552 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 1580.
anti-papal sects of the Albigenses, Waldenses, and Bohemian Brethren, paid special attention to catechetical instruction.
The first Protestant catechisms were prepared by Lonicer (1523), Melanchthon (1524), Brentius (1527), Althamer, Lachmann (1528), and later by Urbanus Rhegius (Rieger).! Luther urged his friends and colleagues, Justus Jonas and Agricola, to write one for Saxony (1525) ;? but after the doleful experience of popular ignorance during the church visitation, he took the task in hand himself, and completed it in 1529. He had previously published popular expositions of the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer (1520).8
He wrote two Catechisms, both in the German ‘lice The “ Great Catechism” is a continuous exposition, and not divided into questions and answers; moreover, it grew so much under his hands, that it became unsuitable for the instruction of the young, which he had in view from the beginning. Hence he prepared soon afterwards Gin July, 1529) a short or little Catechism under the name Hnchiridion. It is the ripe fruit of the larger work, and superseded it for practical use. The same relation exists between the Larger and Shorter Catechisms of the Westminster Assembly.
With his conservative instinct, Luther retained the three essential parts of a catechism, —the Decalogue, the Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer. He called the first the doctrine of all doctrines; the second, the history of all histories; the third, the highest of all prayers. To these three chief divisions he added, after the Catholic tradition and the example of the Bohemian Catechism, an instruction on the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, in two separate parts,
1 Hartmann, Aelteste Katechetische Denkmale, Stuttgart, 1844.
2 Jonas is probably the author of the Laienbiblia, 1525 (republished by Schneider in 1858), and this was probably the basis of ‘‘ Cranmer’s Catechism,’’ 1548. See Schaff, Creeds, I. 655, note 2.
8 ἘΠῚ, ed., vol. XXII. 1-32. Comp. also his Taufbiichlein verdeutscht, -
» 1528, and reproduced 1526 (?), ibid. XXII. 157 sqq. and 290 sqq.
§ 89. LUTHER’S CATECHISMS. 1629. 553
making five in all. He retained in the address of the Lord’s Prayer the old German Vater wnser (Pater Noster), and the translation “ Deliver us from evil” (a malo); but in his Bible he changed the former into Unser Vater (Matt. 6:9), and in his Large Catechism he refers the Greek to the evil one, 1.e., the Devil (ὃ πονηρός): as our arch-enemy. Yet in practice these two differences have become distinctive marks of the Lutheran and German Reformed use of the Lord’s Prayer.1
The later editions of the Little Catechism (since 1564) contain: a sixth part on ‘Confession and Absolution,” or, “The Power of the Keys,” which is inserted either as Part V., between Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, or added as Part VI., or as an appendix. The precise authorship of the enlarged form or forms (for they vary) of this part, with the questions, “What is the power of the keys?” etc., is uncertain; but the substance of it—vviz. the questions on private or auricular confession of sin to the minister, and absolution by the minister, as given in the “ Book of Concord * — date from Luther himself, and appear first substantially in the third edition of 1531, as introductory to the fifth part on the Lord’s Supper. He made much account of private confession and absolution; while the Calvinists abolished the same as a mischievous popish invention, and retained only the public act. ‘ True absolution,” says Luther, “or the power of the keys, instituted in the gospel by Christ, affords comfort and support against sin and an evil conscience. Confession or absolution shall by no means be abolished in the church, but be retained, especially on account of weak and timid consciences, and also on account of untutored youth, in order that they may be examined and instructed in the Christian doctrine. But the enumeration of sins should be free to every one, to enumerate, or not to enumerate such as he wishes.”? The practice of private
1 If German farmers in Pennsylvania are asked, ‘‘ What is the difference between the Lutherans and the Reformed ?” the reply is, ‘‘ The one pray Vater unser, the other Unser Vater.”’
2 Articuli Smalcald. P. III., cap. 8.