802 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 1530.
alone in Rom. 8: 28 (allein durch den Glauben), by which he intended to emphasize his solifidian doctrine of justification, on the plea that the German idiom required the insertion for the sake of clearness.1 But he thereby brought Paul into direct verbal conflict with James, who says (2: 24), “ by works aman is justified, and not only by faith” (“nicht durch den Glauben allen”). It is well known that Luther deemed it impossible to harmonize the two apostles in this article, and characterized the Epistle of James as an “epistle of straw,” because it had no evangelical character (“keine evangelische Att).
He therefore insisted on this insertion in spite of all outery against it. His defense is very characteristic. “If your papist,” he says,” ““makes much useless fuss about the word | sola, allein, tell him at once: Doctor Martin Luther will have it so, and says: Papist and donkey are one thing; 816 volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas. For we do not want to be pupils and followers of the Papists, but their masters and judges.” Then he goes on in the style of foolish boasting against the Papists, imitating the language of St. Paul in dealing with his Judaizing opponents (2 Cor. 11: 22 sqq.): “ Are they doctors? so am I. Are they learned? so am I. Are they preachers? so am 1. Are they theologians? so am I. Are they disputators? so am I. Are they philosophers? so am 1. Are they the writers of books? so am I. And I shall further boast: I can expound Psalms and Prophets; which they can not. I can translate; which they can not. ... Therefore the word allein shall remain in my
1 But he omitted allein in Gal. 2:16, where it might be just as well justified, and where the pre-Lutheran Bible reads ‘“‘nur durch den Glauben.” However correct in substance and as an inference, the insertion has no business in the text as a translation. See Meyer on Rom. 3: 28, 5th ed., and Weiss, 6th ed. (1881), also my annotations to Lange on Romans (p. 136).
2 In his Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen, in the Erl.-Frkf. ed., vol. LXV., p. 107 sqq. It was published in September, 1530, with special reference to Emser, whom he does not name, but calls ‘‘the scribbler from Dresden”’ (‘‘ der dresdener Sudler’’).
§ 63. CRITICAL ESTIMATE OF LUTHER’S VERSION. 363
New Testament, and though all pope-donkeys (Papstesel) should get furious and foolish, they shall not turn it out.”?! The Protestant and anti-Romish character of Luther’s New Testament is undeniable in his prefaces, his discrimination between chief books and less important books, his change of the traditional order, and his unfavorable judgments on James, Hebrews, and Revelation.? It is still more apparent in his marginal notes, especially on the Pauline Epistles, where he emphasizes throughout the difference between the law and the gospel, and the doctrine of justification by faith alone; and on the Apocalypse, where he finds the papacy in the beast from the abyss (ch. 13), and in the Babylonian harlot (ch. 17).2 The anti-papal explanation of the Apocalypse became for a long time almost traditional in Protestant commentaries. On the other hand, the Roman Catholic translators used ‘the same liberty of marginal annotations and pictorial illustrations in favor of the doctrines and usages of their own church. Emser’s New Testament is full of anti-Lutheran glosses. In Rom. 38:28, he protests on the margin against Luther’s allein, and says, “ Paul by the words ‘ without works of the law’ does not mean that man is saved by faith alone, without good works, but only without works of the law, that is, external circumcision and other Jewish ceremonies.” He
1 The Revisers of the Probebibel retained the interpolated allein in Rom. 3:28, the nur in 4:15, and the incorrect rendering in 3:25, 26, —a striking proof of Luther’s overpowering influence even over conscientious critical scholars in Germany. Dr. Grimm, the lexicographer (l.c., p. 48), unjustly censures Meyer and Stier for omitting the word allein. I have an old copy of Luther’s Testament, without titlepage, before me, where the word allein is printed in larger type with a marginal finger pointing to it.
2 The Prefaces are collected in the 7th volume of Bindseil’s edition of the Luther Bible, and in the 63d volume of the Erlangen ed. of Luther’s works. The most important is his preface to the Epistle to the Romans, and his most objectionable that to the Epistle of James.
8 He adds in the marginal note on ch. 17: “‘ Hie zeiget er die rdémische Kirche in ihrer Gestalt und Wesen, die verdammt soll werden.”? His friend Cranach, in the accompanying picture in the first ed., and also in the ed. of 1535, represents the harlot as riding on a dragon with a triple crown on her head.