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.

[vladimir998]

Mr. Lucky,

You wrote: "May I suggest you polish your skills relating to civil discourse?"

Yes, you may suggest it. I think it is far more important, however, to expose error for what it is. If something is dumb, then it is. If something is dishonest, then it is. I see no reason, whatsoever, to label things as they actually are.

"Martin Luther entered the seminary at age 21, yet you seem apoplectic at his claim to have been 20 when he first read the Bible. Is there a reason?"

Yes, it is physically impossible that that is true. No one, growing up in prosperous Saxony, attending good schools, visiting cathedrals, going to university 40 years after the invention of moveable type printing not too far away, and having spent a good time in libraries could have NOT seen a Bible until age 20 (which would be in 1503). Even while at university he must have seen one before 1503. There were more than 1300 students at Erfurt when Luther attended. None had a Bible? Not a single professor? Only one copy on campus? Nonsense.

Look at this: "Two of the Bibles were purchased by Scheide's father, John H. Scheide, including the Gutenberg Bible, which was printed in Mainz about 1455-1456 and was the first substantial book to be printed from moveable types in Europe. Forty-nine copies of the 158 or 180 printed­ there are conflicting reports ­ survive. The Scheide copy, printed on paper, originally was sold in the university town of Erfurt, where it was finely illuminated and bound. Its first owner probably was the Dominican convent in Erfurt where the Bible remained until 1873, when it was brought to the United States by collector George Brinley. The invoice from London book dealer Henry Stevens advised Brinley's New York agents to "let none of Uncle Samuel's Custom House OfficialsÖsee it without first reverentially lifting their hats." John Scheide acquired the Bible in 1924."

Still think Luther never saw a Bible before he was 20?

Go to Eisleben -- Luther's home town -- and what do you find in his rebuilt home? A museum of Bibles that were printed BEFORE the Reformation. No, I'm not kidding.

The simple fact is that Luther made things up for dramatic effect. He was melodramatic at times.

Don't believe in myths!

[suzyjaruki]

Oh, I don't know such as Low German. I am Upper Bavarian, no Low German spoken there. :)

[vladimir998]

My mother is also Oberbayerische.

[magisterium]

So auch ist meine Grossmutter.

[Campion]

The Catholic Church just past the extra Bibles around during Mass in the 15th century for everyone to follow along.

There were no extra Bibles; a Bible in those days cost the equivalent of 8-10 thousand dollars. That would have been a bit like car dealers passing out keys to new cars at parties.

Most people who were (a) literate; and (b) not dirt-poor had a book called a "primer," which contained a psalter, other parts of the Bible, the Mass, and various devotions, etc.

The idea the people were ignorant of the Bible before the Reformation is somewhat silly. (Although many people were illiterate, and so obviously couldn't actually read a Bible, but they could be, and were, taught big parts of the content through plays/skits, songs, etc.)

Oh, and it was Luther's confessor who told him to read Romans and Galatians when Luther expressed his concern that he couldn't "do enough" to get back into God's good graces. Just one of the many facts of the story your preacher omits from his "history".

[Claud]

Addedum: It should be also pointed out in the eight century the Catholic Church mandated Bibles be only in the Latin Vulgate format. Latin was only taught through the Church

In the eighth century Harley, this was flatly impossible. The 8th was before the great schism, and thus half of Christendom would been using Greek exclusively in liturgy and in their Scriptures, to say nothing of Coptic or Syriac versions. The eastern half of the Church never used the Vulgate.

[Campion]

Latin was only taught through the Church.

Public education hadn't yet been invented, if that's what you mean. Everyone who was educated studied Latin in school; it wasn't some kind of secret code. All of the education in the universities was conducted in Latin.

And even the uneducated knew church Latin. They knew what "Benedicamus Domino" meant, and "Miserere me Deus", and "mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa". And they knew what you were saying when you said "Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum, fiat voluntus tua, sicut in caelo et in terra ..."

[Dionysiusdecordealcis]

Classic urban legend. There are so many hoary tales told about and by Luther in his Table Talk--all professional historians of the period know that one has to take the Table Talk with heaping spoonsful of salt. This presbyterian parson swallows D'Aubigne's polemical hagiography lock-stock-and-barrel.

[HarleyD]

There were no extra Bibles; a Bible in those days cost the equivalent of 8-10 thousand dollars.

I agree with you. I was being sarcastic to vladimir998 who seems to have a idea that everyone had Bibles. You may wish to past this along.

The idea the people were ignorant of the Bible before the Reformation is somewhat silly. (Although many people were illiterate, and so obviously couldn't actually read a Bible, but they could be, and were, taught big parts of the content through plays/skits, songs, etc.)

I think you make a valid point. I don't think the author claims otherwise. It's stated Luther was familar with parts of the scripture but never understood the whole story. I think that was indicative of many people at that time. They couldn't read. They didn't have Bibles. But undoubtedly they went to Mass.

But bear in mind that many of them attended mass very infrequently due to the hardship of their lives. In one of these articles it talked about how they would hold mass only four times a year due to the effects of the Black Plague. They certainly must have had an understanding of some sort but it was limited simply because they infrequently attended Church.

[Dionysiusdecordealcis]

Actually, on this point Harley, for once, is half-right. He just doesn't understand the point of the mandating of the Vulgate. In the Carolingian renaissance of the 8thc Charlemagne instructed clerics to standardize the text of the Bible. The Vulgate had long been dominant but variant readings from the Old Latin and other versions were floating around. Charlemagne wanted standardization. He mandated textual criticism, trying to produce a standard, critical edition of the Latin text.

So it wasn't "Latin" versus "German"--no one wrote anything in German at the time. Even the German version of the Gospels, the Heliand, was transmitted orally and written down later, like Beofwulf or the Dream of the Rood. Germanic languages, Anglo-Saxon etc. were oral languages, poems and songs and homilies were composed in them but not written down until the 10th or later centuries.

That the Bible in the West was in Latin was simply a matter of course. NO one who could read could not read Latin. No other written language existed in the West. It was not the Vulgate that was being mandated but a corrected, standard, clean, precise, accurate text that was being mandated. These guys were pioneering the same methods of textual criticism (not higher criticism) that even the Fundamentalists accept as legitimate: Charlemagne was telling his "professors" (the best scholars of his day) to produce a more accurate version of the Bible's text. That it would be in Latin was a foregone conclusion. No one could have imagined it being in any other language.

So the point Harley was using the fact to demonstrate is absurd but the fact is true. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Harley made a true statement but the point he thought he was proving by it is false and absurdly false. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

[Campion]

In one of these articles it talked about how they would hold mass only four times a year due to the effects of the Black Plague.

Priests died at a higher rate than lay people during the Plague, because they invariably came in contact with dying plague victims when they administered the last rites.

[suzyjaruki]

Actually, I would be considered only a halfer but my husband, who is 100% Oberbayerische, tells me that through marriage to him my Scottish half is transubstantiated.

[vladimir998]

Harley,

You wrote:

"I agree with you. I was being sarcastic to vladimir998 who seems to have a idea that everyone had Bibles."

I never said anything of the kind. I said there were too many Bibles for Luther's myth to be true.

"But bear in mind that many of them attended mass very infrequently due to the hardship of their lives. In one of these articles it talked about how they would hold mass only four times a year due to the effects of the Black Plague."

Oh, please! The Black Death, at its worst attack, lasted from 1348 to 1352 with occasional flare ups into the seventeenth century. You make it sound like there were only a few Masses in some places for CENTURIES. Simply not true.

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

"So it wasn't "Latin" versus "German"--no one wrote anything in German at the time. Even the German version of the Gospels, the Heliand, was transmitted orally and written down later, like Beofwulf or the Dream of the Rood."

I'm not so sure about the Heliand being oral before written. Murphy seems to say otherwise in his edition (page xiii).

"Germanic languages, Anglo-Saxon etc. were oral languages, poems and songs and homilies were composed in them but not written down until the 10th or later centuries."

Yes and no. Beowulf was written earlier than that.

"That the Bible in the West was in Latin was simply a matter of course. NO one who could read could not read Latin."

I don't know how that myth got started, but it is clear that Germanic peoples had their own written languages and there were people who could read and NOT read Latin. How many vikings read Latin? Few, but we know they read Runes. Even much later, in a thoroughly Christian nation like France, there were people who read the local dialects, but knew no Latin. I think this idea that no one could read unless they could read Latin is way over blown.

"No other written language existed in the West."

Gothic? Ogam? Runes?

"It was not the Vulgate that was being mandated but a corrected, standard, clean, precise, accurate text that was being mandated."

But it wasn't mandated as the only Bible. That's the point. It was mandated for use by the clergy.

"These guys were pioneering the same methods of textual criticism (not higher criticism) that even the Fundamentalists accept as legitimate: Charlemagne was telling his "professors" (the best scholars of his day) to produce a more accurate version of the Bible's text. That it would be in Latin was a foregone conclusion. No one could have imagined it being in any other language."

Well, the official version would have been in Latin yes. There were vernacular versions in England and other places.

"So the point Harley was using the fact to demonstrate is absurd but the fact is true."

No, the fact is not true. He said that Latin was mandated. It wasn't. 1) Charlemagne was not the Church, 2) Mandating a Bible for the Frankish clergy is not what Harley described, 3) What Harley described never happened.

"Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Harley made a true statement but the point he thought he was proving by it is false and absurdly false. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing."

He has a little knowledge? I haven't seen it yet. Seriously though, he was wrong. What he said happened, never happened.

[Dionysiusdecordealcis]

My chronology was a bit skewed; I was thinking more in terms of surviving manuscripts. But my main point holds. That runic inscriptions existed, that Ulfilas translated the Bible into old Gothic etc. are exceptions that prove my rule. The Gothic of Ulfilas's Bible was no longer being spoken in the 8thc. In the situation that obtained in Charlemagne's empire in the late 8th, Latin simply was the only literary written language. Of course people could write down what they heard in German, using Latin alphabet, mimicking strictly phonetically how the words sounded. But they did not employ the Germanic languages as written languages. Did an orally composed poem get written down occasionally? Yes. But the "occasionally" part only shows that the literary written Language was Latin. Did some homilies preached orally get written down? Yes for preservation. Did they circulate as a means of putting them in the hands of non-Latin reading public? Absolutely not. When something was written down, like the Heliand, it was so that a Latin-literate priest or possibly a minimally Latin-literate nobleman could take it with him and "read" it, employing the literacy skills he had learned in Latin. Ulfilas's Bible functioned in the same way. It was not a mass-market paperback Bible for the Gothic-reading public. It was a text for preachers to employ as they, thinking in Greek, preached and evangelized among the Goth-speaking pagans.

In short, no one able to read a Germanic written text (Anglo-Saxon, Saxon, Frankish) was able to read that text without first having learned to read in Latin. Most people, having learned Latin, did their reading in Latin and that was that, translating as necessary into the vernacular. For some purposes, writing something down in the vernacular made sense and it was done, but it was done by those already literate in Latin.

This meant that for the most part, monks and clerics who knew Latin did what reading of such occasional vernacular texts as existed. Your average Joe German Peasant who was illiterate never learned solely to read German. This was true well into the high Middle Ages. In the 12th century things began to change. In the late Middle Ages, yes, direct vernacular reading was taught, beginning first with people engaged in commerce, for pragmatic reasons--not peasants.

You can see this in the vernacular manuscripts that have survived--they spell German words in phonetic ways that vary depending on the dialect. In Bavarian manuscripts what would be spelled Kirche in modern German might be spelled Kirchghe--the writer hears an intense guttural "ch" with his ear and mimics it with Latin letters. The same word in North Germany manuscript will be Kirk or perhaps Kirck" because the "ch" is pronounced in a clipped way there. This shows that people learned letters and thought letters with minds shaped and by Latin literacy.

That's why those poets who began to write in English or Italian or German or French in the 12thc were significant. They were responding to a growing lay demand for literature in the vernacular. Lower nobles in most cases would not have been Latin literate though in the more established Gallo-Roman areas, many probably were. But no one was Frankish-literate without first having been literized via Latin.

[Dionysiusdecordealcis]

". . . it is clear that Germanic peoples had their own written languages and there were people who could read and NOT read Latin. How many vikings read Latin? Few, but we know they read Runes. Even much later, in a thoroughly Christian nation like France, there were people who read the local dialects, but knew no Latin. I think this idea that no one could read unless they could read Latin is way over blown.

I dealt with runes in my previous post. What you describe is true for the later period (as you admit here) but simply was not true in the 8thc. Frankish, Bavarian etc. were not functioning literary languages. On important occasions, like the oath dividing the empire, yes, a copy of the oral oath was made. But it was made by officials trained in Latin who wrote phonetically and it was made as a special aide-de-memoire. That there was a functioning Germanic literary culture simply is false for the 8thc. For the 12th, perhaps 11th in some places, it's a whole different ball game.

I wrote: "It was not the Vulgate that was being mandated but a corrected, standard, clean, precise, accurate text that was being mandated."

To which you replied: "But it wasn't mandated as the only Bible. That's the point. It was mandated for use by the clergy." Yes it sure was mandated as the "only" Bible. Why else do you think it was mandated? So that a standard version would exist, so that errors could be eliminated, so that everyone was on the same page when preaching and writing.

Did Germanic translations of portions of the Bible exist in monasteries? Yes. Did homilies in the vernacular get written down and kept in monasteries, yes. But in the Latin West in the 8thc, I'm sorry, there was no functioning, usable full text of the Bible in Germanic languages. No one wanted one, no one needed one. The average person did not get his information by reading. He got it from listening to those who could read. When those who preached the Bible preached to average people, they preached in the vernacular and translated from the Latin text of the Bible. They did not put into the hands of the people a German bible because it would have been as useless to people as a Latin Bible. They may have made written translations of the Bible or parts of it for their own purposes and may have read from these on occasion to others, but this was all seen as an adjunct. Literacy was Latin; the vernaculars flourished, but orally--until the later period.

Why else did Caedmon seem so unusual? And how do we know the story of Caedmon anyway? Because a learned monk named Bede wrote it down in his Latin history of the church in England, as a miracle, a marvel, a curiosity. Caedmon did not lead to a whole movement of Anglo-Saxon literacy. Aelfric's sermons survived, Alfred translated Boethius, Gregory the Great etc. into Anglo-Saxon, in the late 9thc. Who read them? People who had enough Latin literacy to know how to read but for whom reading Latin was a strain--like noblemen, for instance. Alfred's translations, the Heliand etc. are evidence that people could write in Germanic languages, employing Latin letters and Latin-learned literacy, but they did this as an ad hoc, adjunct to Latin-literacy. Those engaged in this were already members of the elites, at the edge of the highly skilled Latin-literate. These exceptions are interesting, paved the way for the real vernacular movement of the 12thc but they are isolated, forerunners of what was to come. In the 8thc century, none of this was happening. In the late 9thc, the beginnings of a verncular literacy are emerging. By the 11thc century and 12thc it's coming into its own.

But we started with the 8thc, the 700s. What I wrote originally holds for the 8thc, not the 4th or 5th (Ulfilas), not the 10th or 12th, but the 8th. Well, the official version would have been in Latin yes. There were vernacular versions in England and other places

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

"My chronology was a bit skewed; I was thinking more in terms of surviving manuscripts. But my main point holds. That runic inscriptions existed, that Ulfilas translated the Bible into old Gothic etc. are exceptions that prove my rule. The Gothic of Ulfilas's Bible was no longer being spoken in the 8thc."

Do we know that? The Visigothic kingdom of Spain fell only in 711 for instance.

"In the situation that obtained in Charlemagne's empire in the late 8th, Latin simply was the only literary written language."

Yes, but EUROPE was not made up of only Charlemagne's empire.

"Of course people could write down what they heard in German, using Latin alphabet, mimicking strictly phonetically how the words sounded. But they did not employ the Germanic languages as written languages."

Then we are back to denying the existence of Beowulf?

"Did an orally composed poem get written down occasionally? Yes. But the "occasionally" part only shows that the literary written Language was Latin. Did some homilies preached orally get written down? Yes for preservation. Did they circulate as a means of putting them in the hands of non-Latin reading public? Absolutely not."

The only reason to preserve in the Middle Ages was "to use". If it was written in the native language then it was meant to be read by such readers. You seem to forget Alfred the Great and his translations. Again, you are essentially denying that any of that happened.

"When something was written down, like the Heliand, it was so that a Latin-literate priest or possibly a minimally Latin-literate nobleman could take it with him and "read" it, employing the literacy skills he had learned in Latin."

But that is irrelevant. Th epoint is that it was written in the vernacular for vernacular readers. The idea that it was written in the vernacular for people who didn't really read the vernacular but then could stumble through it because of their knowledge of Latin letters is simply a stretch to say the least.


"Ulfilas's Bible functioned in the same way. It was not a mass-market paperback Bible for the Gothic-reading public."

Uh, HELLO! NOTHING was really mass market in the fourth century. No one claimed it was. Now you are mischaracterizing what I said. Criticize me if you will, but at least criticize what I actually wrote.

"It was a text for preachers to employ as they, thinking in Greek, preached and evangelized among the Goth-speaking pagans."

I think that is essentially true, but then again I never brought up Ulfilias and you are ignoring what I did bring up.

"In short, no one able to read a Germanic written text (Anglo-Saxon, Saxon, Frankish) was able to read that text without first having learned to read in Latin."

And again, that is simply false. The Vikings are perfect proof of that -- before and after their conversion !

"Most people, having learned Latin, did their reading in Latin and that was that, translating as necessary into the vernacular. For some purposes, writing something down in the vernacular made sense and it was done, but it was done by those already literate in Latin."

Can you prove that the author of Beowulf knew Latin? And Ulfilas knew Greek and not Latin as far as we know. And how is it that we know of the southern French peasants who read books in the local dialects and were only shepherds with no formal schooling in the fifteenth century?

"This meant that for the most part, monks and clerics who knew Latin did what reading of such occasional vernacular texts as existed. Your average Joe German Peasant who was illiterate never learned solely to read German. This was true well into the high Middle Ages. In the 12th century things began to change. In the late Middle Ages, yes, direct vernacular reading was taught, beginning first with people engaged in commerce, for pragmatic reasons--not peasants."

And again, you are ignoring what we know from Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie.


"You can see this in the vernacular manuscripts that have survived--they spell German words in phonetic ways that vary depending on the dialect. In Bavarian manuscripts what would be spelled Kirche in modern German might be spelled Kirchghe--the writer hears an intense guttural "ch" with his ear and mimics it with Latin letters. The same word in North Germany manuscript will be Kirk or perhaps Kirck" because the "ch" is pronounced in a clipped way there. This shows that people learned letters and thought letters with minds shaped and by Latin literacy."

Nice, but irrelevant. No one here was questioning the Latin influence. The problem is you are ignoring evidence -- completely ignoring evidence -- for the argument I actually made and are merely creating a strawman of what I didn't argue for.

"That's why those poets who began to write in English or Italian or German or French in the 12thc were significant. They were responding to a growing lay demand for literature in the vernacular. Lower nobles in most cases would not have been Latin literate though in the more established Gallo-Roman areas, many probably were. But no one was Frankish-literate without first having been literized via Latin."

Again, DUH! And now can you actually deal with what I said rather than ignore the argument?

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

"I dealt with runes in my previous post. What you describe is true for the later period (as you admit here) but simply was not true in the 8thc. Frankish, Bavarian etc. were not functioning literary languages."

Old English was. And once again, you have ignore and dodged that point.

"On important occasions, like the oath dividing the empire, yes, a copy of the oral oath was made. But it was made by officials trained in Latin who wrote phonetically and it was made as a special aide-de-memoire. That there was a functioning Germanic literary culture simply is false for the 8thc. For the 12th, perhaps 11th in some places, it's a whole different ball game."

Hellooooo! 1) Old English is a Germanic language. 2) I never said anything about "literary culture".

"To which you replied: "But it wasn't mandated as the only Bible. That's the point. It was mandated for use by the clergy." Yes it sure was mandated as the "only" Bible. Why else do you think it was mandated?"

I don't think it was mandated at all by any authority that had the power to do so in the Church. No matter what Charlemagne pushed on the Church in Frankish lands is not the Church or the limits of Europe. I am still waiting to see Harley produce evidence for this Bible mandate from the church. Did it ever happen? No. Does it matter what Charlemagne did? No: 1) Charlemagne was not the Church, 2) Frankish empire was not Europe, but only part of it. You and Harley have completely ignored these obvious points.

"So that a standard version would exist, so that errors could be eliminated, so that everyone was on the same page when preaching and writing."

And we still aren't talking about "everyone" since "everyone" was not Frankish.

"Did Germanic translations of portions of the Bible exist in monasteries? Yes. Did homilies in the vernacular get written down and kept in monasteries, yes. But in the Latin West in the 8thc, I'm sorry, there was no functioning, usable full text of the Bible in Germanic languages. No one wanted one, no one needed one."

Yes, people wanted them, but they were extremely difficult to produce for all sorts of reasons. What was the name of the monk who thought about translating the Bible but decided against it because of the work involved. Hmmm...can't think of it. I don't think it was Otfrid. It used to be posted at Medieval Sourcebook.

"The average person did not get his information by reading. He got it from listening to those who could read. When those who preached the Bible preached to average people, they preached in the vernacular and translated from the Latin text of the Bible. They did not put into the hands of the people a German bible because it would have been as useless to people as a Latin Bible."

You are mostly right, but are still overstating the point with no evidence whatsoever.

"They may have made written translations of the Bible or parts of it for their own purposes and may have read from these on occasion to others, but this was all seen as an adjunct. Literacy was Latin; the vernaculars flourished, but orally--until the later period."

"Why else did Caedmon seem so unusual?"

Ever read about Caedmon? If you had then you would know why he seemed unusual.

"And how do we know the story of Caedmon anyway? Because a learned monk named Bede wrote it down in his Latin history of the church in England, as a miracle, a marvel, a curiosity. Caedmon did not lead to a whole movement of Anglo-Saxon literacy."

Who said he did? Again, why are you implying that anyone said that? Why are you ignoring evidence presented to you?

"elfric's sermons survived, Alfred translated Boethius, Gregory the Great etc. into Anglo-Saxon, in the late 9thc. Who read them? People who had enough Latin literacy to know how to read but for whom reading Latin was a strain--like noblemen, for instance. Alfred's translations, the Heliand etc. are evidence that people could write in Germanic languages, employing Latin letters and Latin-learned literacy, but they did this as an ad hoc, adjunct to Latin-literacy. Those engaged in this were already members of the elites, at the edge of the highly skilled Latin-literate. These exceptions are interesting, paved the way for the real vernacular movement of the 12thc but they are isolated, forerunners of what was to come. In the 8thc century, none of this was happening. In the late 9thc, the beginnings of a verncular literacy are emerging. By the 11thc century and 12thc it's coming into its own.
But we started with the 8thc, the 700s. What I wrote originally holds for the 8thc, not the 4th or 5th (Ulfilas), not the 10th or 12th, but the 8th. Well, the official version would have been in Latin yes. There were vernacular versions in England and other places"

It's obvious you just love to write and write about things that aren't even in dispute while implying they are. At the same time you ignore all evidence that goes against your argument and spend your time creating strawmen. So what would be the point of arguing with you if you won't do it honestly? Does someone have to write that in Latin for you to understand?

[Dionysiusdecordealcis]

I did not ignore your argument. Your evidence was from later than the 8th c. or much earlier or from the non-Western areas. I gave the evidence to support my claims and to counter yours. When someone does not accept the validity of your arguments it does not mean he's ignoring them. He disagrees with them as you disagree with his. But now I will ignore you, having not ignored your argument.

[Dionysiusdecordealcis]

I wrote: "On important occasions, like the oath dividing the empire, yes, a copy of the oral oath was made. But it was made by officials trained in Latin who wrote phonetically and it was made as a special aide-de-memoire. That there was a functioning Germanic literary culture simply is false for the 8thc. For the 12th, perhaps 11th in some places, it's a whole different ball game."

You replied: "Hellooooo! 1) Old English is a Germanic language. 2) I never said anything about 'literary culture;".

In this exchange, you do exactly what you accuse me of doing: claiming to change the terms of the argument, inventing a straw man(the claim that "literary culture" is different from written literature) and evading my point (I recognized written Old English for the later period but not for the 8thc; you "refute" me by claiming I'm so dumb as not to know Old English is Germanic, which was not the point--the chronology was, but you do not address that).

But then, you would never do what you accuse others of, now, would you?