96 ORIENTATION.
He objected to the Epistle to the Hebrews because it seems to deny (in chs. 6, 10 and 12) the possibility of repentance after baptism, contrary to the Gospels and to Paul, and betrays in ch. 2: 3, a post-apostolic origin. He ascribed the authorship to Apollos by an ingenious guess, which, though not supported by ancient tradition, has found great favor with modern commentators and critics,’ chiefly because the authorship of any other possible writer (Paul, Barnabas, Luke, Clement) seems to offer insuperable difficulties, while the description of Apollos in Acts 18. 24-28, compared with the allusions in 1 Cor. 1:12; 3: 6; 4: 6; 16: 12, seems to fit exactly the author of this anonymous Epistle.
He called the Epistle of Jude an “unnecessary epistle,” a mere extract from Second Peter and post-apostolie, filled with apocry- _phal matter, and hence rejected by the ancient fathers.
He could at first find no sense in the mysteries of the Apocalypse . and declared it to be “neither apostolic nor prophetic,” because it deals only with images and visions, and yet, notwithstanding its obscurity, it adds threats and promises, “ though nobody knows what it means” ; but afterwards he modified his judgment when the Lutheran divines found in it welcome weapons against the church of Rome.
The clearest utterance on this subject is found at the close of his preface to the first edition of his German version of the New Testament (1522), but it was suppressed in later editions.’
Luther’s view of inspiration was both strong and free. With the profoundest conviction of the divine contents of the Bible, he distinguished between the revealed truth itself and the human wording and reasoning of the writers. He says of one of the
1 Bleek, de Wette, Tholuck, Liinemann, Kendrick (in Lange), Hilgenfeld, de Pressensé, Davidson, Alford, Farrar, and others.
2 See note at the end of this section. His Table Talk contains bold and original utterances on Esther, Ecclesiastes and other books of the Old Testament; see Reuss on the Canon, p. 330sqq. While Luther on the one hand limited the canon, he seemed disposed on the other hand to extend it, when he declared Melanchthon’s Loci Theologici to be worthy of a place in the canon. But this was merely an extravagant compliment.
§ 9. THE REFORMATION AND RATIONALISM. 37
rabbinical arguments of his favorite apostle: “ My dear brother Paul, this argument won’t stick.” ἢ
Luther was, however, fully aware of the subjective and conjectural character of these opinions, and had no intention of obtruding them on the church: hence he modified his prefaces in later editions. He judged the Scriptures from an exclusively dogmatic, and one-sidedly Pauline standpoint, and did not consider their gradual historical growth.
A few Lutheran divines followed him in assigning a subordinate position to the seven Antilegomena of the New Testament ;? but the Lutheran church, with a sound instinct, accepted for popular use the traditional catholic canon (not even expressly excluding the Jewish Apocrypha), yet retained his arrangement of the books of the New Testament. The Rationalists, of course, revived, intensified, and carried to excess the bold opinions of Luther, but in a spirit against which he would himself raise the strongest protest. |
The Reformed divines were more conservative than Luther in accepting the canonical books, but more decided in rejecting the Apocrypha of the Old Testament. The Reformed Confessions usually enumerate the canonical books.
Zwingli objected only to the Apocalypse and made no doctrinal use of it, because he did not deem it an inspired book, written by the same J ohn who wrote the fourth Gospel.“ In this view he has many followers, but the severest critical school of our days
(that of Tiibingen) assigns it to the Apostle John. Wolfgang
~Comp. his comments on the allegory of Sarah and Hagar in his Latin Com. on Gal. 3: 25 (Erl. ed. 11. 252).
? Brentius, Flacius, Urbanus Regius, the authors of the Magdeburg Centuries, and Chemnitz.
3 None of the symbolical books of the Lutheran church gives a list of the canon, but the Formula of Concord (p. 570) declares that the “prophetica et apostolica seripta V. et N. T.” are the “unica regula et norma secundum quam omnia dogmata omnesque doctores aestimart et judicart opporteat.”
*“Us Apocalypsi nehmend wir kein Kundschafft an, denn es nit ein biblisch Buch ist.” Werke, ed. Schuler and Schulthess, II. 1. p.169. In another place he says: “ Apocal. liber non sapit os et ingeniwm Joannis.” De clar. Verbi Dei, p. 310,