The History of the Reformation...The Little Red Bible Chained to the Wall (Part 5)

Arlington Presbyterian Church ^ | November 28, 2004 | Tom Browning

[HarleyD]

Five weeks ago we started our study on the History of the Reformation. We started with Luther nailing his 95 Theses on the door of the church at Wittenberg and then worked our way backward from that wonderfully, historic event. Now my purpose in doing that was to show that Luther’s action was not really the beginning of the Reformation but was rather the culmination of a whole series of reforms and protests, reforms and protests that had begun much earlier. That is why I wanted to show the connection between Luther and Huss and then between Huss and Wycliffe. That is why I wanted to show the connection between Wycliffe and the Lollards. I wanted you to see that the struggle was well underfoot when Luther came along.

Now, it seems to me that throughout history there has always been a tension between those that love the authority of the Word of God and those that love the authority of the institutions of men. Now I say that not because I have any axe to grind at all. I am a carefully examined, duly ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church in America. I love our church. I love our denomination and I am committed to being a good churchman in our denomination as are the other pastors and elders in our church. I am committed to that idea and process for the rest of my life. But I have no illusions that our denomination is infallible.

It can make mistakes. It has made mistakes.

That is why we ought never to be committed to our church, to our denomination, right or wrong. We ought rather to be committed to our church with the fervent hope that it may always be right. We ought to pray that God will give us good men to make wise and godly decisions and to guide our denomination in paths of righteousness.

Certainly our Lord has been gracious in that regard up to now. I believe that right now our denomination is healthy…that is, that it is theologically sound…that it is solidly orthodox…and my prayer is that it will stay that way. But if history is any guide…it probably will not. If history is any guide, it is more than likely that one day our denomination will lapse into a soft view of Scripture and then an even softer view of the saving work of Jesus.

Oh, most of us won’t be alive to see it…I certainly hope I do not live to ever see it happen… but if history is any guide it is almost certain to happen. That is why we ought to make every effort to faithfully examine our ministers…to faithfully examine our seminary professors and to rigorously defend our Confession of Faith. Now we don’t do that because we think our Confession of Faith is infallible. No, we do that because we believe our Confession of Faith to be a faithful explanation of what the Word of God teaches.

We do that because for us the final authority is the Bible itself. We remain committed, without reservation, to its authority. We know the Word of God is dependable. We trust it. We believe it. We submit to it as unto the Lord.

And, of course, you know all that.

But I bring all that up because there is a very real sense in which the Reformation was spurred on by the Bible. That is, it was spurred on both by the presence of the Bible and by the theology of the Bible.

We saw that, I think, in both the lives of Huss and Wycliffe and we certainly saw in the lives of the Lollards. These men, these men and women, came to face the truth and embrace the truth of the Bible and it stirred their souls. In some cases they came to embrace the truth of the Bible though the preached Word. In other cases, they came to embrace the truth of the Bible simply through reading the Bible. The Bible caused men to reevaluate their understanding of salvation and it caused them to reevaluate their understanding of the authority of their own institutionalized church. That particular truth is self-evident, I think, when you study the history of the Reformation. I know it is self-evident when you study the history of the lives of the reformers.

But it is most evident in the life of Martin Luther.

Luther was born shortly before midnight on November 10, 1483 in Eisleben, Germany.1 Later in his life, neither he nor his mother was certain about the exact year in which he was born but 1483 is now the generally accepted date. Luther often laughed and said that that had something to do with his complete disregard for horoscopes and astrology and you can see why. It is pretty hard to prepare someone’s astrological chart is you don’t know when they were born.

Anyway, Luther was baptized the next day, November 11th, which happened to be St. Martin’s Day. He was given the name “Martin” in honor of the saint being celebrated.2 His parents, Hans and Margarete, had only recently moved to Eisleben where he father was either a miner or the owner of a small smelter that smelted copper from the diggings of the miners. At the time of Luther’s birth, his parents were very poor.

Not much is known of his parent’s earlier life, except that for a time his father had been an ordinary miner, which was certainly about the worst job possible in that day…that his father could not read…and that his mother and father had had another son before Martin and that he had died. We also know that his parents had a total of either four or five sons and four daughters and that one daughter and either two or three of the sons died as small children.3

Now, I include that last bit of information not to make you feel sorry for his family but simply to make you aware that life was very hard in that day. What seems to us to be unimaginable…the idea of losing four children…was not imaginable in that day…it was commonplace. Life was hard…times were hard and you can see that not only in Luther’s upbringing and childhood but also in his later life and in the rearing of his own children.

A year after his birth, his parents relocated to Mansfield, Germany where his father went into business for himself smelting copper ore. Apparently he enjoyed a measure of success but throughout Luther’s life parents remained extremely frugal. You can see that in the simple way they lived and you can see it in how they responded to their children.

Luther once wrote that his mother whipped him so hard once it drew blood and that she did so over a single nut. But that shouldn’t distress you too much. Discipline in that day was harsher than it is today and it is readily apparent from Luther’s later writings that he loved his parents deeply and that he wanted very much to please them when he was able. About his severe punishment Luther wrote only this:

My parents treated me harshly, so that I became very timid. My mother one day chastised me so severely about a nut that the blood came. They seriously thought that they were doing right; but they could not distinguish character, which however is very necessary in order to know when, or where, or how chastisement should be inflicted. It is necessary to punish; but the apple should be placed beside the rod.

Now I mentioned the fact that Luther’s parents moved to Mansfield when he was only a year old. Luther always considered Mansfield to be his hometown. That is true even though he only lived there until he was fourteen. When he was fourteen he was shipped off to school to pursue his education. After his fourteenth year, he never lived at home with his parents again.

Now, I want you to think about that for a moment.

From his fourteenth birthday on, he lived away at school, in someone else’s home or in a monastery until his marriage some 28 years later when he was 41.4 Still, he always considered Mansfield in Saxony to be his hometown. That was true even though he was born and died in Eisleben in Thuringia. That is also the reason that Luther called himself a Saxon. Mansfield was in the province of Saxony.

Luther first attended school in Mansfield at the age of seven. The school taught the “trivium”…that is grammar, logic and rhetoric and a little music. But it was not, according to Luther later on, a very good school. Most of the instruction involved endless repetition and drilling and the teachers were very harsh. One historian writes this:

With diligence he learned the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer. He was also instructed in reading, writing, and in the rudiments of Latin grammar. The teachers, however, were extremely severe and rude, and Luther complains in later life that the examinations were like a trial for murder. Still there was no other schooling to be had in his days, and his father had decided to give his son all the education he could get.5

And Luther received a great more than just education. Once he was beaten fifteen times with a rod in a single morning for failing to conjugate and decline some Latin forms that he had not yet learned.6 He wrote later that the trivial school had been for him both “purgatory and hell” and some writers think that he was unduly cowed by his education experience but I don’t think there is any real evidence of that. Luther used to tell a story about the fact that he and some of his classmates went out singing for sausages and one man came to the door to give them some and was a fairly loud and boisterous kind of man and Luther ran away out of fear before he even received his sausage but I don’t think that means that he was cowed…a little timid maybe but not cowed.

When he was fourteen Luther was sent by his parents to study at Magdeburg. A year later he transferred to Eisenach. Now the reason for that was probably very simple. While he was Magdeburg he had to live in a monastery with the Brethren of the Common Life. It must have been intolerably lonely for a fourteen year-old boy. But as I said, the next year he transferred to Eisenach where both his father and mother had relatives and while it is not likely that he lived with his relatives, he was able to occasionally share their company. For a portion of his stay in Eisenach Luther gained his meals by singing and begging for bread. Later on, Luther was taken in by a family and no longer had to beg for his bread.

There are two traditional stories regarding his life in that family. One story is that an older lady named Ursula Cotta heard Luther singing for bread and provided him a place to stay. Another story is that he simply stayed with the well-to-do family of one of his fellow students, Caspar Shalbe.7

It is hard to know which is correct but either way it must have been a very difficult time for a young teenager, so far from home…and so very poor. Nevertheless, Luther completed his studies…studies roughly equivalent to what we think of today as a high school education. He moved to Erfurt to attend the university when he was only seventeen years old.

Luther never liked Erfurt the way he did Eisenach or Mansfield. It never held any of the same kind of pleasant memories he enjoyed in his childhood. That is probably because the life of a student there was very hard. Martin Brecht write in his biography of Luther that…

The living accommodations were spartan. There were large sleeping quarters and common study rooms. One arose at four o’clock in the morning and went to bed at eight o’clock in the evening. The food as such was probably not had. There were two meals a day and meat four times a week. The exercises began at six o’clock in the morning and then the lectures were held. At ten o’clock there was the early meal, following which more lectures and exercises were held until five o’clock. Whoever did not abide by the house ordinances could be expelled…or lose his right to take the examinations.8

But Luther did abide by the regulations and completed his study in the shortest time allowable. He stood for and passed his baccalaureate examination in September 1502. That would have made him about nineteen years old. He graduated thirtieth in a class of fifty-seven.

Luther proceeded immediately to study for his master’s degree, which meant he became immersed in the study of Aristotle.9 His studies took him two years to complete and we don’t know very many of the particulars of his studies. We do know that while traveling home for an Easter break in either 1503 or 1504 he accidentally cut himself with his student’s sword and very nearly died. Apparently, he cut the femoral artery just inside his thigh and nearly bled to death. His friend left him lying in the middle of a field and ran off to town to summon a surgeon. Luther says that as he lay there applying pressure to the wound to stem the flow of blood he called on Mary to save him. Later on he says that had he died there he would have died “trusting in Mary”.

But other than that we do not know much about his Master’s education other than the classes he took and the places he lived and that sort of thing. But we do know this…we know that during his Master’s studies at Erfurt he saw and held in his hand and read a Bible for the first time in his life. He was somewhere between twenty and twenty-two years old. Merle D’Aubigne writes:

The young student treasured whatever time in the university…he could snatch from his academic studies. Books were still quite rare, and it was a great privilege for him to profit from the treasures contained in this vast collection. One day — after he had then been two years at Erfurt, and was twenty years old — he was in library opening…one after another, to learn their writers’ names. One volume especially attracted his attention. He had never seen anything quite like it. He read the title — it was a Bible...a rare book, almost unknown in those times. His interest was greatly excited: he was astonished to find not just the fragments of the gospels and epistles that the Church…read to the people during public worship every Sunday but whole stories…complete stories. Until that moment he had imagined that the little snippets he had heard read in church composed the whole Word of God. And then he saw pages…so many pages, so many chapters, so many books of which he had had no idea! His heart beat with wonderful excitement as he held the divinely inspired volume in his hand. Eagerly and with indescribable emotion he turned over these leaves from God. The first page he read related the story of Hannah and of the young Samuel. He read— and his soul could hardly contain the joy it felt…

He read about a child, whom his parents lend to the Lord as long as he lived; he read the song of Hannah, in which she declares that Jehovah “raises up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes;” he read about the child who grew up in the temple in the presence of the Lord; he read about those sacrificers, the sons of Eli, who are wicked men, who live in debauchery, and “make the Lord’s people to transgress;” — he read all this history, all this revelation and it awoke in him feelings that he had never known before. He returned home with a full heart. And thought to himself, “Oh! that God would give me such a book for myself.”…Luther was as yet ignorant both of Greek and Hebrew…The Bible that had filled him with such transports was in Latin. He returned to the library over and over again to pore over his treasure. He read it and read it and read it again, and then, in his astonishment and joy, he returned to read it once more. The first glimmerings of a new truth were then beginning to dawn upon his mind. 10

D’Aubigne continues…

Thus had God led him to the discovery of his Word …Perhaps for the first time his precious volume has now been taken down from the place it occupied in the library of Erfurt. This book, deposited upon the unknown shelves of a gloomy hall, is about to become the book of life to a whole nation. In that Bible the Reformation lay hid.11

Another commentator writes that the little Bible among the stacks of books in the library at Erfurt was “a little red Bible chained to a wall.”12 I have read that same thing in other sources as well. But I am not sure whether it is true or whether it is legend but either way I want to say that I think D’Aubigne is right. I think if there is any one place or event that ought to be declared as the official starting place of the Reformation…that place ought to be Luther’s discovery of the little Latin Bible at Erfurt. Certainly from that point on in his life he was committed to reading and learning the Bible for himself.

Now that is somewhat difficult for us to understand. Most of us…probably all of us have more than one copy of the Bible in our homes. Most of us have more than one translation. Most of us have some sort of commentary on the Bible. I have thirty-seven commentaries in my library at home on Paul’s Epistle to the Romans alone. But that is not how it was in Luther’s day. In Luther’s day, no one owned a Bible…that is, a whole Bible. Bibles were copied by hand and whether it is possible for you to imagine or not…the church at large generally disapproved of private ownership of the Bible. The Roman Church of Luther’s day thought that the private possession of the Bible was a matter of sedition and the reason for that was that the church of Luther’s day wanted to be the dispenser of truth…that is, it wanted to be the sole interpreter of truth and allowing common lay people to possess and interpret the Scripture for themselves struck hard against the authority of the church.

Let me just give you one example to make my point. When Luther arrived at Wittenberg he met a man Andreas Bodenstein. Bodenstein later became quite famous as a radical reformer himself. He called himself Karlstadt. Now here is my point, when Karlstadt gained his doctors degree in theology he did not even own a Bible himself. He did not own one and he had never read one all the way through. Now that is strange to us but was not in that day the least bit unusual.

You see the study of theology in that day focused not on the Bible but on volumes and volumes of church dogma filtered through the categories of Aristotelian logic. It was catholic theology baptized in Aristotle. I think you can find the exact same kind of thing today in any liberal seminary in America. There are a great many schools where the Bible is no longer the principal object of study. Rather philosophy and sociology and the like are the principal areas studied and the result of that is that pastors no longer have anything authoritative to preach. They do not reverence the Word of God and thus they do not preach the Word of God. They preach ethics and philosophy and the brotherhood of man and the Fatherhood of God but they have no text to inspire their congregations. It is funny how history repeats itself.

Anyway when Luther he decided to become of monk he was saturated with much the same kind of education…only Luther treasured in his heart the things he had read and learned from that little red Bible in the library at Erfurt. Because of that, he was never the same. In fact, I don’t think the world was ever the same after that. Still, as much as loved the little red Bible chained to the wall in Erfurt, he did not intend to study the Bible or theology for a living. He intended to become a lawyer. He wanted to become a lawyer. Certainly, his father wanted and expected him to become a lawyer but God had something else in mind for Luther. Shortly after he completed his Master’s degree, two separate things occurred to prepare Luther and the world to go a different direction.

Luther graduated with his Master’s degree in January of 1505. He graduated second in a class of a 17. He was given a reddish brown beret to wear and a Master’s ring and his family held a party for him. Luther noted later that his father stopped calling him du but addressed him instead as Ihr, which means essentially that he stopped calling him “you” and starting calling him something more respectful…almost like “sir”.

Now I have already made the point that Luther graduated in January with a Master’s degree in philosophy because the summer term for lawyer was not scheduled to start until May 19th. That means that between his graduation and his beginning his studies in law, he had three month to do pretty much as he pleased and while there is no absolute proof of the fact, I think it is pretty clear from Luther’s own writings that he spent a great deal of time with the little red Bible in the library.13

Now I mentioned that two important events occurred tat began to change Luther’s direction. Both events were terrible tragedies. The first event involved the murder of one of his best friends. D’Aubigne writes:

A Report circulated in Erfurt that one of his university friends, a young man named Alexis, a man with whom he lived in the closest intimacy was…assassinated. When Luther determined the truth of the report he was deeply grieved and…asked himself, “What would become of me, if I were thus called away without warning?” The answer filled his mind with…terror.14

The second tragedy involved a tragic attack of the plague that killed a number of students at the university. It also claimed the life of one of Luther’s principal examiners during his Master’s examination, a man who Luther admired and respected deeply.

Anyway, Luther was deeply affected by these two separate events and deeply concerned over the state of his own soul. So he read the little red Bible chained in the library and grieved the loss of his friends and wondered over the state of his own soul.

On May 19th, 1505, he started his doctoral studies in law at Erfurt. But he was not in his usual form. He disliked the study of law but was really just going through the motions wondering where he was going to get the strength to finish. At the end of June, his father called him home to Mansfield for a visit.15 It was the mid-semester break and some scholars think that his father called him home to discuss some possible future arranged marriage. It is hard to know for certain. One thing is sure; there was no discussion of his discontinuing his study of law. Still Luther believed he was approaching a turning point in his life. He was right about that.

On Wednesday afternoon July 2, on his way back to Erfurt from Mansfield about six miles outside of Erfurt Luther found himself in the middle of a terrible thunderstorm. Lightning was crashing all around him, striking trees and rocks and running across the ground and then, in a blinding, deafening flash, a lightning bolt struck close enough to Luther to knock from his horse. It is uncertain whether he was actually struck by lightning or whether the lightning struck near the horse and raced across the ground or what…but one thing is sure. Luther wound up on the ground terrified and quivering with fear. His leg was severely injured.

He believed…no, he knew he was going to die and in his fear he cried out, “St. Anne…help me! I will become a monk.”

Now of all the things he might have said that seems just about the strangest especially looking back from this side of the Reformation. I would have expected him to cry out to Mary or to the Lord Jesus but he didn’t…he cried out to St. Anne. Now for those of you that do not know, St Anne was venerated as the mother of the Virgin Mary.16 Luther said later that St. Anne had become his favorite saint and in that moment of terror she was the first person to come to his mind.

Obviously, Luther survived the storm. But he was a different man afterwards. Luther believed he had met the terror of God and lived. It was an event that he played over and over in his mind the rest of his life. In that sense, Luther was very much like the Apostle Paul. He believed he had encountered God personally. He believed he had been forced to become a monk. He did not believe that the monastery was his natural inclination…or his natural desire. No, he believed he had been moved by supernatural forces to take a whole new way of life.

Luther took his vow quite seriously.

Still, he regretted that he had made it. His friends tried to dissuade him from keeping his vow but he was resolute. It took him two weeks to get his affairs in order…to sell his books and to decide what monastery to enter. He chose a strict one, the reformed congregation of the Augustinians. On July 16, 1505, he held a farewell party for himself with a few friends. The next day, with his friends accompanying him, he presented himself as a novice at the monastery gates. They tried one last time to dissuade him but he told them quite pathetically,

“Today you see me, but never again!”17

He was wrong about that, just about as wrong as a man could ever be.

He then sent the news to his father, who was furious at his son for choosing to waste his life. Luther wrote later “he went crazy and acted like a fool.” He sent word to Martin that he was disinherited but Martin sent word back to his father that that was all right as he no longer needed money…any money. His father stopped addressing him as “Ihr” and returned to addressing him as “du”. Some scholars think that his father was so angry because of an ongoing argument he was having with the church.

But the truth is that he had counted on his son to honor his family’s name by becoming a rich and prosperous lawyer. Obviously now, that was not going to happen. Instead his son was going to honor by becoming one of the most famous men in all of history…as famous as Columbus, Napoleon or even Lincoln. But there was no way for Hans Luther to know that. He had provided for his son’s education out of the depths of his poverty and he had expected his son to support him and his mother in their old age.

That did happen by the way but he was right at that particular time not to expect it.

A few years later when Luther said his first mass, his father attended the service still holding a grudge. We will talk more about that particular service next week but after the service which Luther did not do very well he asked his father a question during a reception held afterwards, “Dear father, why were you so contrary to my becoming a monk? You are perhaps not quite satisfied even now. The life is so quiet and godly.”

His father responded in front of the other priests and guest with an angry outburst that he had obviously been saving up for some time, “You learned scholar, have you never read in the Bible that you should honor your father and your mother? And here you have left me and your dear mother to look after ourselves in our old age.”

“But father,” Luther replied, “I could do you more good by prayers than if I had stayed in the world.”

To which his father responded, “God grant then that your visitation was not an apparition of the devil.”

Anyway July 17th, 1505 Luther presented himself as a novice at the Augustinian Hermits monastery in Erfurt. He was placed on probation for a year or so to determine if he was serious about the vows he had taken as a monk. He was given a little red Bible to read and he began the rigorous task of performing countless spiritual exercises. Oh, I should add that Von Staupitz, the abbot at the monastery Luther had joined, later remarked that Luther was the only monk he had ever met who had actually read the Bible prior to becoming a monk. Luther adapted well to monastic life. He was well liked and he was a tireless worker. In 1507, Von Staupitz directed Luther to begin studying theology in order to obtain his doctorate. When he began his study, they took away his precious little, red Bible. Theology students were not permitted to read the Bible unsupervised. But they were too late.

In just two or three years, Luther had memorized the Psalter. He had memorized most of the New Testament. He was able to outline, in his head, the form and content of almost all of the books of the Bible.

Still, he mourned the loss of that little red Bible the rest of his life.

But it didn’t really matter. The little red Bible had already done its work. But we’ll see that and talk more about that next week.

Let’s pray.

1 Martin Brecht, Martin Luther: His Road to Reformation 1483-1521, translated by James L. Schaaf, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 01.

2 James Strong & John McClintock, “Martin, (St.) of Tours” in the Cyclopedia Of Biblical, Theological And Ecclesiastical Literature. “The only extant literary relic of Martin is a short Confession of Faith on the Holy Trinity, which is published by Galland, Bibl. Patr. 7:559. He is the first who, without suffering death for the truth, has been honored in the Latin Church as a confessor of the faith. The festival of his birth is celebrated on the 11th of November. In Scotland this day still marks the winter-term, which is called Martinmas (q.v.). In Germany, also, his memory continues to our day among the populace in the celebration of the Martinalia.”

3 Brecht, 7.

4 Luther was married on June 27, 1525 to Katherine on Bora, an ex-nun. He would have been forty-one years old.

5 Arthur H.C. Both, “Luther’s Family” in Four Hundred Years: Commemorative Essays on the Reformation of Dr. Martin Luther and Its Blessed Result, ed. W.H.T. Dau (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1917), 16.

6 Brecht, 13.

7 Brecht, 19.

8 Brecht, 32.

9 Brecht, 33. He writes: “The next goal, which of course was sought by only a smaller portion of the students, was the earning of the master~ degree, with which the study of philosophy could be concluded. At this stage, the required course on Aristotle’s Topics concluded the study of logic. In natural philosophy several of his other writings were treated: On the Heavens, On Generation and Corruption, Meteorology, On the Soul, and Parta Naturalia. In mathematics, six months were devoted to Euclid, and then came a course on arithmetic and one on the planets. Only little of this appears to have stuck with Luther. Certain theoretical knowledge about music was also presented. Courses on Aristotle’s Metaphysics took six months; on his Nicomachean Ethics, eight; on his Politics, another six; and on his Economics, one.”

10 J. H. Merle D’Aubigne, History of the Reformation of the 16th Century, Book 2, Chapter 2, 184-5.

11 D’Aubigne, 185.

12 Albert H. Miller, “The Open Bible” in Four Hundred Years: Commemorative Essays on the Reformation of Dr. Martin Luther and Its Blessed Result, ed. W.H.T. Dau (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1917), 16.

13 Brecht, 47.

14 D’Aubigne, 185. Paraphrased by me.

15 Brecht, 48. Some scholars think that Luther may have gone home to break the news of his leaving law school to this father but there is no reason to think that was the case.

16 James Strong & John McClintock, “St. Anna” in the Cyclopedia Of Biblical, Theological And Ecclesiastical Literature.

[HarleyD]

The History of the Reformation-How Christ restored the gospel to his church (Part 1)

The History of the Reformation…The Goose That Became a Swan…John Huss (Part 2)

The History of the Reformation… The Morning Star of the Reformation… John Wycliffe (Part 3)

The History of the Reformation…De Haeretico Comburendo… The Lollards (Part 4)

[HarleyD]

History ping

[alpha-8-25-02]

HISTORY PING!

[Calm_Cool_and_Elected]

Ping for later. Thanks for posting these, HarleyD!

CC&E

[Johannes Althusius]

Excellent!

Thank you!

[aimhigh]

A great book, presenting non-Catholic Christianity from the time of Christ - Martyr's Mirror, written in 1660.

[Clay+Iron_Times]

History ping

[Clay+Iron_Times]

A great book, presenting non-Catholic Christianity from the time of Christ - Martyr's Mirror, written in 1660.

Thanks,

And Thank you HarleyD

[Dahlseide]

Thanks again.

[vladimir998]

What a bunch of nonsense. It is absolutely fascinating to see how quickly Protestants felt the need to invent lies and myths to prop up their sects.

As the old Catholic Encyclopedia noted: "It also establishes the certainty of such versions on a considerable scale in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and points to a complete Bible of the fifteenth in general use before the invention of printing. Of special interest are the five complete folio editions printed before 1477, nine from 1477 to 1522, and four in Low German, all prior to Luther's New Testament in 1522."

1) It is plainly a lie that Luther never saw a Bible before he was 20 years old.

2) Some Protestants know this is a lie as it stands so they pretend that Luther really meant he never saw a complete one volume Bible until he was 20. This too is not possible since they are known to have existed, would certainly have been in university libraries, cathedrals, bishops' residences, monasteries, etc. despite their large size and cost. Also, few people seem to realize that Protestants are trying to have it both ways when they spread this second version of the lie. A printed Bible would tend to be a larger volume yet here we read of a "little" red book. The story simply makes no sense.

As Dave Armstrong has noted: For instance (utterly contrary to the myths in this regard which are pathetically promulgated by the movie Luther), between 1466 and the onset of Protestantism in 1517 at least sixteen editions of the Bible appeared in German, with the full approval of the Catholic Church:

High German:

Strasburg: 1466, 1470, 1485
Basel, Switzerland: 1474
Augsburg: 1473 (2), 1477 (2), 1480, 1487, 1490, 1507 [also in 1518]
Nuremburg: 1483

Low German:

Cologne: 1480 (2)
Lubeck: 1494
Halberstadt: [1522]
Delf: [before 1522]

(From Johannes Janssen, History of the German People From the Close of the Middle Ages, 16 vols., translated by A.M. Christie, St. Louis: B. Herder, 1910 [orig. 1891], vol. 1, 56-57, vol. 14, 388)

Was the Bible unknown in German before 1466 and the printing press? Hardly. Raban Maur (c. 776-856), had translated the Bible into the Teutonic, or old German, language. Valafrid Strabon (c. 809-849) did the same, as did Huges of Fleury. Ottfried of Wissemburg rendered it in verse. So we see that the "conspiracy" of the Catholic Church to eliminate the Bible from the common man by banning the vernacular was singularly unsuccessful. Protestant scholar Philip Schaff, wrote in his History of the Christian Church:

During the fourteenth century some unknown scholars prepared a new translation of the whole Bible into the Middle High German dialect. It slavishly follows the Latin Vulgate. It may be compared to Wiclif's English Version (1380), which was likewise made from the Vulgate, the original languages being then almost unknown in Europe. A copy of the New Testament of this version has been recently published, from a manuscript in the Premonstratensian convent of Tepl in Bohemia. Another copy is preserved in the college library at Freiberg in Saxony. Both are from the fourteenth century, and agree almost word for word with the first printed German Bible, . . .

After the invention of the printing-press, and before the Reformation, this mediaeval German Bible was more frequently printed than any other except the Latin Vulgate. No less than seventeen or eighteen editions appeared between 1462 and 1522, at Strassburg, Augsburg, Nürnberg, Cöln, Lübeck, and Halberstadt (fourteen in the High, three or four in the Low German dialect). Most of them are in large folio, in two volumes, and illustrated by wood-cuts. Besides the whole Bible, there were numerous German editions of the Gospels and Epistles (Plenaria), and the Psalter, all made from the Vulgate.

Luther could not be ignorant of this mediaeval version. He made judicious use of it, as he did also of old German and Latin hymns. Without such aid he could hardly have finished his New Testament in the short space of three months. But this fact does not diminish his merit in the least; for his version was made from the original Hebrew and Greek, and was so far superior in every respect that the older version entirely disappeared. It is to all intents a new work . . .

NOTE: The Pre-Lutheran German Bible

According to the latest investigations, fourteen printed editions of the whole Bible in the Middle High German dialect, and three in the Low German, have been identified. Panzer already knew fourteen; see his Gesch. der nürnbergischen Ausgaben der Bibel, Nürnberg, 1778, p. 74.

The first four, in large folio, appeared without date and place of publication, but were probably printed: 1, at Strassburg, by Heinrich Eggestein, about or before 1466 (the falsely so-called Mainzer Bibel of 1462); 2, at Strassburg, by Johann Mentelin, 1466 (?); 3, at Augsburg, by Jodocus Pflanzmann, or Tyner, 1470 (?); 4, at Nürnberg, by Sensenschmidt and Frissner, in 2 vols., 408 and 104 leaves, 1470-73 (?). The others are located, and from the seventh on also dated, viz.: 5, Augsburg, by Günther Zainer, 2 vols., probably between 1473-1475. 6, Augsburg, by the same, dated 1477 (Stevens says, 1475?). 7, The third Augsburg edition, by Günther Zainer, or Anton Sorg, 1477, 2 vols., 321 and 332 leaves, fol., printed in double columns; the first German Bible with a date. 8, The fourth Augsburg edition, by A. Sorg, 1480, folio. 9, Nürnberg, by Anton Koburger (also spelled Koberger), 1483. 10, Strassburg, by Johann Gruninger, 1485. 11 and 12, The fifth and sixth Augsburg editions, in small fol., by Hans Schönsperger, 1487 and 1490. 13, The seventh Augsburg edition, by Hans Otmar, 1507, small folio. 14, The eighth Augsburg edition, by Silvan Otmar, 1518, small folio.

Several of these Bibles, including the Koburger and those of Cologne and Halberstadt, are in the possession of the Union Theol. Seminary, New York. I examined them . . . Dr. Krafft illustrates the dependence of Luther on the earlier version by several examples . . .

"Saved sinner," a Catholic poster on the CARM Catholic board, noted:

. . . the earliest Germanic version of the Bible was done by Ulfilas in 381. That's more than 1100 years before Luther. And more than 20 years before the publication of the Jerome's Latin Vulgate. Charlemagne had the Bible translated into the vernacular in the 9th century. That was more that 600 years before Luther. The Augsburger Bible of 1350 was a complete translation of the New Testament into German. The Wenzel Bible of 1389 had a complete translation of the Old Testament into German.

(http://new.carmforums.org/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=107&topic_id=92946&mesg_id=92946&listing_type=search)

Myths die hard, though (unfortunately). Thus, the oft-heard claim that Martin Luther "rescued the Bible [in German] from the ashes" or from oblivion and cynical, diabolical Catholic oppression (and the repeated strong implication in Luther of the same), is not only false, but outrageously so.

The situation was no different in other European countries. From 1450 to 1550, for example, there appeared (with express permission from Rome) more than forty Italian editions or translations of the Bible (from 1471 to 1520) and eighteen French editions (ten appearing before 1520), as well as others in Bohemian (two), Belgian, Russian, Danish, Norwegian, Polish, and Hungarian. Spain published editions starting in 1478 with the full approval of the Spanish Inquisition. A total of 626 editions appeared, of which 198 were in the vernacular languages, with the sanction of the Catholic Church, before any Protestant version saw the light of day.

(See: Janssen, ibid.; Henry G. Graham, Where We Got the Bible, St. Louis: B. Herder, 3rd ed., 1939, 98, 105-108, 120) Graham asks:

What, then, becomes of the pathetic delusion of 'Evangelical' Christians that an acquaintance with the open Bible in our own tongue must necessarily prove fatal to Catholicism? . . .

Many senseless charges are laid at the door of the Catholic Church; but surely the accusation that, during the centuries preceding the 16th, she was the enemy of the Bible and of Bible reading must, to any one who does not wilfully shut his eyes to facts, appear of all accusations the most ludicrous . . .

(Graham, ibid., 106, 108)

Furthermore, Latin was not a "dead language" When St. Jerome first produced the Latin Vulgate (itself meaning "vulgar" or "common" tongue), but the universal language of Europe, much like English is today. Whoever could read, read Latin.

The state of affairs in England and for English-speaking peoples was no different. The famous preface of the translators of the King James Bible (1611) tells of the history of English translations, most of which predated Protestantism:

To have the Scriptures in the mother tongue is not a quaint conceit lately taken up . . . but hath been . . . put in practice of old, even from the first times of the conversion of any nation.

Thus, John Wycliffe was not the first person to give English people the Bible in their own tongue in the 14th century, as a popular misguided myth would have it. We have copies of the work of Caedmon from the 7th century, and that of the Venerable Bede, Eadhelm, Guthlac, and Egbert from the 8th (all in Saxon, the prevalent language at that time). From the 9th and 10th centuries come the translations of King Alfred the Great and Aelfric, Archbishop of Canterbury. Early English versions include that of Orm around 1150, the Salus Animae (1250), and the translations of William Shoreham, Richard Rolle (d. 1349), and John Trevisa (c. 1360) (see Graham, ibid.).

Prominent Protestant Bible scholar F.F. Bruce mentions these translations and others in his book, History of the Bible in English (New York: Oxford University Press, 3rd edition, 1978) in his chapter, "The Beginnings of the English Bible," pages 1-11. He didn't make up these vernacular Bibles. They existed. This is historical fact. Henry Graham writes:

. . . we shall . . . refute once more the common fallacy that John Wycliff was the first to place an English translation of the Scriptures in the hands of the English people in 1382. To anyone that has investigated the real facts of the case, this fondly-cherished notion must seem truly ridiculous; it is not only absolutely false, but stupidly so, inasmuch as it admits of such easy disproof; one wonders that nowadays any lecturer or writer should have the temerity to advance it . . .

(Graham, ibid., 98)


And you might want to look at this: http://www.ceu.hu/medstud/manual/MMM/typology.html

[HarleyD]

What is nonsense is to think that the Roman Catholic Church did not control the distribution of Bibles and punish offenders. Just so you don't feel I'm "inventing lies and myths", the Council of Trent put all of this in writing in 1546-well after Luther started his campaign.

FOURTH SESSION COUNCIL OF TRENT CELEBRATED ON THE EIGHTH DAY OF APRIL, 1546

Decree Concerning the Canonical Scriptures

Decree Concerning the Edition and Use of the Sacred Books

Moreover, the same holy council considering that not a little advantage will accrue to the Church of God if it be made known which of all the Latin editions of the sacred books now in circulation is to be regarded as authentic, ordains and declares that the old Latin Vulgate Edition, which, in use for so many hundred years, has been approved by the Church, be in public lectures, disputations, sermons and expositions held as authentic, and that no one dare or presume under any pretext whatsoever to reject it. [sic: don't disagree with the Church or else]

Furthermore, to check unbridled spirits, it decrees that no one relying on his own judgment shall, in matters of faith and morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, distorting the Holy Scriptures in accordance with his own conceptions,[5] presume to interpret them contrary to that sense which holy mother Church, to whom it belongs to judge of their true sense and interpretation,[6] has held and holds, or even contrary to the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, even though such interpretations should never at any time be published. Those who act contrary to this shall be made known by the ordinaries and punished in accordance with the penalties prescribed by the law. [sic: We'll tell you how it should be interpreted and if you disagree with us there will be consequences.]

And wishing, as is proper, to impose a restraint in this matter on printers also, who, now without restraint, thinking what pleases them is permitted them, print without the permission of ecclesiastical superiors the books of the Holy Scriptures and the notes and commentaries thereon of all persons indiscriminately, often with the name of the press omitted, often also under a fictitious press-name, and what is worse, without the name of the author, and also indiscreetly have for sale such books printed elsewhere, [this council] decrees and ordains that in the future the Holy Scriptures, especially the old Vulgate Edition, be printed in the most correct manner possible, and that it shall not be lawful for anyone to print or to have printed any books whatsoever dealing with sacred doctrinal mattes without the name of the author, or in the future to sell them, or even to have them in possession, unless they have first been examined and approved by the ordinary, under penalty of anathema and fine prescribed by the last Council of the Lateran.[7] [sic: We want the printing and distribution of Bibles stop except for those approved by the Church. If you print up a Bible you will be cursed.]

If they be regulars they must in addition to this examination and approval obtain permission also from their own superiors after these have examined the books in accordance with their own statutes. Those who lend or circulate them in manuscript before they have been examined and approved, shall be subject to the same penalties as the printers, and those who have them in their possession or read them, shall, unless they make known the authors, be themselves regarded as the authors. The approbation of such books, however, shall be given in writing and shall appear authentically at the beginning of the book, whether it be written or printed, and all this, that is, both the examination and the approbation, shall be done gratuitously, so that what ought to be approved may be approved and what ought to be condemned may be condemned. [sic: You must obtain permission.]

Furthermore, wishing to repress that boldness whereby the words and sentences of the Holy Scriptures are turned and twisted to all kinds of profane usages, namely, to things scurrilous, fabulous, vain, to flatteries, detractions, superstitions, godless and diabolical incantations, divinations, the casting of lots and defamatory libels, to put an end to such irreverence and contempt, and that no one may in the future dare use in any manner the words of Holy Scripture for these and similar purposes, it is commanded and enjoined that all people of this kind be restrained by the bishops as violators and profaners of the word of God, with the penalties of the law and other penalties that they may deem fit to impose. [sic: If you use or quote any scripture there will be consequences.]

This come from the Roman Catholic Church. Don't tell me they were interested in Bible distribution.

[hiho hiho]

"This come from the Roman Catholic Church. Don't tell me they were interested in Bible distribution."

I'll start by proclaiming that I am a Protestant. "Bible distribution" was simply not possible. Books were extremely rare and expensive. Some might think that private ownership of a bible would be selfish. The books were chained so as to allow availability not to prevent availability. Because modern libraries have security measures to prevent theft does not mean that they want to restrict or prevent knowledge?

You can understand the concern of authorities that some uneducated people might misuse parts of the bible. Look at some of the stupid things that the puritans did -- smashed stained glass windows, destroyed artwork, ran through the streets naked, all justified by “their” reading of the bible. The uncontrolled interpretation of scripture by individuals has created a Protestant church that is fractured into a very large number of groups. The fracturing seems to continue daily. That hardly seems like success.

[magisterium]

Harley, c'mon. You can read plain English. Your last paragraph from Trent says the it is those who would "turn and twist," for "profane usages," that are "scurrilous, fabulous, vain, to flatteries, detractions, etc." Further down in the paragraph, it says plainly that "all people of this kind be restrained" from disseminating false versions of Scripture. "This kind" refers to those who prduce the works just described. It's plain English, as you have it posted here.

Do you suppose that the Established Church in England was any less diligent in making sure that the Douai-Rheims Bible was expunged from existence, as much as possible? Mere possession risked the death penalty. BOTH Protestants and Catholics, in the time period we're discussing, were pretty zealous in making sure the "wrong" Bible was kept out of circulation.

The Council of Trent had every reason to desire to control spurious translations. Many circulating at the time were barely more than platforms for polemic, so bad were the translations. But, in any event, the Catholic Church, having seen its early sons write the New Testament, understands itself to have been the discerner, compiler, vetter, canonizer AND sole legitimate interpreter of Scripture. It has every right, as the Bible's true custodian, to undertake the safeguarding of its contents. Especially in the sectarian maelstrom that was mid-1500's Europe.

[suzyjaruki]

Low German:

What is this?

[hiho hiho]

http://netministries.org/denomlst.htm

[magisterium]

hiho hiho,

Thank you. Just as phone books used to be chained or cabled to the body of phone booths to *ensure* their availability for use, so were Bibles chained to pulpits or tables in Catholic Churches, especially before the invention of the printing press. Handwritten Bibles were expensive to produce and utterly incapable of mass production. it was impossible that "everyone" could have a personal copy. the chaining was meant to prevent theft, so that anyone who could read merely had to go to the church to utilize the Bible there.

After printing was invented, it still took some time to really get mass-production underway, for the Bible or any other work. Compared to modern printing, it was still a fairly slow process, though, of course, much faster that hand-printing.

Until this time, and, effectively, right into the 1600's, *anyone* who could read at all very likely could read Latin. Vernacular translations thus were not all that vitally needed in the time period, though, as vladimir pointed out, there were numerous examples throughout Catholic Europe, both before and after the printing press.

[magisterium]

BTTT!

Bravo!

[aberaussie]

bttt

[Conservative til I die]

A great book, presenting non-Catholic Christianity from the time of Christ - Martyr's Mirror, written in 1660.

Assuming the book does not discuss the Orthodox Church, I would think it to be a rather thin tome and contain a lot about sects that were either heretical or at best very sketchy.

Why Protestants would choose to claim kinship with these groups I do not know, except maybe to have some tenous chronological link with Christ and the Apostles.

[Conservative til I die]

The Roman Church of Luther’s day thought that the private possession of the Bible was a matter of sedition and the reason for that was that the church of Luther’s day wanted to be the dispenser of truth…that is, it wanted to be the sole interpreter of truth and allowing common lay people to possess and interpret the Scripture for themselves struck hard against the authority of the church.

As is typical, the author leaves out most of the story. The reason Bibles were chained up was because before the printing press, Bibles were very expensive to produce, and becuase of the expense and the related man-hours needed to produce one --by hand-- they were of great value, and ripe for theft.

Some who tried to translate the Bible were punished because these versions were corrupted. Of course, as others have pointed out, the Bible was produced in the vernacular by the Church before Protestantism existed.

You know, it makes me wonder when a religion rests its whole foundations on a) obsessing over the Catholic Church rather than finding its own identity and b) making up falsehoods to prove its case. Why would I, as a Catholic with some knowledge, ever want to convert to a religion such as this?