts of the case. Accustomed as he was to hyperbole, we soon find him declaring, first as a paradox and then as actual fact, that the Bible had been buried in oblivion among the Catholics. The Papal Antichrist had destroyed all reverence for the Bible and all understanding of it; only that all men without exception might not run headlong to spiritual destruction had Christ, as it were by “force,” preserved the “simple text of the Gospel on the lecterns” “even under the rule of Antichrist.”[2096]

Luther utterly discarded the principles of antiquity concerning the Bible, but nevertheless he made abundant use in his translation of the literary assistance afforded him by the Catholic past.

In the Old Testament, the Church’s Latin translation, viz. the Vulgate, and the Greek Septuagint were of great service to him, but he also made use of the Latin translation of Santes Pagninus (not to speak of that of the Protestant, Seb. Münster) and likewise of the Commentaries, as, for instance, of the “_Glossa ordinaria_” and the works of Nicholas of Lyra († 1340).

An unkindly saying current at a later date in Catholic circles concerning Lyra’s widely-known Bible Postils declared: “_Si Lyra non lyrasset, Lutherus non saltasset_.” The saying is, however, met with under another form even before Luther’s day, and in this older guise serves to show the high esteem in which Lyra’s Commentary was held; here it runs: “_Nisi Lyra lyrasset, nemo doctorum in bibliam saltasset_.”[2097] Not only Lyra but many other Bible commentators stood in high favour among Catholic scholars at the close of the Middle Ages, nor was there before Luther’s day any such absence of respect for the Bible or ignorance of its contents, whether in the original text or in German translations as he would have us believe.

_The Bible in the Ages before Luther_

It would be to perpetuate a prejudice all too long current among Protestants, founded on Luther’s often false or at least exaggerated statements, were one to fail to recognise how widely the Bible was known even before Luther’s day and to what an extent it was studied among educated people. Modern research, not seldom carried out by open-minded Protestants, has furnished some surprising results in this respect, so that one of the most recent and diligent of the Protestant workers in this field could write: “If everything be taken into account it will no longer be possible to say as the old polemics did, that the Bible was a sealed book to both theologians and laity. The more we study the Middle Ages, the more does this fable tend to dissolve into thin air.” “The Middle Ages concerned themselves with Bible translation much more than was formerly supposed.”[2098]

According to a careful summary recently published by Franz Falk no less than 156 different Latin editions of the Bible were printed in the period between the discovery of the art of printing and the year of Luther’s excommunication, i.e. from 1450 to 1520. To this must also be added at that time many translations of the whole Bible, many of them emanating from what was to be the home of the innovations, viz. 17 German, 11 Italian, 10 French, 2 Bohemian, 1 Belgian, 1 Limousine and 1 Russian edition, making in all, with the 6 Hebrew editions also known, 199 editions of the complete Bible. Of the German editions 14 are in the dialect of Upper Germany.[2099]

Besides this the common people also possessed extracts of the Sacred Book, the purchase of the entire Bible being beyond their slender means. The Psalter and the Postils were widely known and both played a great part in the religious life of the Middle Ages. The Psalter, or German translation of the 150 Psalms, was used as a manual of instruction and a prayer-book for both clergy and laity. Twenty-two translations dating from the Middle Ages are extant, and the latter editions extend from the ‘seventies of the 15th to the ‘twenties of the 16th century. The Postils was the collection of lessons from both Old and New Testaments, prescribed to be read on the Sundays. This collection sufficed for the people and provided them with useful reading matter, with which, moreover, they were rendered even more familiar owing to the homilies on these very excerpts usually given on the Sundays. The early printers soon helped to spread this form of literature. We still have no fewer than 103 printed German editions of the Postils (often known as Plenaries) dating from the above period.[2100]

Of the importance of the Plenaries Risch remarks very aptly: “In them the ideal of a popular exposition and translation of the Bible before Luther’s day finds its first actual expression. That these Plenaries—it would be interesting to know which kind—were the first incentive to Luther’s popular works of piety, and, at times, thanks to his good memory, supplied him with a ready-made German translation of the Bible, appears to me beyond question.” “Thanks to these Gospel-Books, as they were frequently called, a kind of German ‘Vulgate’ covering certain portions of the Sacred text may have grown up even before Luther’s day.”[2101] “Even a superficial glance at the Middle Ages,” says Risch, “cannot fail to show us the gradual upgrowth of a fixed German Biblical vocabulary. Luther here could dip into a rich treasure-house and select the best.... In laying such stress on Luther’s indebtedness to the past we have no wish to call into question the real originality of his translation.”[2102]

“That, during the Middle Ages,” says another Protestant scholar, “more particularly in the years which immediately preceded Luther’s appearance, the Bible was a well-spring completely choked up, and the entrance to which was jealously guarded, used to be, and probably still is, the prevailing opinion. The question is, however, whether this opinion is correct.” “We have before us to-day so complete a history of the Bible in the various modern languages that it can no longer be said that the Vulgate alone was in use and that the laity consequently were ignorant of Scripture. It greatly redounds to the credit of Protestant theologians, that they, more than any others, took so large a part in collecting this enormous store of material.” “We must admit that the Middle Ages possessed a quite surprising and extremely praiseworthy knowledge of the Bible, such as might in many respects put our own age to shame.” “We have to acknowledge that the Bible at the present day no longer forms the foundation of our knowledge and civilisation to the same extent as it did in the Middle Ages.”[2103]

Who, however, was responsible for the prevalent belief that the Middle Ages knew nothing of the Bible? Who was it who so repeatedly asserted this, that he misled the people into believing that nobody before him had studied Holy Scripture, and that it was only through him that the “Word of God had been drawn forth from under the bench”? A Protestant quite rightly reproves the “bad habit” of accepting the estimate of ecclesiastical conditions, particularly of divine worship, current “with Luther and in his circle”;[2104] it is, however, to fall short of the mark, to describe merely as a “bad habit” Luther’s flagrant and insulting falsehoods against the ecclesiastical conditions at the close of the Middle Ages, falsehoods for which his own polemical interests were solely responsible.

The psychology of Luther’s gradual approach to the statement that the Bible before his day lay under the bench, has already been described (p. 534 f.). As some Protestants have sought to clear him of the authorship of so glaring a fable and to insinuate that the expression belongs rather to his pupil Mathesius, we must here look a little more closely into the words.

Luther himself uses the saying, for instance, when claiming credit in his Commentary on the Prophet Zacharias (chap, viii.) with having rendered the greatest possible service to Scripture. He says: “They [the Papists] are still angry and refuse to listen when people say, that, with them, Scripture lay under the bench, and that their mad delusions alone prevailed.” In this connection the Weimar editor of the Commentary refers to a work of the former Dominican, Petrus Sylvius, aimed at Luther and entitled “Von den vier Evangelein, so eine lange Zeit unter der Bank sein gelegen.”[2105]—Popery, Luther says in another passage, “kicked Scripture under the bench.”[2106] He speaks repeatedly in the Table-Talk[2107] of the “Bible under the bench,” which, since “it lay forgotten in the dust,” he had been obliged to drag again into the light of day.[2108]

Elsewhere he describes in detail the trouble he had in pulling the Bible from “under the bench,” particularly owing to his theological rivals and the sectarians within the camp; on this occasion his black outlook as to the future of the Bible he had thus set free scarcely redounds to the credit of his achievement. He says in his tract against Zwingli (“That the words of Christ, ‘This is My Body,’ still stand fast,” 1527): “When in our own day we saw how Scripture lay under the bench, and how the devil was deluding us and taking us captive with the hay and straw of men-made prayers, we tried, by the Grace of God, to mend matters, and have indeed with great and bitter pains brought Scripture back to light once more, and, sending human ordinances to the winds, set ourselves free and escaped from the devil.” But then, so he goes on, others [on his own side] fell upon him, raised up an uproar and raged against him; Zwingli, in particular, had riddled a single line of Scripture “with ten holes,” “so that I have never read of a more disgraceful heresy”; which, even in the beginning, “comprised as many factions and divisions as it had heads.” There would, however, in future “be such a turmoil in Scripture, such dissensions and so many factions, that we might well say with St. Paul ‘the mystery of ungodliness is already at work’” (2 Thess. ii. 7). “He [the devil] will bring about factions and dissensions in Scripture so that you will not know what is Scripture, or faith, or Christ, or even where you stand.”[2109]

Words of Luther’s such as these, which we meet with repeatedly under various shapes, point indirectly to the reason why the Church preferred to see, in the hands of people unversed in theology, only those extracts from Holy Scripture approved by herself, in particular the Postils and Plenaries; for the dangers of misunderstanding and disagreement were very real, especially in an age so prone to sectarianism.

“To put into the people’s hands the complete Bible,” says Franz Falk bluntly enough, “was to give them something both dangerous and superfluous. The Postils were amply sufficient for the Christian people. Even in Protestant circles to-day people are deciding in favour of an expurgated Bible for use in the school and the home.”[2110] W. Walther in his “Deutsche Bibelübersetzungen des Mittelalters” gives a favourable account of the Catholic practice: “According to what we have stated the attitude of the mediæval Church to the German Bible appears to have been quite definite. Janssen seems perfectly right when he says, ‘The Church opposed no resistance to its spread so long as strifes and divisions within her own body brought no pet abuses to light.’”[2111] “Men of insight,” continues Janssen, “such as Geiler von Kaysersberg and Sebastian Brant doubted from the beginning the advisability of putting the entire Scriptures in the hands of the people. They feared, and rightly feared, that the Bible would be grossly and wilfully perverted by the ignorant and the light-minded, and be made to uphold all sorts of doctrinal and moral teaching. God Himself had not placed His Divine Word indiscriminately in the hands of all, for He had not made the reading of it a condition of salvation. All errors had sprung out of false interpretation of Holy Scripture. Even to learned commentators the Scriptures presented difficulties enough, how much more to the ignorant masses?”

No one to whom it might prove of use was debarred access to the complete German translation or to the Sacred Text in the original languages; in their case restrictions were waived. The large number of complete editions would in fact be inexplicable except on the assumption of a certain freedom in this respect. Numerous instances might also be cited where educated people during the Middle Ages made use of the complete Bible.[2112]

Sebastian Brant says in the “Narrenschiff”: “Every country is now filled with Holy Scripture.” “The rapidity with which the different editions followed each other,” wrote Janssen,[2113] “and the testimony of contemporary writers point to a wide distribution of German Bibles among the people.”

As regards other countries, too, there is no lack of sufficient data for arriving at a like conclusion, viz. that the Bible was already widely disseminated before the religious revulsion came. We may instance the recent works of A. C. Paues and A. Gasquet on England and those of the Dominican Mandonnet on his own Order’s relations with the Bible during the Middle Ages, from which we may see how familiar the Bible must have been in certain circles.[2114]

The honest admission made by a Protestant, viz. “that, so far as outward acquaintance with the Bible went, it would be untrue to say that it lay under the bench before the Reformation,”[2115] does not, however, sufficiently counter what Luther says, for his grievance in reality was, that, among the Papists, it was rather the true meaning of the Bible that “lay under the bench.”

It is plain that they “abuse and revile Scripture, thrust it under the bench, pretend that it is shrouded in thick fog, that the interpretation of the Fathers is needed and that light must be sought in the darkness.” Thus did he write against Emser in 1521.[2116] A recent champion of Luther has also thought it worth while to write: “The Bible before Luther’s day was not regarded as in Luther’s opinion it should have been regarded, or treated as it should have been treated; it was indeed studied by the learned but only in the same way as people studied Augustine, Jerome and Thomas Aquinas—and, moreover, not with the same zeal or to the same extent.”

Did one wish to deal adequately with the standing thus taken up by Luther and his defenders there would be a whole book to be written full of interesting facts; for what Luther presupposes in such repeated statements is that his theology was right and that of the Church all wrong. Sufficient light has, however, already been thrown in this work on the value of this assertion of Luther’s.

Denifle, who, thanks to his expert acquaintance with the material, was able to examine so many of Luther’s theological assertions concerning the Middle Ages, deals amongst other things with the question, whether Luther was really the first to advance the theory, “that Christ is the whole content of Scripture,”[2117] the enunciation of which had been claimed as “the greatest service rendered by Luther to the Church and to theology.”—The truth is, however, that the Church of old was so full of the idea that the “Holy Scriptures before Christ were written only to proclaim Him and His Church,” that it was an easy task for Denifle to overwhelm his adversaries beneath a mass of quotations, for instance, from Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and J. Perez of Valencia (the latter representing Luther’s older contemporaries).

Catholics have rightly gone even further, and asked whether it was not Luther himself, who, by his arbitrary treatment of some parts of Scripture, and its actual words,—to say nothing of its interpretation—thrust the Bible under the bench? Surely, his destruction of the Canon of Scripture, his alterations in the text and the liberty he arrogated to himself in his glosses[2118] are but little calculated to qualify him to be called the saviour and liberator of the Bible.—It is nothing more than an appeal to the imagination of the populace, when, in connection with this, popular works on Luther refer to the Bible, which the youthful Luther when still a student in the world, found chained in the library at Erfurt (though this itself is a matter of history). To hear of the Bible having been “bound in chains before Luther’s day” may sound very dreadful, but, as all should know, the only reason why valuable books were chained in those days was to guarantee their preservation for the use of the reader. Scholars are well aware that the printed works which were then so costly, and still more the manuscripts, were usually kept chained in the libraries in order to prevent visitors carrying them off; the custom still obtains in Rome to-day in the parlours of some of the convents, where books are displayed for the perusal of those waiting. Wattenbach in his “Schriftwesen des Mittelalters”[2119] enumerates a whole series of instances from earlier centuries. One of the most remarkable which goes back to about Luther’s day, is that of the Medicean library of manuscripts, the so-called Laurentiana at Florence, where, even to-day, the valuable MSS. in their splendid book-cases are fastened by chains and have to be unlocked when called for for use in the Reading-Room. In his catalogue of the Greek Codices in the Laurentiana Bandini gives an interesting sketch of these curious book-cases. Even under the Elector Johann Frederick of Saxony, in 1535, in Luther’s own time, the books belonging to the Princely Library at Wittenberg were chained.[2120] On the other hand, the copy of Holy Scripture which Luther was given during his student years at the Erfurt monastery, and the diligent study of which was enjoined upon him both by the rule of his Order and the words of his Superior, was evidently not thus chained.

Finally as regards the German translations of the Bible before Luther’s day. Of the seventeen printed editions of the whole Bible referred to above (p. 536) as dating from the years 1450-1520, the oldest is the so-called Mendel edition of Strasburg, probably dating from 1466,[2121] in which year the copy was purchased which now lies in the Munich State Library. The German Plenaries commence with the year 1470. We hear, for instance, of a printed German Bible being bought for nine florins.[2122] The lower price of the Plenaries, on the other hand, made them easier to obtain. Thus according to the data collected by Franz Falk, Johann Schöffer, a printer, in 1510, sent from Mayence to the Easter fair at Leipzig, amongst other books, seventy-three German Postils (Plenaries), priced at five copies a florin. In the following year Schöffer’s agent had to render an account after the Michaelmas fair for the sale of seventy-two postils.[2123] The German postils in those days served much the same purpose as Goffine does to-day.

Besides the printed editions, the manuscript translations still preserved must also be taken into account. Some twenty years ago Wilhelm Walther, the Protestant theologian, devoted a study to this

## particular branch of research.[2124] The results he then arrived at

have since been amplified and corrected by Franz Jostes and others, and still await further additions. Walther examined 202 MSS. German Bibles, or portions of Bibles, and came to the conclusion that they represented no less than thirty-four various forms of translation. They have indeed much in common, though they differ slightly according to the dialect of the locality they hail from, or the alterations made by their writers. The translations are, in every case, made on the Latin Vulgate.

Yet all the printed German Bibles dating from before Luther’s time resemble each other so much in the translation that we can, in reality, speak only of one German Bible. They all sprang originally from a single MS. translation and practically constitute a sort of German vulgate. The type was not, however, of Waldensian origin, as some formerly thought owing to the fact that the Tepler Bible, which had been placed first on the list, shows traces of that heresy. The earliest German translation is, on the contrary, as orthodox as the printed editions. This is probably the fragmentary Bible translated by Master Johann Rellach. It seems to be older than the Tepler Bible, and the first Mendel edition and all the others might well go back to it. Franz Jostes was the first to suppose that “the pre-Lutheran printed version of the Bible is the work of Master Johann Rellach.”[2125] The translator was, so he opines, a Dominican belonging to a convent in the diocese of Constance. He happened to be in Rome in 1450, the Jubilee year, and, hearing from Bishop Leonard of Chios of the destruction of the magnificent library at Constantinople he and his brethren were led to vow to make good this loss to the best of their ability by translating the Bible into German. They doubtless made use of even older translations in their work.

As for the slight difference shown in the seventeen printed editions of this translation still extant, they are easily explained. The printers, out of consideration for their readers, were pretty free in introducing dialect forms.

If we glance at the language, we shall find here some good points, but as the original manuscripts of which Johann Rellach made use were not all equally good, the same holds of all the printed translations. Of the different varieties which never appeared in print at all, Walther praises some on account of their excellent German, for instance, the one he places second on his list, and which may date from the second half of the 14th century. As a whole, however, particularly in the printed translation, the language suffers from a too slavish adherence to the style of the Latin text. A more exact classification, according to the excellence of the language, is, however, impossible until the whole field has been explored by our German philologists.[2126]

* * * * *

Owing to the matter not having yet been sufficiently investigated, we cannot determine accurately what influence the earlier translations had on the German Bible published by Luther. Luther himself says never a word of having used them.

It would, however, be just as bad to say, on the one hand, that Luther made no use whatever of the older version and had not even a copy of it to refer to in the Wartburg during his work on the New Testament or, on the other, as some have done, that Luther stole the best part of his work from earlier German translators.

When he wrote from the Wartburg that now he knew what it was to translate, and why, hitherto, no translator had dared to put his name to his work,[2127] he proves that he was aware that all previous German translations were anonymous, a fact which presupposes some acquaintance with them. Older translations cannot have been inaccessible to him at the Wartburg, and might well have been sent him by friends at Eisenach or Wittenberg, who, as we know, did occasionally send him books; when he had returned home, moreover, he could easily have found copies in his old monastery or at the University. Portions of the Bible, viz. the Plenaries, were doubtless within his reach from the first, and since he finished his translation of the New Testament in so short a time as three months, though all the while engaged on a number of other works, it is only natural to suppose that he lightened his labours by the use of other versions within his reach as any other scholar would have done, though undoubtedly he used his own judgment in his selection. That, in the work of revision at Wittenberg at a much later date, the mediæval text was employed, appears quite plain from the alterations introduced by Luther.

J. Geffcken was probably not far wrong when he wrote in 1855 in “Der Bilderkatechismus des 15. Jahrhunderts,” “that the similarity between Luther’s version and the old translations could not be merely fortuitous.”[2128]

The same was repeated with still greater emphasis by Krafft in 1883 after he had instituted fresh comparisons: “Whoever compares these passages can no longer doubt that the agreement between Luther’s work and the mediæval German Bible is not merely accidental.”[2129] The result of further research will probably be to confirm the guarded opinion expressed as long ago as 1803 by G. W. Meyer of Göttingen in his “Geschichte der Schrifterklärung”: to assume that “the older translation was not unknown to him,” “that he consulted it here and there,” and even “made his own some of its happy renderings,” is quite compatible with a high esteem for Luther’s translation.[2130]

Modern Protestant writers in this field are also somewhat sceptical about the theory of Luther’s complete ignorance of the older translation of the Bible, and the assertion that he made no use whatever of it. O. Reichert, for instance, in his new work “Luthers deutsche Bibel” makes the following remarks on Luther’s work in the Wartburg, with which we may fittingly conclude this section: “Although he probably was able to make use of Lang’s translation of 1521 in his rendering of Matthew, and as a matter of fact did have recourse to it, and though he most likely also had the old German translation at his elbow, as is apparent from many coincidences, nevertheless, what Luther accomplished is an achievement worthy of all admiration.”[2131]

4. Luther’s Hymns

Amongst the means to be employed for the spread and consolidation of the new Evangel Luther included, in addition to his Bible, German hymns for use in public worship.

In 1523 and 1524 especially, he busied himself in the making of verses. In his _Formula Missæ_ (1523) he expresses the wish that as many German hymns as possible be introduced into the revised service of the Mass and sung, not only by the choir, but by the whole congregation, though, for the nonce, the customary Latin hymns might be used.[2132] With his wonted energy and industry he at once entrusted the work of composing hymns to some of his Wittenberg friends, and despatched letters so as to obtain help even from afar. He was particularly anxious to see the Psalms in a German dress. His translation of the Psalter, which he had just completed, naturally drew his thoughts to the Psalms which so admirably express all the religious emotions of the soul, especially its trusting reliance upon God. He was not very confident of his own powers of composition: “I have not the knack of doing this as well as I wish to have it done,” he writes to his old friend Spalatin at Nuremberg.[2133] He asks him and his other friends for an eminently simple, popular versification of the Psalms, in pure German, “free from the new-fangled words used at Court”; it should keep as closely as possible to the sense and yet not be stilted. For this Spalatin was qualified by “a rich flow of eloquence, and by many years’ experience.” Luther sends him at the same time a poetic effort of his own.

In view of the beauty and the deep albeit simple grandeur of the olden Catholic hymns the task Luther had undertaken of composing something new was naturally not an easy one. He himself had much to say in praise of the magnificent old hymns in which the faithful praised their Creator or poured forth their griefs before Him. “In Popery,” he once said in a sermon, “they used to sing some fine hymns: ‘He who broke the might of Hell,’ item ‘Jesus Christ to-day is risen.’ This comes from the heart.”[2134] “A beautiful sequence is also sung in Advent,” he says, thus paying tribute even to a Latin hymn, viz. the _Mittitur ad Virginem_. “It is well done and not too barbarous.”[2135]

Luther nevertheless persevered in his own efforts in spite of his misgivings, especially as the contributions of his assistants failed to reach his standards. Of the eight hymns contained in the so-called Wittenberg “Achtliederbuch” four were composed by Luther, while of the twenty-five in the Erfurt “Enchiridion” eighteen were his; the collection, however, which he characterised as having been started by himself, the “Geistliche Gesangbüchlein” of Johann Walther, consisting chiefly of translations or adaptations, contained thirty-two hymns, twenty-four of them being written by Luther. This was the result of his efforts up to the end of 1524.[2136]

In later years only twelve other hymns were published by him, of which some, like the familiar “A safe stronghold,” and that intended in the first instance for children: “In Thy Word preserve us, Lord,” were not originally meant for use in public worship. A hymn, likewise not written for public worship, yet one of the oldest, as it dates from the summer of 1523, is the one where Luther extols the glorious martyrdom of two of his followers, who were executed in the Netherlands as heretics. Including this the number of his compositions rises to thirty-seven.

The number is not excessive considering how prolific his genius as a rule was, but among them are hymns, which, owing to their simple vigour and fine wording, bear witness to the author’s real talent for this form of literature. Thus, for instance, “From highest heaven on joyous wing,” “Ah God, look down from heaven and see,” “Dear is to me the Holy Maid” (the Church), finally and above all the hymn “A safe stronghold our God is still” (“Ein’ feste Burg”), which for ages has had so stimulating an effect on his followers. When, in these compositions, Luther shakes off the trammels of pedantry and leaves his spirit to go its own way, he often strikes the true poetic note.[2137] He was endowed with a powerful fancy, nor was there ever any lack of warmth, nay passion, in his expression of his inward experiences; in addition to this there was his rare gift of language, his keen appreciation of music and song, which he regarded as the “very gift of God” and to which, “next to theology,” he allotted the first place;[2138] the art he possessed of making the whole congregation to share in what he himself felt, and his careful avoidance of any conscious striving after originality contributed to render many of these productions acknowledged works of genius.

Most characteristic of all in this respect is the rousing hymn “Ein’ feste Burg.” The result, as shown above,[2139] of outward circumstances as well as of inward experiences, it gives the fullest expression to Luther’s own defiance. In so far as Luther succeeded in depicting his cause as that of all his followers, and, with rare power, made his own defiant spirit ring from every lip, we may accept the opinion of a recent Luther biographer on the hymn in question, viz. that it expresses the “defiance of Protestantism.” “So entirely does Luther’s hymn spring from the feeling common to the whole of Protestantism, that we seem to hear Protestants yet unborn joining in it. The trumpets of Gustavus Adolphus and the cannon of Lützen are audible in this hymn of defiance. It reminds us of Torstensson and Coligny, of Cromwell and William of Orange.”[2140] We must, however, remember that part of the impression it creates must be attributed to the powerful pre-reformation melody to which the words are set.

We give the hymn below in Carlyle’s fine rendering[2141]:

PSALM XLVI. (XLV.)

_Deus Nosier Refugium et Virtus_

1. A safe stronghold our God is still, A trusty shield and weapon. He’ll help us clear from all the ill That hath us now o’ertaken. The ancient Prince of Hell Hath risen with purpose fell, Strong mail of Craft and Power He weareth in this hour, On Earth is not his fellow.

2. With force of arms we nothing can, Full soon were we down-ridden. But for us fights the proper Man Whom God Himself hath bidden. Ask ye, Who is this name? Christ Jesus is His name, The Lord Zebaoth’s Son, He and no other one Shall conquer in the battle.

3. And were this world all Devils o’er And watching to devour us, We lay it not to heart so sore Not they can overpower us. And let the Prince of Ill Look grim, as e’er he will, He harms us not a whit, For why? His doom is writ, A word shall quickly slay him.

4. God’s Word, for all their craft and force, One moment shall not linger, But, spite of Hell, shall have its course, ’Tis written by His finger. And though they take our life, Goods, honour, children, wife, Yet is their profit small. These things shall vanish all, The City of God remaineth.

Though Protestants are fond of extolling the sincere faith expressed in Luther’s hymns (nay even speak of the “overwhelming fervour of his faith”[2142]) we must not forget, that in some of them bitter polemics strike a harsh and very unpoetic note, quite out of harmony with the otherwise good and pious thoughts. The “Children’s Hymn” to be sung against the two arch-enemies of Christ and His holy Church, viz. the Pope and the Turk, dating from 1541 at the latest, begins with the verse:

Lord, by Thy Word deliverance work And stay the hand of Pope and Turk Who Jesus Christ Thy Son Would hurl down from His throne.[2143]

This hymn became ultimately “One of the principal hymns of the Evangelical flock.”[2144]

No less noticeable is Luther’s anti-Catholic prejudice in his “Song of the Two Martyrs of Christ at Brussels” and in the hymn “To new strains we raise our voices.” But even when the words do not sound directly controversial the substance often serves as a weapon against the old faith and was thus understood by his followers; this was the case, for instance, with the hymn just referred to on the Church. The hymns, in fact, were intended, as he says in his preface to Johann Walther’s collection, “to advance and further the Holy Gospel which by the grace of God has once more dawned.” To this end he would gladly see “all the arts, more particularly that of music, employed in the service of Him Who created them and bestowed them on us.”[2145] The more he was animated by the fighting instinct, the better he fancies he can compose. “If I am to compose, write, pray or preach well, I must be angry.” “Then my blood boils and my understanding grows keener.”[2146] His opponents complained that his popular hymns against the Church excited the people and that they “sang themselves into” the new faith.

Just as the polemics of their author detracts from the real poetic value of some of the hymns, so, in spite of all his good-will, there are other defects to decrease the value of his work. Owing to hasty workmanship his poesy has suffered. His roughness explains how “much in his work sounds harsh and clumsy.”[2147] Nevertheless the very fact that they were Luther’s own made them praiseworthy in the eyes of his olden admirers.[2148]

Owing to their hearty reception in Protestant circles, to their use both in public worship and elsewhere, and also because they served as a model and exerted a powerful influence on later Protestant efforts to promote hymnology, they won for their author the proud title of the Father of Protestant psalmody. The earliest Protestants, in their ignorance of what obtained in Catholicism previous to his day, even pushed their esteem for his labours so far as to call him simply the Father of Hymnology. “What made him the great poet of our nation,” a modern Protestant historian declares, “was his individuality and the boldness of his expression. He was not, nor did he wish to be, the Father of German psalmody, but he was in very truth the Father of _Evangelical_ psalmody.”[2149]

When the introduction of hymns in the new form of public worship came up for discussion, Luther, owing to the exigencies of the case, showed himself by no means intolerant of the numerous hymns dating from Catholic times then still in use.

We can the more readily understand this seeing the praise he himself lavished on these hymns, the inspiring strains of which still rang in his ears from the days of his youth. It is true that not many of them appeared to him to have the “true spirit.” In his service of the Mass where this remark occurs he wished only three of these to be retained for the time being, viz. the Communion hymn, “Praised be God and blest, Who Himself becomes our Guest,” the Whitsun hymn, “Now we crave of the Holy Ghost” and the Christmas hymn, “A tender Child is born To us this very morn.” The Whitsun hymn and the Communion hymn were enlarged later, i.e. revised. He also took from an older model the first verse of another Whitsun hymn which he composed. His Easter hymn, “Christ lay in His Winding-sheet,” was a revision of the older Catholic hymn, “Jesus Christ to-day is risen,” into which he has introduced part of the Latin Easter sequence. His hymns, “In the midst of life cruel death surrounds us” and “God our Father bide with us” are also adaptations of older Catholic hymns for use in processions. In his rendering of the Ten Commandments into German verse he seems to have taken as his model a similar composition dating from earlier days and also used in processions. “Heirlooms of Catholicism” are also three old chants which he translated from the Latin, “Come, Holy Ghost, Creator, come,” “Saviour of the heathen known” and “Now praise we Christ the Holy One.”[2150]

The Middle Ages had always been noted for their renderings of the Psalms and hymns of the Church, and their productions compare favourably with Luther’s compositions, the more so since he is seldom at his best when he is not free to develop his own thoughts.[2151] Speaking of translations and alluding to those made by his colleagues Luther declared in 1529: “Some have now given proof of their ability and have increased the number of hymns; they far outstrip me and must be regarded as experts in this field.”[2152] Many had been the poets who had turned the old Latin hymns into German; particularly worthy of mention were the monk of Salzburg in the 14th and Heinrich of Laufenberg in the 15th century. Many of these hymns can take their place beside Luther’s rendering of Psalm xlvi. (xlv.), “Ein’ feste Burg,” though the trust in God they express and the unshaken faith of their childlike language is far removed from any presumptuous reliance on private judgment in religious matters or subjective revelations. Of the use of German hymns Provost Gerhoch of Reichersberg wrote as early as the 12th century: “The whole people breaks out into praise of the Saviour in the hymns of their mother tongue; especially is this the case with the Germans whose language lends itself so well to melody.”[2153] At the close of the Middle Ages it might be said with truth: “The German nation possessed a hoard of hymns, such as no other nation in the world could show.”[2154]

It is not only Luther who frequently admits that he had “included in his hymnbook some of the songs of our forefathers” as “bearing witness to the good Christians who lived before our day,”[2155] but even the _Apologia_ for the Confession of Augsburg had to admit in its defence of the Protestant ritual: “The use [of German hymns] has always been regarded as praiseworthy in the churches; though more German hymns are sung in some places than in others, nevertheless, in all the churches the people have always sung something in German, hence the practice is not at all novel.”[2156]

That _something_ was always sung in German is perfectly correct; in the liturgy properly so-called, viz. the Mass, the rule was to sing in Latin the Proper, Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, etc. Hence the standing of vernacular hymns was different in the case of Catholics from what it was with Protestants. With the latter the edification of the congregation was the principal thing, whereas, for the Catholic, public worship had in the eucharistic sacrifice something quite independent of private devotion; it was in keeping with the character of this universal sacrifice offered by all nations and tongues that its rites should be conducted in Latin, the universal language. The only strictly liturgical Psalmody in the Middle Ages was the Latin Gregorian chant. The German hymn held only a subordinate place in the liturgy, being inserted sometimes in connection with the sequence after the Gradual, or, more usually, before and after the sermon. On the other hand, recourse to German hymns was usual in extra-liturgical devotions, in processions, pilgrimages and in pious gatherings of the people whether at home or in the church.

The hymn tunes made use of in the Middle Ages were also in every case either Gregorian or quasi-Gregorian. Thus the musical language of popular piety was able to maintain its dignity, was preserved faithful to the traditions of the great ages of the Church and secure from the inroads of private fancy.

The melodies to which Luther set his own compositions and those of his friends had also been handed down from earlier times. Some of them were purely Gregorian, others were those of older Catholic hymns or of popular ditties. The melody of “A Safe Stronghold,” as already observed, is derived from the Latin chant, and so is that of “Jesaia dem Propheten” and others. Even the setting of the versified creed “We all believe in one true God” is borrowed from a 15th-century composition.

Protestant admiration for Luther has indeed led “to his being represented as a notable composer,[2157] and thus many of these tunes bear his name. Careful research has, however, shattered this delusion.... Many other melodies, which so far it has been impossible to trace to the Middle Ages, probably form part of the pre-reformation treasury of hymns.... Whether, as modern research is inclined to think, the simple new melody to ‘Saviour of the heathen known,’ ... is Luther’s own, it is not possible to determine.”[2158]

The traditional fondness of Germans for song was used to spread erroneous doctrines not by Luther alone, but also by others of the New Believers; this was particularly the case with the followers of Schwenckfeld, who exploited it in the interests of their sect. Luther’s hymnbook even stood in danger of being “spoilt” by outside additions, hence the precaution he took of appending the authors’ names to the various hymns; he also prefixed a special “Warnung” to the Preface of an edition brought out towards the end of his life (1542).[2159]

Among the songs falsely attributed to Luther is one on the “Out-driving of Antichrist.” In old editions this “Song for the Children, wherewith to drive out the Pope in Mid-Lent”[2160] is indeed ascribed to Luther, but we learn from Mathesius’s “Historien” that it was he who brought the text of it to Luther in the spring of 1545 on the occasion of his last visit. The song is a modification of an older one still sung in places even to-day, on Laetare Sunday, for the chasing away of winter. The unknown versifier, who was perhaps Mathesius himself, has transferred to the Pope-Antichrist what was intended for the winter. Luther was pleased with the verses and himself undertook their publication.[2161] There is a great difference between the cheerful, innocent verses still sung by children to-day: “Now let us drive the Winter out,” etc.,[2162] and the malicious version which Luther popularised and which was even included in many of the Lutheran hymn-books, for instance in the collection dating from 1547, “Etliche tröstliche Gebet, Psalmen und geistliche Lieder,” etc. There it is entitled “A Christian song for Children.” It occurs in the Königsberg Enchiridion of 1560, together with another Old German children’s song, to be sung on the way home.[2163]

The first lines of the hymn for the Out-driving of Antichrist run as follows:[2164]

1. Now let us drive the Pope from out Christ’s kingdom and God’s house devout, For murderously he has ruled, And countless souls to ruin fooled.

2. Be off with you, you damnéd son, You scarlet bride of Babylon; Horror and antichrist thou art, Lies, murder, cunning fill thy heart.

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