101.1...'medieval translators regarded it as their duty to translate word for word,
so far as that was possible,
fearing otherwise to fail to do justice to the sacred text
(in their case, the vulgate).
this went so far that they did not even ask whether their word usage and sentence construction might perhaps do violence to the laws of the language into which they were translating.
the more literal, the better.
the humanists, also, demanded that translators should follow the original as closely as possible.
in the first years of his professorship, L held to the same viewpoint.
but as early as 1520 he wrote to spalatin that a translator must be able to move about freely in his own language.
he many not be a 'prisoner of the text'.
that which lives in the text can be transmitted only through a free translation;
not to speak
-so he adds-
of the difficulties that are involved when one really attempts to convey the spirit of the author!
in these words L summarizes his entire purpose.
translating has to do with reproducing the spirit of the author.
God's purpose in the bible is to address men, here and now, with His word of law and gospel.
he wants to do this in their own language.
they must be able to read God's word 'as though it were written yesterday'.
L is profoundly convinced that he has rediscovered the basic message,
the beating heart of the scripture.
it is this living word he must interpret.
this cannot be done merely by reproducing the letter.
translating the bible is a spiritual task,
a creative work.
it is, in itself, a form of exegesis.
a merely grammatical, historical understanding is insufficient,
a deeply personal understanding, granted only though one's own experience of faith, is required.
no one can understand God's word,
and so no one can translate it,
but by the Holy Spirit.
translation demands more than knowledge,
with which one can attain only to the dead letter.
it requires
'an upright
pious
faithful
diligent
obedient
christian
practiced and
experienced
heart.
it is, therefore, a gift of grace when one is preserved from remaining a slave of the letter
and thus from interpreting the bible according to the flesh.
thus, one can readily concede that L did not approach the translation of the bible as an academic task. in that case his purpose would have been to maintain the closest possible philological contact with the original document. the language into which one translates must, in such cases, fit itself so far as possible to the rules of the original language, so that the structure of the original language, so that the structure of the original text can clearly be seen in the translation.
L has a different purpose.
this purpose might be called edification,
in the good sense of the word,
to 'build' faith.
that is why he will be no buchstabilist, as he calls it,
no servant of the letter.
he tries to understand and reproduce the spiritual content of the text.
a faithful translation, to him,
is not the most literal translation possible, word for word,
but the transition of the spirit and purpose of the passage.
this the translator must himself have experienced,
if he is to do his task,
which is to establish contact between the original author and his readers.
concerning erasmus he comments,
'he has indeed translated the new testament, but he has not felt it.
in his judgment the man from rotterdam was too cool, too objective in his concentration on historical-philological matters.
'no one,
he writes to erasmus,
can see an iota in the scripture if he does not have the Spirit of God.
it is doubly important that a translator of the bible be filled with the spirit of the author
in order to transmit the meaning of his writing to his readers,
because here the viva vox,
the living voice of God,
is contained in letter, word and sentence.
through this book God wants to speak to men, here and now.
for this reason the bible must,
in translation also.
speak the living language of those who seek after God.
repeatedly the reformer comments in his table conversations that it is his concern in translating the bible to convey the content and spirit of the scripture, its character as proclamation, and not merely its grammar.
his 'open letter concerning translation sharply refutes his critics, who maintain that his free translation fails to do justice to the scriptures. powerfully he points out that the opposite is true and points to some specific passages of the new testament which have been clarified through his method. he then comments,
'you cannot peak german with a greek or hebrew tongue.
matt. 12.34 reads, literally,
'out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
L had himself translated it like this in his postille, but in the letter he asks:
'tell me, is that german?
what german would understand such a thing?
what does 'abundance of heart' mean?
you just cannot say that in german, for it would suggest that someone had an enlarged heart or too much of one-although even then the expression would not quite fit. abundance of the heart is simply not german, any more than one can say abundance of the house, abundance of the stove, abundance of the chair. but the mother in her home and the common man would say:
if the heart is full the mouth will overflow.
that is good german
and it is that which i have done my best to speak,
even though i have not everywhere succeeded in finding the precise terms.
for the latin language makes it particularly difficult for us to speak good german.
much more important, from a theological point of view, was the question how best to translate the angelic greeting to mary in luke 1.28. there we read,
'hail, o favored one.
the greek word here translated 'favored one' might also originally mean, 'you who have made yourself loved' or 'you who are in favor'.
the vulgate however had translated this as,
'Thou who art full of grace' (ave, gratia plena).
L's translation was...(gives german words)..,
a word which expresses the thought lovely' in warm and elevated fashion.
erasmus had also dropped the gratia plena, using instead the more literal translation gratiosa,
meaning one who has received favor or who is loved.
it is quite understandable that L's new translation of a text so commonly used in liturgy and devotion should have attracted attention.
the theologians were particularly offended because the scholastici were accustomed to use the expression from the vulgate, 'full of grace', s a support for their doctrine of gratia infua, 'infused grace'. whoever removed this support caused their entire theological system to crumble.
in his defense of his translation of luke 1.28, L does not say a word concerning the theological background. here again it is, according to him, simply a question of speaking good german.
'when the angel greets mary and says,
'hail mary, full of grace. the Lord be with you-
well, that means that we have thus far a poor translation,
nothing more than the literal rendering of the latin text.
tell me honestly, is that good german?
what german would say today,
'you are full of grace?
and what german would understand it, if it were said?
he can think of a keg jull of beer or a chest full of gold.
that is why i have germanized it with du holdselige,
because then a german can understand approximately what the angel intended with his greeting.
and now the papists rage at me and complain that i have garbled the angel's greeting.
even my translation did not go far enough.
for in really good german the greeting would sound like this,
gott grusse dich, du liebe maria, for that is what the angel really says.
these are the words he would have used, had he spoken german.
if i would have translated it like that, they,
out of reverence for dear mary and anger that i had completely destroyed the greeting,
might well have hanged themselves.
'but i cannot let this bother me, continues l.
'i translate as i think it ought to be and not as i have been told.
this is really not their business.
i say, (quotes the german he wrote)
they may say, if they will,
'thou full of grace mary.
whoever knows german recognized what a really splendid thing it is to say,
'die liebe maria, der liebe Gott, das liebe Kind...
neither latin nor any other language has such a word that penetrates and resounds in our hearts, touching every sense, as this word does in our tongue.
in rare cases, however, L consciously clings to the letter of his text, translating word for word so far as possible, even though he knows that thereby he does more or less violence to german.
it is thus interesting to note what he says concerning our Lord's prayer.
'the 'our Father' is full of hebraic turns, which betray that Christ's mother tongue was syrian.
l did not want to eliminate any of these, but rather to translate them as literally as possible, because content and form, the unique modes of expression of this foreign tongue and the essence of the prayer itself, have so merged into one that it is not possible to separate them without inflicting damage on the whole.
161.1...' in the meantime L proceeded with his plan of making a complete revision of his translation of the psalms. so important did he regard this objective-the securing of a good and genuinely german psalter-that even though he was himself in complete command of the material, he selected a committee of revision to assist him in a painstaking restudy of his earlier work. perhaps he had, even then, the intention of using this same commission for the entire bible. it was his firm conviction that translation can best be done through teamwork.
'translators must never work by themselves. when one is alone, the best and most suitable words do not always occur to him.
172.1...'psalm 63.5 had been reproduced literally in my earlier translation,
says L,
so that it read:
'let my soul become full, as with marrow and fatness, that my mouth will utter praise with joyful. lips'.
said in this way the verse is meaningless to us germans. the words 'marrow' and 'fatness' point to such joy as healthy and well fed cattle experience, who are cheerful and therefore grow vigorously, while on the other and those who lack this lust for life grow thin. for this reason i made good german of this verse and translated it as follows:
'this would be my hearts joy and gladness, if i should praise Thee with a joyful mouth.
for this was david's meaning, when he was forced to remain outside the city while fleeing saul and was unable to participate in the sacred services and to hear the word of God, which brings comfort to all saddened hearts.
'if one wants to speak good german he dare not be restricted by hebrew colloquialisms. rather, having understood the hebrew text and grasped its meaning, he must ask,
how would a german have spoken in such a case?
then, when he has found the german colloquialism, he may cast aside the hebrew words and reproduce their meaning in the best german that he can master.
L also gives instances where his translation differs from the traditional one because his understanding of the text is Christological. certainly this 'spiritual exegesis' exerted a particular influence especially in the translation of the psalms. on this ground he sometimes permitted himself liberties which philological considerations would not have justified. it is noteworthy that for precisely this same reason he translated other texts quite literally, at the expense of good german, because the hebrew mode of expression conveys the Christological perspective, which he sees therein, more effectively. as an illustration of this he mentions psalm 68.16, where he prefers the hebraic,
'Thou hast imprisoned the prison' to the,
'Thou hast released the prisoners,
which he would otherwise have preferred, since the prison is a figure of the law, sin, and death. consequently he sees a parallel here with the statements of paul that through the law i am dead to the law (gal. 2.19), that sin is condemned through sin (rom. 8.3), and that death is killed by Christ II Tim. 1.10).
'these are the prisons which Christ has taken prisoner and thereby destroyed, so that death no longer has us in its power, sin can no longer hold us as guilty slaves, and the law can no longer condemn us, as paul constantly proclaims in his rich, glorious, encouraging proclamation. for the sake of this doctrine and for the comfort of our consciences we must therefore hold fast to the literal text and to the hebrew order of words, wherever they are better able to express the intent of the passage than would the german equivalent.
in this way L's translation of the psalm was interpenetrated with his own spiritual experience and theology, whether he dealt freely with the original text or followed it slavishly.
Friday, October 5, 2012
10.5.2012 LUTHER VII - GET THE BIBLE INTO THE HANDS OF THE PEOPLE!
89.last...'at the conclusion of the section of the postille
(a collection of sermons)
that he completed at the wartbug in december, 1521, he cries out:
'oh, that God would allow my interpretation and that of all other teachers to vanish,
that every christian should consider nothing but the simple scripture itself and the pure word of God...
therefore go to the scriptures, dear christians.
go there, and let my exposition and that of all other teachers mean no more to you than the scaffolding about a building, that we might understand the simple, pure word of God,
accept it for our own,
and hold it fast.
for only here in zion does God dwell.
during these days the conviction grew in him that he should set himself to the task of making the entire bible available for the use of his people.
(a collection of sermons)
that he completed at the wartbug in december, 1521, he cries out:
'oh, that God would allow my interpretation and that of all other teachers to vanish,
that every christian should consider nothing but the simple scripture itself and the pure word of God...
therefore go to the scriptures, dear christians.
go there, and let my exposition and that of all other teachers mean no more to you than the scaffolding about a building, that we might understand the simple, pure word of God,
accept it for our own,
and hold it fast.
for only here in zion does God dwell.
during these days the conviction grew in him that he should set himself to the task of making the entire bible available for the use of his people.
10.5.2012 LUTHER VI - THE BIBLE IS IT'S OWN BEST INTERPRETER
83.last...'L's conviction of the understandability of the bible by the laity lays the foundation for his doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. the word is the only mediator between God and man. in the scriptures we find everything we need to live as God's children. L, of course, does not mean to say that the bible has no difficult portions or that it would announce its truth as self-evident to every human mind. there are indeed many difficult passages, but that which is essential for the seeking soul to know,is as clear as the sun. from this luminous center, the man who has recognized the voice of god and has in his own heart experienced the judgment of God's law and the liberating word of His gospel will constantly see beans of light fall upon dark passages. thus the darkness will vanish, more and more. this center is Christ, to whom the whole bible testifies.
'when i know what i believe, i know what is in the bible, because the scriptures contain nothing else than Christ and the christian faith,
he says.
'be assured beyond every doubt that there is nothing more clear than the sun, that is the scriptures. even if a cloud passes in front of it, there is still nothing behind the cloud but this same bright sun. if there is somewhere a dark statement in the bible, you can nevertheless be assured, beyond doubt, that the same truth hides behind it as shines out clearly in other places. so if you cannot understand the dark passage, hold the more firmly to the one that is clear.
undergirding this is the strong conviction that the bible is its own best interpreter, (scriptura sacra sui ipsius interpres), because it is a unity, conveying but one message. for L this unity was centered in the word of God's grace, as he had heard it in the epistle to the romans. now his ear was attuned for this message everywhere. he could never hear it often enough. so he opened the entire bible with the key of the epistle to the romans. in the prophets and the psalms, the history of the patriarchs and in the gospels-everywhere he heard the message of justification through faith alone. sometimes it almost seemed as though the whole bible were written by paul! his endeavor to understand the scriptures in their unity was so strong that he overlooked all the differences between the biblical writers. he was unaware that in this way he sometimes did violence to a specific text. but he did not realize either what a great step forward he took on the path toward effective interpretation. for as darl holl says,
this is the first time that we find someone who attempts to understand an original document in its own terms, apart from all external authority.
for this reason L again and again calls the attention of his opponents to the fact that
a text may not be considered in isolation from its context
and that this context includes not merely its immediate setting but the entire bible.
'the meaning of a word of scripture must be sought in the totality of scripture,
in the sum of all with which it stands associated.
a theologian must, if he is not to err, keep the whole of scripture before his eyes constantly.
even an author like augustine cannot be known by merely reading a selection of individual sentences, but through the reading of entire works.
so in the bible, also, we are not concerned with a mere collection of individual texts,
but with the author who stands behind them and wishes to reveal Himself through them.
this was also the reason L advised his friends to read the bible through regularly.
in this way its unity becomes clear.
he did this himself twice a year.
'when i know what i believe, i know what is in the bible, because the scriptures contain nothing else than Christ and the christian faith,
he says.
'be assured beyond every doubt that there is nothing more clear than the sun, that is the scriptures. even if a cloud passes in front of it, there is still nothing behind the cloud but this same bright sun. if there is somewhere a dark statement in the bible, you can nevertheless be assured, beyond doubt, that the same truth hides behind it as shines out clearly in other places. so if you cannot understand the dark passage, hold the more firmly to the one that is clear.
undergirding this is the strong conviction that the bible is its own best interpreter, (scriptura sacra sui ipsius interpres), because it is a unity, conveying but one message. for L this unity was centered in the word of God's grace, as he had heard it in the epistle to the romans. now his ear was attuned for this message everywhere. he could never hear it often enough. so he opened the entire bible with the key of the epistle to the romans. in the prophets and the psalms, the history of the patriarchs and in the gospels-everywhere he heard the message of justification through faith alone. sometimes it almost seemed as though the whole bible were written by paul! his endeavor to understand the scriptures in their unity was so strong that he overlooked all the differences between the biblical writers. he was unaware that in this way he sometimes did violence to a specific text. but he did not realize either what a great step forward he took on the path toward effective interpretation. for as darl holl says,
this is the first time that we find someone who attempts to understand an original document in its own terms, apart from all external authority.
for this reason L again and again calls the attention of his opponents to the fact that
a text may not be considered in isolation from its context
and that this context includes not merely its immediate setting but the entire bible.
'the meaning of a word of scripture must be sought in the totality of scripture,
in the sum of all with which it stands associated.
a theologian must, if he is not to err, keep the whole of scripture before his eyes constantly.
even an author like augustine cannot be known by merely reading a selection of individual sentences, but through the reading of entire works.
so in the bible, also, we are not concerned with a mere collection of individual texts,
but with the author who stands behind them and wishes to reveal Himself through them.
this was also the reason L advised his friends to read the bible through regularly.
in this way its unity becomes clear.
he did this himself twice a year.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
10.5.2012 LUTHER V - DOES THE BIBLE OR THE CHURCH DECIDE WHAT IS TRUTH?
74.last...'it was above all the debate with cardinal cajetan, held in augsburg in 1518, that forced the wittenberg professor into the spotlight of public attention though he would have preferred to pursue his biblical studies quietly and in peace. the cardinal was not willing to discuss, on the basis of the scriptures, the relationship of faith to indulgences, since according to him the decisions of the pope and the doctrines of scholasticism had already spoken the final word on this subject. the report that L himself wrote of this noteworthy meeting in the act augustana reveals how deeply he was affected. it almost seems as though only now, in his opposition to indulgences, this gross form of work righteousness, does it become clear to him what the gospel means when it says that the righteous man does not live from anything which he has, does, or is, but alone from faith in the liberating word of God.
when l nailed his 95 theses on the door of the castle church, he had not the slightest intention of breaking away from rome. even in the resolutiones, a defense of these theses, published in june, 1518, he says that he is prepared to acknowledge the decisions of the papacy as secondary sources of authority and that he is ready to recant if the church does not agree with the viewpoint he expresses. after the debate with cajetan, all this is changed. in the acta, already mentioned, he is still respectfully humble toward the ruler of the church, but his mind is made up. does cajetan demand of him that he is to admit himself wrong on the sole ground that he is in conflict with papal decrees? well, his answer is that he will not recant, unless it shall be shown him clearly from the scriptures that he holds a wrong view of justification by faith.
'for beyond the slightest doubt i am convinced that my convictions are scriptural.
this certainty had been won through his exegetical study.
'this divine truth is master even of the pope; thus i am not concerned about the judgment of a man since i know God's judgment.
did the cardinal send him away with the injunction that he was not to return until he was ready to recant? then the matter is clear:
this prince of the church will not listen to scripture.
L's reproach is that cajetan did not appeal even to a single word of the scriptures, but that he regarded the canons of the church as more important than the word of God. the conflict, therefore, cannot be avoided, for it centers in
the question whether the church is willing to let itself be ruled by the scriptures.
a little later L writes to spalatin that his only concern is for the heart of the gospel. he is willing to be robbed of all else. in a sermon concerning papal indulgences and God's grace L expresses the same thought in this sentence:
'even though all the holy teachers say this or that, they have, all together, no authority against a single testimony of the holy scriptures.
so it was easy for eck at the disputation in leipzig in 1519 to force his opponent back to this final position. it reads:
'verbum Dei super omnia verba hominum est'
(God's word is supreme above all the words of men.)
that is to say, if the sensus litteralis of a text and its exposition by the fathers of the church are not in agreement, one may not twist and turn the text until it fits the ecclesiastically approved explanations, but rather
the teaching of the church must be adjusted to the natural intent of the biblical text.
exegesis is not,
as eck presumed, a scholarly technique with which to demonstrate the agreement of the scriptures with the doctrine of the church.
it is rather the art of letting God's word say what it wishes to say.
whoever maintains that only the church is able to explain the bible seeks the meaning of the scriptures outside the word itself.
God's word is incomparably higher than the church.
the latter has been created through the word and thus cannot sit in lordly judgment upon it.
rather ought it to be judged, determined and ruled by the scriptures.
for who has conceived his own father or brought into being his creator?
no believing christian, therefore, may be compelled to accept anything by reasons that lie outside holy scripture, for the bible is the true ius divinum, the true law of the church.
in the background of this debate there is a further question:
does this law concern the scriptures in their original languages or only in the ecclesialtically approved latin text?
when eck himself, in a futile attempt to displace L's translation of the bible, issued a german translation of the vulgate, he stated expressly in his introduction that his was
'form ancient times the one sung, read, used and accepted by the holy latin church, so that one need not concern himself how the text reads in hebrew, greek or chaldean.
this disputation with eck served to make it clear to L that he had only one effective weapon with which to wage battle, absolute reliance upon the scriptures. when he rejects the infallibility of the general council of the church, he does so on the ground that the authority of the holy scripture is greater than the combined authority of the entire human race. and so his final word in the last leipzig session was an appeal to the bible as sole authority.
how far reaching the consequences of L's surrender of the multiple meaning of scripture were is seen also when he published his 'defense against the ill tempered judgment of eck'. here he considers the text from which rome had derived the authority of the pope, the words of Jesus to peter in matt. 16.18:
'you are peter and on this rock I will build My church.
L asserts that sound scriptural exegesis demands that one understand these words of the Lord in the one and original sense in which Jesus spoke them, rather than by means of allegorizing applying them to the pope. in the same document we find the following expression:
'i have learned to ascribe the honor of infallibility only to those books that are accepted as canonical. i am profoundly convinced that none of these writers have erred. all other writers, however they may have distinguished themselves in holiness or in doctrine, i read in this way:
i evaluate what they say, not on the basis that they themselves believe that a thing is true, but only insofar as they are able to convince me by the authority of the canonical books or by clear reason.
soon after the leipzig disputation L published his commentary on galatians, to which we have already referred. in the preface of this book he says specifically that the entire struggle began over the proper evaluation of scripture. he is still prepared to honor the pope as the viceroy of Christ.
'but i am obligated,
he adds,
to rank the words of the King above the words of His representative.
i must place the latter under the judgment of the former.
for i am a 'debtor of the word', however dangerous this position may be.
he begins to feel that soon he will have to choose between the church and the word. it is clear which way his decision will go.
'the urgency of the situation itself compels us to flee to the only solid rock, the scriptures.
in his writing, 'concerning the papacy of rome', he puts it this way:
'whatever the pope decides and determines i will accept,
if i may first investigate whether it is in agreement with holy scripture.
i want to submit everything to the judgment of Christ and His word.
here is the final quotation from the assertion, in which he answers the threatening papal bull of leo X:
'i do not desire that men shall praise me for being more learned than others;
i wish only to hold fast to the scriptures.
i do not desire that the scriptures shall be understood in accord with my insights or with those of someone else.
i desire only that they shall be understood in the light of and through the spirit of scripture itself.
when l nailed his 95 theses on the door of the castle church, he had not the slightest intention of breaking away from rome. even in the resolutiones, a defense of these theses, published in june, 1518, he says that he is prepared to acknowledge the decisions of the papacy as secondary sources of authority and that he is ready to recant if the church does not agree with the viewpoint he expresses. after the debate with cajetan, all this is changed. in the acta, already mentioned, he is still respectfully humble toward the ruler of the church, but his mind is made up. does cajetan demand of him that he is to admit himself wrong on the sole ground that he is in conflict with papal decrees? well, his answer is that he will not recant, unless it shall be shown him clearly from the scriptures that he holds a wrong view of justification by faith.
'for beyond the slightest doubt i am convinced that my convictions are scriptural.
this certainty had been won through his exegetical study.
'this divine truth is master even of the pope; thus i am not concerned about the judgment of a man since i know God's judgment.
did the cardinal send him away with the injunction that he was not to return until he was ready to recant? then the matter is clear:
this prince of the church will not listen to scripture.
L's reproach is that cajetan did not appeal even to a single word of the scriptures, but that he regarded the canons of the church as more important than the word of God. the conflict, therefore, cannot be avoided, for it centers in
the question whether the church is willing to let itself be ruled by the scriptures.
a little later L writes to spalatin that his only concern is for the heart of the gospel. he is willing to be robbed of all else. in a sermon concerning papal indulgences and God's grace L expresses the same thought in this sentence:
'even though all the holy teachers say this or that, they have, all together, no authority against a single testimony of the holy scriptures.
so it was easy for eck at the disputation in leipzig in 1519 to force his opponent back to this final position. it reads:
'verbum Dei super omnia verba hominum est'
(God's word is supreme above all the words of men.)
that is to say, if the sensus litteralis of a text and its exposition by the fathers of the church are not in agreement, one may not twist and turn the text until it fits the ecclesiastically approved explanations, but rather
the teaching of the church must be adjusted to the natural intent of the biblical text.
exegesis is not,
as eck presumed, a scholarly technique with which to demonstrate the agreement of the scriptures with the doctrine of the church.
it is rather the art of letting God's word say what it wishes to say.
whoever maintains that only the church is able to explain the bible seeks the meaning of the scriptures outside the word itself.
God's word is incomparably higher than the church.
the latter has been created through the word and thus cannot sit in lordly judgment upon it.
rather ought it to be judged, determined and ruled by the scriptures.
for who has conceived his own father or brought into being his creator?
no believing christian, therefore, may be compelled to accept anything by reasons that lie outside holy scripture, for the bible is the true ius divinum, the true law of the church.
in the background of this debate there is a further question:
does this law concern the scriptures in their original languages or only in the ecclesialtically approved latin text?
when eck himself, in a futile attempt to displace L's translation of the bible, issued a german translation of the vulgate, he stated expressly in his introduction that his was
'form ancient times the one sung, read, used and accepted by the holy latin church, so that one need not concern himself how the text reads in hebrew, greek or chaldean.
this disputation with eck served to make it clear to L that he had only one effective weapon with which to wage battle, absolute reliance upon the scriptures. when he rejects the infallibility of the general council of the church, he does so on the ground that the authority of the holy scripture is greater than the combined authority of the entire human race. and so his final word in the last leipzig session was an appeal to the bible as sole authority.
how far reaching the consequences of L's surrender of the multiple meaning of scripture were is seen also when he published his 'defense against the ill tempered judgment of eck'. here he considers the text from which rome had derived the authority of the pope, the words of Jesus to peter in matt. 16.18:
'you are peter and on this rock I will build My church.
L asserts that sound scriptural exegesis demands that one understand these words of the Lord in the one and original sense in which Jesus spoke them, rather than by means of allegorizing applying them to the pope. in the same document we find the following expression:
'i have learned to ascribe the honor of infallibility only to those books that are accepted as canonical. i am profoundly convinced that none of these writers have erred. all other writers, however they may have distinguished themselves in holiness or in doctrine, i read in this way:
i evaluate what they say, not on the basis that they themselves believe that a thing is true, but only insofar as they are able to convince me by the authority of the canonical books or by clear reason.
soon after the leipzig disputation L published his commentary on galatians, to which we have already referred. in the preface of this book he says specifically that the entire struggle began over the proper evaluation of scripture. he is still prepared to honor the pope as the viceroy of Christ.
'but i am obligated,
he adds,
to rank the words of the King above the words of His representative.
i must place the latter under the judgment of the former.
for i am a 'debtor of the word', however dangerous this position may be.
he begins to feel that soon he will have to choose between the church and the word. it is clear which way his decision will go.
'the urgency of the situation itself compels us to flee to the only solid rock, the scriptures.
in his writing, 'concerning the papacy of rome', he puts it this way:
'whatever the pope decides and determines i will accept,
if i may first investigate whether it is in agreement with holy scripture.
i want to submit everything to the judgment of Christ and His word.
here is the final quotation from the assertion, in which he answers the threatening papal bull of leo X:
'i do not desire that men shall praise me for being more learned than others;
i wish only to hold fast to the scriptures.
i do not desire that the scriptures shall be understood in accord with my insights or with those of someone else.
i desire only that they shall be understood in the light of and through the spirit of scripture itself.
10.4.2012 LUTHER IV - HEBREW
72.last ...'so far as hebrew is concerned, L always remained a self made man. he was well aware of this and remarks that he learned more through a faithful reading of the old testament than through linguistic study.
'i have learned more hebrew by continuing to read and by comparing one text with another, than by working with a grammar. i am no hebrew student according to the rules of linguistics, for i go my won way, unbound.
he means by this that he is not satisfied with a formal knowledge of the hebrew, but seeks rather to penetrate to the essence of the language. often he expresses himself about the uniqueness of hebrew:
'the hebrew language has its own flavor, which distinguishes it from greek, latin and german. it is the best of all and richest in vocabulary. it does not need to 'beg' as do other languages that do not have a word of their won for many things and who must therefore borrow parts of other words and combine them into a new one. in german we sometimes make twenty such combined words out of one,
eg. with the word laufen.
to this we add parts of other words and speak of
entlaufen
verlaufen
umlaufen
belaufen
zulaufen
ablaufen
weglaufen
einlaufen, etc.
in contrast the hebrew language has no such artificially constructed words, but possesses a separate and special word for each thing. in addition, we germans use one word for many meanings. with the word 'heart' we mean a part of our bodies. but we say also that someone has no heart, and then mean that he is afraid and fearful. we also use the expression 'my heart tells me'. and 'his heart burns in him', by which we mean that he is angry. the hebrew, however, has for all such cases a distinctive word. and yet this language is simple and at the same time majestic and glorious. it uses few words, but says much through them.
'i have learned more hebrew by continuing to read and by comparing one text with another, than by working with a grammar. i am no hebrew student according to the rules of linguistics, for i go my won way, unbound.
he means by this that he is not satisfied with a formal knowledge of the hebrew, but seeks rather to penetrate to the essence of the language. often he expresses himself about the uniqueness of hebrew:
'the hebrew language has its own flavor, which distinguishes it from greek, latin and german. it is the best of all and richest in vocabulary. it does not need to 'beg' as do other languages that do not have a word of their won for many things and who must therefore borrow parts of other words and combine them into a new one. in german we sometimes make twenty such combined words out of one,
eg. with the word laufen.
to this we add parts of other words and speak of
entlaufen
verlaufen
umlaufen
belaufen
zulaufen
ablaufen
weglaufen
einlaufen, etc.
in contrast the hebrew language has no such artificially constructed words, but possesses a separate and special word for each thing. in addition, we germans use one word for many meanings. with the word 'heart' we mean a part of our bodies. but we say also that someone has no heart, and then mean that he is afraid and fearful. we also use the expression 'my heart tells me'. and 'his heart burns in him', by which we mean that he is angry. the hebrew, however, has for all such cases a distinctive word. and yet this language is simple and at the same time majestic and glorious. it uses few words, but says much through them.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
10.3.2012 LUTHER III -FAITH
....at this time L was giving lectures on the book of hebrews (spring 1517-spring 1518)...
65.last ....'by this time L had almost completely given up the use of medieval methodology. he calls attention to unusual hebrew or greek constructions, offers conjectures regarding unclear texts and pays more attention than before to grammatical questions. but he does not permit any of these matters to divert him from theological exegesis. here, for the first time, he sums up the relationship between God and man, in which the scholastics distinguished many different steps, in the one word: faith. in the order of salvation, as it was taught by the scholastics, the concept faith was only a subhead, but with L faith receives universal significance, comprising the whole of the relationship of man to God. in this connection he speaks the pregnant word,
'not the sacrament, but faith conveys salvation.
faith and cross are joined together most closely.
'the whole life of the christian consists of faith, that is to say, in cross and suffering.
more clearly than before he defines the relationship between word and faith:
faith is trust in the word of Christ. it begins when God opens our ears for the gospel.
'if you ask the christian what work it is that makes him worthy to bear the name christian, he can give no answer but this:
by the hearing of the word of God,
ie. by faith.
the ears are thus the only organ of the christian, in view of the fact that he is not justified through the works of any other part of the body, but only through faith, and so is made a christian.
this emphasis upon hearing as an instrument of faith is connected with an emphasis on the hiddenness of that faith, both as to its subject and its object.
'to hold to god means to look away from the world and all created things.
to bear the image of Christ means to live according to the mind and example of Christ...
but by nature we can neither understand nor love these treasures, because the are invisible, incomprehensible, and wholly hidden from us, unless the grace of God opens our eyes to them. for the same reason the spiritual man can be judged, known or seen by no one, not even by himself, since he lives in the most intense darkness of God.
in this connection L wrote a beautiful sentence, which might well be called a classic summation of his theology:
'oh, it is a wonderful thing to be a christian and to have this hidden life-not hidden as a hermit in a cell, not even in the human heart with its impenetrable abysses-=but in the invisible God Himself, to live amid the things of this world, while feeding one's soul on Him who reveals Himself nowhere else than in the poor tokens of the word and the hearing alone.
65.last ....'by this time L had almost completely given up the use of medieval methodology. he calls attention to unusual hebrew or greek constructions, offers conjectures regarding unclear texts and pays more attention than before to grammatical questions. but he does not permit any of these matters to divert him from theological exegesis. here, for the first time, he sums up the relationship between God and man, in which the scholastics distinguished many different steps, in the one word: faith. in the order of salvation, as it was taught by the scholastics, the concept faith was only a subhead, but with L faith receives universal significance, comprising the whole of the relationship of man to God. in this connection he speaks the pregnant word,
'not the sacrament, but faith conveys salvation.
faith and cross are joined together most closely.
'the whole life of the christian consists of faith, that is to say, in cross and suffering.
more clearly than before he defines the relationship between word and faith:
faith is trust in the word of Christ. it begins when God opens our ears for the gospel.
'if you ask the christian what work it is that makes him worthy to bear the name christian, he can give no answer but this:
by the hearing of the word of God,
ie. by faith.
the ears are thus the only organ of the christian, in view of the fact that he is not justified through the works of any other part of the body, but only through faith, and so is made a christian.
this emphasis upon hearing as an instrument of faith is connected with an emphasis on the hiddenness of that faith, both as to its subject and its object.
'to hold to god means to look away from the world and all created things.
to bear the image of Christ means to live according to the mind and example of Christ...
but by nature we can neither understand nor love these treasures, because the are invisible, incomprehensible, and wholly hidden from us, unless the grace of God opens our eyes to them. for the same reason the spiritual man can be judged, known or seen by no one, not even by himself, since he lives in the most intense darkness of God.
in this connection L wrote a beautiful sentence, which might well be called a classic summation of his theology:
'oh, it is a wonderful thing to be a christian and to have this hidden life-not hidden as a hermit in a cell, not even in the human heart with its impenetrable abysses-=but in the invisible God Himself, to live amid the things of this world, while feeding one's soul on Him who reveals Himself nowhere else than in the poor tokens of the word and the hearing alone.
10.2.1012 LUTHER II - JUSTIFICATION
..after L had concluded his lectures on the psalms, he began an exposition of the epistle to the romans (1515)..
60.1...'even more clearly than in his first lectures L teaches that the righteousness which is the possession of the believer in Christ comes to him from without.
'god saves us, not through a iustitia which belongs to us, but through a iustitia which is given us from without ourselves. it is not born of us, nor does it arise within ourselves, but comes from without. it is not native to our soul, but comes from heaven. for this reason it is supremely important that we come to know this foreign righteousness that comes to us from without. this can happen only when our won independent righteousness vanishes.
a soul that is filled with its own righteousness cannot be filled with the iustitia Dei, since this fills only those who are hungry and thirsty. for this reason
'he who is filled with his own truth and wisdom is not prepared to receive the truth and wisdom of God. they can only be received by those who know that they are empty and foolish.
let us therefore say to God:
oh, how gladly would we be empty so that you might become our fullness. i will gladly be weak, in order that your power might dwell in me, truly a sinner so that you may be my righteousness, truly a fool that you may be my wisdom.
'therefore i say rightly:
all our good is from outside ourselves, in Christ, just as the apostle says,
'He is made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
more than in his lectures on the psalms, the accent is thus placed on this foreign righteousness. yet this is not the abstract teaching of the 'forensic doctrine' of justification, the legalistically oriented doctrine of the imputatio, of the transferred merits of Christ, which we find in the dogmatics of later orthodoxy. in L the righteousness of God is always the living Christin his own person, dwelling within the believer. this basic insight which by means of the tropological method he had found through his exegetical study, was never surrendered.
'thus the saints may plead that although all their good is outside of them, in Christ, it is nevertheless in them through faith.
as in the lectures on the psalms, we find here, along with L's increasingly clear statements of the new, reformation understanding of justification by faith alone, remnants of other and older views, in which man's humility plays a vital role in the process of the iustificatio. it is like a tree in the spring, which unfolds its new leaves while some of the old ones still cling to its branches. we see L wrestle to find apt expression for new insights. here we find, for example, reference to
'passive justification'. by this L means that God justifies us when we agree with Him in His judgment that we are sinners and fit objects for His judgment.
'for in this passive iustificatio of god, by which He is justified by us, there is, said positively, our iustificatio by God. for he reckons for our righteousness that faith by which we acknowledge His judgments as just, since the righteous man lives through faith...for God is justified and conquers us with His word when He makes us what His word declares, namely, righteous, true, wise, etc. thus we are changed in His word, not His word in us.
for when we believe that His word is truth and righteousness, He makes us also true and righteous.
the central motif of these lectures is that God's word causes us to see our sin.
the believer is defined as
semper peccator, (always sinner)
semper penitens, (always penitent)
semper iustus, (always righteous)
always sinner and saint at the same time because he must always repent.
'A JUSTIFIED MAN IS, IN PRINCIPLE, ONE WHO ACCUSES HIMSELF.
when one accepts the judgment of God's word and thereby acknowledges his total lostness, he justifies god, and he is thereby himself justified. justification is therefore to be equated with faith in God's word.
from october, 1516, to the following march L taught the epistle to the galatians...
191.1...'here also we find, as with the young L, a preaching of the 'blessed exchange'.
Christ takes the guilt of our sin upon Himself;
His righteousness becomes the possession of those who believe in Him.
'when the merciful Father waw how we were oppressed by the law and held under its ban, without the slightest possibility of escape, He sent His son into the world. He laid the sins of all men upon Him and said to Him
60.1...'even more clearly than in his first lectures L teaches that the righteousness which is the possession of the believer in Christ comes to him from without.
'god saves us, not through a iustitia which belongs to us, but through a iustitia which is given us from without ourselves. it is not born of us, nor does it arise within ourselves, but comes from without. it is not native to our soul, but comes from heaven. for this reason it is supremely important that we come to know this foreign righteousness that comes to us from without. this can happen only when our won independent righteousness vanishes.
a soul that is filled with its own righteousness cannot be filled with the iustitia Dei, since this fills only those who are hungry and thirsty. for this reason
'he who is filled with his own truth and wisdom is not prepared to receive the truth and wisdom of God. they can only be received by those who know that they are empty and foolish.
let us therefore say to God:
oh, how gladly would we be empty so that you might become our fullness. i will gladly be weak, in order that your power might dwell in me, truly a sinner so that you may be my righteousness, truly a fool that you may be my wisdom.
'therefore i say rightly:
all our good is from outside ourselves, in Christ, just as the apostle says,
'He is made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
more than in his lectures on the psalms, the accent is thus placed on this foreign righteousness. yet this is not the abstract teaching of the 'forensic doctrine' of justification, the legalistically oriented doctrine of the imputatio, of the transferred merits of Christ, which we find in the dogmatics of later orthodoxy. in L the righteousness of God is always the living Christin his own person, dwelling within the believer. this basic insight which by means of the tropological method he had found through his exegetical study, was never surrendered.
'thus the saints may plead that although all their good is outside of them, in Christ, it is nevertheless in them through faith.
as in the lectures on the psalms, we find here, along with L's increasingly clear statements of the new, reformation understanding of justification by faith alone, remnants of other and older views, in which man's humility plays a vital role in the process of the iustificatio. it is like a tree in the spring, which unfolds its new leaves while some of the old ones still cling to its branches. we see L wrestle to find apt expression for new insights. here we find, for example, reference to
'passive justification'. by this L means that God justifies us when we agree with Him in His judgment that we are sinners and fit objects for His judgment.
'for in this passive iustificatio of god, by which He is justified by us, there is, said positively, our iustificatio by God. for he reckons for our righteousness that faith by which we acknowledge His judgments as just, since the righteous man lives through faith...for God is justified and conquers us with His word when He makes us what His word declares, namely, righteous, true, wise, etc. thus we are changed in His word, not His word in us.
for when we believe that His word is truth and righteousness, He makes us also true and righteous.
the central motif of these lectures is that God's word causes us to see our sin.
the believer is defined as
semper peccator, (always sinner)
semper penitens, (always penitent)
semper iustus, (always righteous)
always sinner and saint at the same time because he must always repent.
'A JUSTIFIED MAN IS, IN PRINCIPLE, ONE WHO ACCUSES HIMSELF.
when one accepts the judgment of God's word and thereby acknowledges his total lostness, he justifies god, and he is thereby himself justified. justification is therefore to be equated with faith in God's word.
from october, 1516, to the following march L taught the epistle to the galatians...
191.1...'here also we find, as with the young L, a preaching of the 'blessed exchange'.
Christ takes the guilt of our sin upon Himself;
His righteousness becomes the possession of those who believe in Him.
'when the merciful Father waw how we were oppressed by the law and held under its ban, without the slightest possibility of escape, He sent His son into the world. He laid the sins of all men upon Him and said to Him
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