CHARACTER, VALUE, AND DEFECTS.

CHARACTER, VALUE, AND DEFECTS.

Luther's Small Catechism is truly a great little book, with as many thoughts as words, and every word telling and sticking to the heart as well as the memory. It bears the stamp of the religious genius of Luther, who was both its father and its pupil. [471] It exhibits his almost apostolic gift of expressing the deepest things in the plainest language for the common people. It is strong food for a man, and yet as simple as a child. It marks an epoch in the history of religious instruction: it purged it from popish superstitions, and brought it back to Scriptural purity and simplicity. As it left far behind all former catechetical manuals, it has, in its own order of excellence and usefulness, never been surpassed. To the age of the Reformation it was an incalculable blessing. Luther himself wrote no better book, excepting, of course, his translation of the Bible, and it alone would have immortalized him as one of the great benefactors of the human race. Few books have elicited such enthusiastic praise, and have even to this day such grateful admirers. [472]

But with all its excellences it has some serious defects. It gives the text of the Ten Commandments in an abridged form (the Larger Catechism likewise), and follows the wrong division of the Romish Church, which omits the second commandment altogether, and cuts the tenth commandment into two, to make up the number. [473] It allows only three questions and answers to the exposition of the Creed. It gives undue importance to the Sacraments by making them co-ordinate parts with the three great divisions, and elevates even private confession and absolution, as a sort of third sacrament, to equal dignity. It omits many important articles, and contains no express instruction on the Bible, as the inspired record of divine revelation and the infallible rule of faith and practice. Hence it is found necessary, where it is used, to supplement it by a number of preliminary and additional questions and answers.

THE TEXT OF THE ENCHIRIDION.

The critical restoration of the best text of Luther's Small Catechism has only recently been accomplished by Mönckeberg, Schneider, and Harnack. The text of the 'Book of Concord' is unreliable.

The editio princeps of 1529 had entirely disappeared until Mönckeberg, 1851, published a Low-German translation from a copy in the Hamburg city library; and five years later (1856) Professor Harnack found an Erfurt reprint of the original (without date), and a Marburg reprint dated 1529.

The second recension, of 1529, which contains several improvements and addenda, was described by Riederer, in 1765, from a copy then in the university library at Altdorf. This copy was supposed to have been transferred to Erlangen, but was discovered by Harnack in the German Museum at Nuremburg, and republished by him, 1856, together with a reprint of the editio princeps, and a Wittenberg edition of 1539, a valuable critical introduction, and a table of the principal variations of the text till 1542.

The third recension, of 1531, was brought to light by Dr. Schneider, and accurately republished (but without the woodcuts and the Traubüchlin and Taufbüchlin), 1853, with a learned introduction and critical apparatus. [474] It gives the text of the five parts substantially as it has remained since, also the section on confession ('Wie man die Einfältigen soll lehren beichten'), the morning and evening prayers, the Benedicite and Gratias, the Haustafel, the Traubüchlin and the Taufbüchlin.

In 1535 (and 1536) Luther prepared a new edition, to conform the Scripture texts to his translation of the Bible, which was completed in 1534.

The edition of 1542 ('aufs neu übersehen und zugericht') adds the promise to the fourth (fifth) commandment, and enlarges the 'House Table.'

[459] Otfried's Catechism was newly edited by J. G. Eccard: 'Incerti Monachi Weissenburgensis Catechesis Theotisca Seculo IX. conscripta.' Hanov. 1713. It contains: 1. The Lord's Prayer, with an explanation; 2. The Deadly Sins; 3. The Apostles' Creed; 4. The Athanasian Creed; 5. The Gloria.

[460] Comp. J. C. Köcher: Catechet. Geschichte der Waldenser, Böhmischen Brüder, etc. Amst. 1768. And C. A. G. von Zezschwitz: Die Catechismen der Waldenser und Böhmischen Brüder als Documente ihres gegenseitigen Lehraustausches. Erlangen, 1863.

[461] They began in 1518 with a popular evangelical exposition of the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments. See Schneider, l.c. pp. xvii. sqq., and Zezschwitz, l.c. II. I. pp. 316 sqq. Nor stood he alone in these labors. Urbanus Regius (author of three Catechisms), Lonicer (Strasburg, 1523), Melanchthon (1524), Brentius (1527 or 1528), Lachmann (Catechesis, 1528), Rürer, Althamer, Moiban, Corvin, Rhau, Willich, Chytræus (1555), and other Lutherans of the Reformation period, wrote books for the religious instruction of the young.

[462] First in the second edition, whose title (as given by Riederer, but now wanting in the copy rediscovered by Harnack, l.c. p. xxii.) is this: ' Enchiridion. Der kleine Catechismus für die gemeine Pfarher und Prediger, gemehret and gebessert durch Mart. Luther. Wittenberg, MDXXIX.' The title of the third edition, 1531, is: 'Enchiridion. | Der kleine Catechismus für die gemeine Pfarher und Prediger. | Mart. Lu. MDXXXI.' See Schneider, l.c. p. 1. This is the standard edition, from which the editions of 1539 and 1542 differ very slightly.

[463] See, on the relation of the two, Köllner, l.c. p. 490. He says, p. 520: 'The Large Catechism has entirely gone out of use.' Comp. also Zezschwitz, l.c. p. 324. The older view of the priority of the Small Catechism is wrong.

[464] He says, in his characteristic style (Preface to the Small Catechism): 'Diesen Katechismum oder christliche Lehre in solche kleine, schlechte, einfältige Form zu stellen, hat mich gezwungen und gedrungen die klägliche elende Noth, so ich neulich erfahren habe, da ich auch ein Visitator war. Hilf, lieber Gott, wie manchen Jammer habe ich gesehen, dass der gemeine Mann doch so gar nichts weiss von der christlichen Lehre, sonderlich auf den Dörfern! Und leider viel Pfarrherren ganz ungeschickt und untüchtig sind zu lehren; und sollen doch alle Christen heissen, getauft sein und der heiligen Sacramente geniessen; können weder Vaterunser, noch den Glauben, oder Zehn Gebote; leben dahin, wie das liebe Vieh und unvernünftige Säue; und nun das Evangelium kommen ist, dennoch fein gelernt haben, aller Freiheit meisterlich zu missbrauchen. O ihr Bischöfe, was wollt ihr doch Christo immer mehr antworten, dass ihr das Volk so schändlich habt lassen hingehen, und euer Amt nicht einen Augenblick je bewiesen? Dass euch alles Unglück fliehe! Verbietet einerlei Gestalt und treibet auf eure Menchengesetze, fraget aber derweil nichts danach, ob sie das Vaterunser, Glauben, Zehn Gebote oder einiges Gotteswort können. Ach und wehe über euren Hals ewiglich! Darum bitte ich um Gottes willen euch alle meine lieben Herren und Brüder, so Pfarrherren oder Prediger sind, wollet euch eures Amtes von Herzen annehmen, euch erbarmen über euer Volk, das euch befohlen ist, und uns helfen den Katechismus in die Leute, sonderlich in das junge Volk bringen; und welche es nicht besser vermögen, diese Tafeln und Formen vor sich nehmen, und dem Volke von Wort zu Wort fürbilden'

[465] The Bohemian Brethren, or Hussites, had Catechisms long before Luther, divided into five parts: 1. The Decalogue; 2. The Creed; 3. The Lord's Prayer; 4. The Sacraments; 5. The House Table. They sent a Latin copy to Luther, 1523. See Köllner, l.c. pp. 485, 469.

[466] Luther says, in the Prolegomena to the Large Catechism, 'Also hätte man überall Fünf Stücke der Ganzen Christlichen Lehre, die man immerdar treiben kann.'

[467] 'Vom Amt der Schlüssel. De potestate clavium.' It is usually called 'Das sechste Hauptstück,' although it should properly be an appendix.

[468] It is variously traced to Luther, Brentius (who has in his Catechism a sixth part 'On the Keys'), Bugenhagen, Knipstrov, but with greater probability to the popular Catechetical Sermons prepared for public use in Nuremburg and Brandenburg, 1533 (probably by Brentius), and translated into Latin by Justus Jonas, 1539 (and re-edited by Gerlach, Berlin, 1839). See Francke: Libri symbolici, etc. P. II. Proleg. p. xxiv.; Müller: Die Symbolischen Bücher, etc. p. xcvii.; Köllner, l.c. pp. 502 sqq.; Zezschwitz, l.c. pp. 327 sqq.

[469] See the third edition, as republished by Schneider, l.c. pp. lii. and 45 sqq. Those questions appear under the title 'Wie man die Einfeltigen soll leren beichten.' An admonition to confession ('Vermahnung zu der Beicht') was added also to later editions of the Larger Catechism since 1531, but omitted in the 'Book of Concord,' against the remonstrance of Chemnitz.

[470] Art. Smalc. III. p. 8. The Church of England holds a similar position in regard to the confessional, and hence the recent revival of it by the Ritualists, though under the strong protest of the evangelical party. The 'Book of Common Prayer' of the Church of England contains, besides two different forms of public confession and absolution (one for Morning and Evening Prayer, another for the Communion Service), a form of private confession and absolution in the Order for the Visitation of the Sick. The first two are retained, the third is omitted in the Prayer Book of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States. The third form, in the Visitation Office, retains the traditional form of the Latin Church--'Absolvo te in Nomine Patris,' etc.--'I absolve thee in the Name,' etc. Blunt, in his Annotated Book of Common Prayer, Part II. p. 283, comments largely on this formula, and quotes also a passage from the first exhortation in the Communion Office, which reads as follows: 'Therefore, if there be any one who . . . requireth further comfort and counsel, let him come to me, or to some other discreet and learned minister of God's Word, and open his grief; that by the ministry of God's Holy Word he may receive the benefit of absolution together with ghostly counsel and advice, to the guiding of his conscience, and avoiding of all scruple and doubtfulness.' And after some other quotations, he says: 'Numberless practical writers speak of private confession as a recognized habit in the Church of England since the Reformation as well as before. Nearly all such writers, however, protest against its compulsory injunction, and it does not seem to be proved that frequent and habitual confession has ever been very common in the Church of England since the Reformation.'

[471] 'I am also a doctor and a preacher,' he says in the Preface to his Larger Catechism, 'endowed with no less learning and experience than those who presume so much on their abilities . . . yet I am like a child who is taught the Catechism, and I read and recite word by word, in the morning and when I have leisure, the Ten Commandments, the Articles of the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Psalms, etc. . . . and must remain, and do cheerfully remain, a child and pupil of the Catechism.'

[472] I quote some Lutheran testimonies which show the impressions of early childhood, and seem extravagant to members of other denominations. Matthesius: 'The world can never sufficiently thank and repay Luther for his little Catechism.' Justus Jonas: 'It may be bought for sixpence, but six thousand worlds would not pay for it.' Andr. Fabricius: 'A better book, next to the Bible, the sun never saw; it is the juice and the blood, the aim and the substance of the Bible.' Seckendorf: 'I have received more consolation and a firmer foundation for my salvation from Luther's little Catechism than from the huge volumes of all the Latin and Greek fathers together.' Löhe: 'It is, of all Confessions, that which is most suitable and best adapted to the people. It is a fact, which no one denies, that no other Catechism in the world can be made a prayer of but this. But it is less known that it may be called a real marvel in respect of the extraordinary fullness and great abundance of knowledge expressed in it in so few words.' Leopold Ranke: 'The Catechism published by Luther in 1529, of which he himself says that, old a doctor as he was, he used it himself as a prayer, is as childlike as it is profound, as comprehensible as it is unfathomable, simple, and sublime. Happy he whose soul was fed by it, who clings to it. He possesses at all times an imperishable consolation: under a thin shell, a kernel of truth sufficient for the wisest of the wise.' ('Der Katechismus, den Luther im Jahr 1529, herausgab, von dem er sagt, er bete ihn selbst, so ein alter Doctor er auch sei, ist ebenso kindlich wie tiefsinnig, so fasslich wie unergründlich, einfach and erhaben. Glückselig wer seine Seele damit nährte, wer daran festhält! Er besitzt einen unvergänglichen Trost in jedem Momente: nur hinter einer leichten Hülle den Kern der Wahrheit, der dem Weisesten der Weisen genug that.' Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Reformation, Vol. II. 3d edition, Berlin, 1852, p. 357.) To add an American testimony, I quote from Dr. Ch. P. Krauth: 'So truly did the Shorter Catechism embody the simple Christian faith, as to become, by the spontaneous acclamation of millions, a Confession. It was a private writing, and yet, beyond all the Confessions, the direct pulsation of the Church's whole heart is felt in it. It was written in the rapture of the purest catholicity, and nothing from Luther's pen presents him more perfectly, simply as a Christian; not as the prince of theologians, but as a lowly believer among believers' (The Conservative Reformation, Philadelphia, 1872, p. 285).