II. BroGRAPHIES OF LUTHER:
(1) By contemporaries, who may be included in the sources.
MELANCHTHON wrote Vita Lutheri, a brief but weighty sketch, 1546, often reprinted, translated into German by Matthias Ritter, 1555, with Melanchthon’s account of Luther’s death to the students in the lecture room, the funeral orations of Bugenhagen and Cruciger (157 pages); a new transl. by Zimmermann, with preface by G. J. Planck, Gottingen, 1813; ed. of the original in Vite quatuor Reformatorum, Lutheri a Melanchthone, Melanchthonis a Camerarto, Zwinglit a Myconio, Calvini a Beza, prefaced by Neander, Berlin, 1841. Jusrus Jonas gives an account of Luther’s last sickness and death as an eye-witness, 1546. Marnesius (Luther’s pupil and friend, d. 1561) preached seventeen sermons on Luther’s life, first published 1565, and very often since, though mostly abridged, e. g., an illustrated popular ed. with preface by G. H. v. Schubert, Stuttgart, 1846; jubilee edition, St. Louis and Dresden, 1883. Jou. COCHLZUS, a Roman Cath. antagonist of Luther, wrote Commentaria de actis et scriptis Martint Lutheri Saxonis, chronographica, ex ordine ab anno Dom. 1517 usque ad annum 1546 (inclusive), fideliter conscripta. Mayence, 1549 fol.
(2) Later Biographies till 1875 (the best marked *) by
*WatcH (in his ed. of L.’s Works, vol. XXIV. pp. 3-875); Kem (4 parts in 1 vol., Leipz., 1764); Scurackn (Leipz, 1778); Uxerr (Gotha, 2 vols., 1817); Prizer (Stuttgart, 1836); Srana (with illustrations, Stuttg., 1886); JmKEL (Leipz., 1841, new ed. Elberfeld, 1871); *MEuRER (Dresden, 184346, 3 vols. with illustrations, abridged in 1 vol., 1850, 3d ed., 1870, mostly in Luther’s own words); *JuERGENS (Leipz., 1846~47, 3 vols., reaching to 1517, very thorough, but unfinished); J. M. AUDIN (Rom. Cath., Hist. de la vie, des owvrages et des doctrines de M. Luth., Paris, 1839, 7th ed., revue et corrigée, 1856, 3 vols—a storehouse of calumnies, also in German and English);! * M. MicHEexer (Mémoirs de L., écrits par
1. Audin wrote also the Lives of Calvin, of Henry VIII., and of Leo X. (published between 1839 and 1847), with the same French vivacity and Roman Catholic hostility; yet, while he does not understand Luther as a Protestant Christian and a reformer, he tries to do justice to him as a man and a genius. He says (IIL. 380): “ Luther est le grand prédte
102 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 1530.
lui-méme, traduits et mis en ordre, Paris, 1835, also Brussels, 1845, 2 vols. the best biography in French; Eng. transl. by Hazlitt, London, 1846, and by G. H. Smith, London and N. Y., 1846) ;! LeppERHose (Karlsruh, 3d ed., 1883; French transl. of the first ed., Strassburg, 1837); GENTHE (Leipz., 1842, with seventeen steel engravings); WESTERMANN (Halle, 1845); WEyDMANN (Luther, ein Charakter—und Spiegelbild fiir unsere Zeit, Hamburg, 1850); B. Sears (English, publ. by the Am. Sunday School Union, Philada., 1850, with special reference to the youth of L.); Jan. D@LLINGER (R. C., Luther, eine Skizze, Freiburg i. Β., 1851); Kasnie and GELZER (with 48 fine illustrations, Hamb. u. Gotha, 1851; Engl. ed. with transl. of the text by Archdeacon Hare and Cato. WInKwortTH, Lond, and N. Y., 1856); * Jun. HARE ( Vindication of Luther against his English Assailants, first publ. as a note in his The Mission of the Comforter, London, 1846, vol. HI., 656-878, then separately, 2d ed., 1855, the best English appreciation of L.); H. Warsuey (Life of Luther, London, 1856, 2 vols.) ; WILDENHAHN (Leipz., 1861); MurLLER (Niirnberg, 1867); ΗΈΝΚΕ (Luther u. Melanchthon, Marburg, 1867); H. W. J. Turerscu (Luther, Gustav Adolf und Maximilian I. von Bayern, Nérdlingen, 1869, pp. 3-66) ; ViI~LMAR (Luther, Melanchthon und Zwingli, Frankf. a. M., 1869); H. Lane (Berlin, 1870, rationalistic); ACKERMANN (Jena, 1871); GAsPARIN (Luther et la réforme au XVI. siécle, Paris, 1873); Scuarr (a sketch in Appleton’s “ Cyclopzedia,” 1858, revised 1874) ; RretscHEL (Martin Luther und Ignatius Loyola, Wittenberg, 1879).
(3) Recent Biographies, published since 1875, by
* JUL. Ka@sTLIN (Elberfeld, 1875, 2 vols., 2d ed. revised 1883; 3d ed. unchanged; upon the whole the best German biography; also an abridged ed. for popular use with 64 illustrations, 3d ed., 1883. English transl. of the small ed. by an anonymous writer with the author’s sanction,
cateur dela réforme. Il eut presque tous les dons de Vorateur: une mépuisable fecondité de pensées, une imagination aussi prompte ἃ recevoir qu’a produire ses impressions, une abondance et une suplesse de style inexprimables. Sa voix était claire et retentissante, son oerl brillant de flamme, sa téte antique, sa poitrine large, ses mains Mune rare beauté, son geste ample et rich. ... C’était ἃ la fois Rabelais et Montaigne: Rabelais avec sa verve drolatique de style, Montargne avec ses tournures qui burinent et cisélent.” The editor of the 7th ed.,1n his introductory notice (p. xviii.), says that those biographies of Audin have given to the Reformation “le coup de grace,” and thus finished the work of Bossuet’s Variations ; but Protestantism still lives, even in Catholic and infidel France.
1 Michelet lets Luther tell his own story as far as possible, and compares this story with the Confessions of Augustin and of Rousseau, which it unites. “ Dans saint Augustin” (he says, I., 6), “ la passion, la nature, l'individualité humaine, n’apparaissent que pour étre vmmolées ἃ la grace divine. Crest l'histoire d'une crise de Vdme, d’une renaissance, dune Vita nuova ; le saint eit rougi de nous faire mieux connaitre Vautre vie qu’il avait quitté. Dans Rousseau, c'est tous le contraire; il ne s’agit plus de la grdce; la nature régne sans partage, elle truomphe, elle s’étale; cela va quelquefois jusqu’au dégout. Luther a présenté, non pas léquitibre de la grace et de la nature, mais leur plus doulowreux combat. Les luttes de la senstbilité, les tentations plus hautes du doute, bien d’autres hommes en eut suffert ; Pascal les eut évidemment, il les étouffa et il en mourat. Luther na rien caché, il ne s'est pu contenir. Il a donné a voir en lua ἃ sonder, la plaie profonde de notre nature. C'est le seul homme peut-étre ov Von puisse étudier a plaisir cette terrible anatomie.”