9860 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 1530.
The Protestant Spirit of Luther's Version.
Dr. Emser, one of the most learned opponents of the Ref: ormation, singled out in Luther’s New Testament several hundred linguistic blunders and heretical falsifications.1 Many of them were silently corrected in later editions. He published, by order of Duke George of Saxony, a new translation (1527) for the purpose of correcting the errors of “Luther and other heretics.” 2
waltigen Hinflusses halber fiir Kern und Grundlage der neuhochdeutschen Sprachniedersetzung gehalten werden, wovon bis auf den heutigen Tag nur sehr unbedeutend, meistens zum Schaden der Kraft und des Ausdrucks, abgewichen worden ist. Man darf das Neuhochdeutsche in der That als den protestantischen Dialekt bezeichnen, dessen freiheitathmende Natur liangst schon, ihnen unbewusst, Dichter und Schriftsteller des katholischen Glau-bens tiberwidiltigte. Unsere Sprache ist nach dem unaufhaltsamen Laufe der Dinge in Lautverhdltnissen und Formen gesunken; was aber ihren Geist und Leib genahrt, verjingt, was endlich Bliten neuer Poesie getrieben hat, verdanken wir keinem mehr als Luthern.’? Comp. Wetzel, Die Sprache Luthers in seiner Bibel, Stuttgart, 1859. Heinrich Riickert, Geschichte der neu-hochdeutschen Schriftsprache, II. 15-175. Opitz, Ueber die Sprache Luthers, Halle, 1869. Dietz, Worterbuch zu Luther's deutschen Schriften, Leipzig, 1870 sqq. Lehmann, Luthers Sprache in seiner Uebersetzung des N. T., Halle, 1878.
1 Annotationes des hochgel. und christl. doctors Hieronymi Emsers iiber Luthers neuw Testament, 1523. I have before me an edition of Freiburg-i.-B., 1535 (140 pages). Emser charges Luther with a thousand grammatical and fourteen hundred heretical errors. He suspects (p. 14) that he had before him “εἴη, sonderlich Wickleffisch oder Hussisch Exemplar.’’ He does not say whether he means a copy of the Latin Vulgate or the older German version. He finds (p. 17) four errors in Luther’s version of the Lord’s Prayer: 1, that he turned Vater unser into Unser Vater, against the German custom for a thousand years (but in his Shorter Catechism he retained the old form, and the Lutherans adhere to it to this day); 2, that he omitted der du bist ; 3, that he changed the panis supersubstantialis (tiberselbstdndig Brot /) into panis quotidianus (tdglich Brot); 4, that he added the doxology, which is not in the Vulgate. In our days, one of the chief objections against the English Revision is the omission of the doxology.
2 Das gantz New Testament: So durch den Hochgelerten L. Hieronymum Emser seligen verteutscht, unter des Durchlauchten Hochgebornen Firsten und Herren Georgen Hertzogen zu Sachsen, etc., ausgegangen ist. Leipzig, 1528. The first edition appeared before Emser’s death, which occurred Nov. 8, 1527. I find in the Union Seminary four octavo copies of his N. T., dated Coln, 1528 (355 pp.), Leipzig, 1529 (416 pp.), Freiburg-i.-B. 1535 (406 pp.),
ὃ 68. CRITICAL ESTIMATE OF LUTHER’S VERSION. 361
The charge that Luther adapted the translation to his theological opinions has become traditional in the Roman Church, and is repeated again and again by her controversialists and historians.!
The same objection has been raised against the Authorized English Version.?
In both cases, the charge has some foundation, but no more than the counter-charge which may be brought against Roman Catholic Versions.
The most important example of dogmatic influence in Luther’s version is the famous interpolation of the word
Céln, 1568 (879 pp.), and a copy of a fol. ed., Cologne, 1529 (227 pp.), all with illustrations and marginal notes against Luther. On the concluding page, it is stated that 607 errors of Luther’s are noted and corrected. The Cologne ed. of 1529 indicates, on the titlepage, that Luther arbitrarily changed the text according to the Hussite copy (‘‘ wie Martinus Luther dem rechten Text, dem huschischen Exemplar nach, seins gefallens ab und zugethan und verendert hab’’). Most editions contain a Preface of Duke George of Saxony, in which he charges Luther with rebellion against all ecclesiastical and secular authority, and identifies him with the beast of the Apocalypse, ch. 18 (‘* dass sein Mund wol genannt werden mag der Mund der Bestie von welcher Johannes schreibet in seiner Offenbarung am dreizehnten’’).
1 Dr. Déllinger, in his Reformation, vol. III. 189 sqq., 156 sqq., goes into an elaborate proof. In his Luther, eine Skizze (Freiburg-i.-B., 1851), p. 26, he calls Luther’s version ‘‘ ein Meisterstiick in sprachlicher Hinsicht, aber seinem Lehrbegriffe gemdss eingerichtet, und daher in vielen Stellen absichtlich unrichtig und sinnentstellend.”? So also Cardinal Hergenréther (Lehrbuch der allg. Kirchengesch., vol. III. 40, third ed. of 1886): ‘‘ Die ganze Uebersetzung war ganz nach Luthers System zugerichtet, auf Verbreitung seiner Rechtfertigungslehre berechnet, oft durch willkiihrliche Entstellungen und Einschaltungen seinen Lehren angepasst.”’
2 By older and more recent Romanists, as Ward, Errata of the Protestant Bible, Dublin, 1810. Trench considers the main objections in his book on the Authorized Version and Revision, pp. 165 sqq. (in the Harper ed. of 1873). The chief passages objected to by Romanists are Heb. 13: 4 (where the E. V. translates ‘‘ Marriage is honorable in all’? for ‘‘ Let marriage be honorable among all’’); 1 Cor. 11:27 (‘“‘and’’ for “‘or’’); Gal. 5:6 (“‘faith which worketh by love;”? which is correct according to the prevailing sense of ἐνεργεῖσθαι, and corresponds to the Vulgate operatur, against the Roman view of the passive sense, “‘ wrought by love,’’ in conformity with the doctrine of fides formata), and the rendering of εἴδωλον by image, instead of idol. The E. V. has also been charged with a Calvinistic bias from its connection with Beza’s Greek text and Latin notes,