# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 05 11_S149
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

149

those in translations which had already been translated before Sagittarius, and whose number is relatively not great; 3. partly through oversight, partly through a false application of the principle of excluding non-Lutheran writings, a) Luther's "Short Answer to the Screaming of Certain Papists concerning the 17 Articles" and b. the "Counsel of the Committee of Certain Cardinals, with Luther's Glosses" of the year 1538, which stand in the earlier collected editions, have been left out here, while on the other hand many another writing is printed twice; finally 4. there are lacking from Luther's German writings: the Kirchenpostille, the Hauspostille, the Tischreden, and those writings which Buddeus afterwards (1702) published in the Halle volume; not to mention a great multitude of letters and the many excellent prefaces of Luther to books of others. (The first eight volumes of this edition are altogether merely a reprint of the eight German volumes of the Jena edition, with the necessary supplements from the Wittenberg and Eisleben volumes. The ninth contains the exposition of the first book of Moses according to the translation in the Wittenberg collection, and the tenth the general index, which consists of eleven divisions, and, so far as the extent of the edition itself reaches, is serviceable and useful.) This edition found little approval from the beginning, so that, for lack of sale in Germany, an entire cargo of it is said to have been sent by sea to Russia, which however was lost, and another large part lay stored in a tower of the city wall at Altenburg as late as the beginning of the 18th century, about which no one troubled himself.

The Halle Supplementary Volume
1702.

Since a considerable number of writings of Luther, not merely unprinted but also already printed singly, had found no place in the collected editions of his works hitherto published, Joh. Gottfr. Zeidler of Halle undertook their publication. In 1702 he issued a folio volume, dedicated to the royal hereditary prince Friedr. Wilhelm, with a preface by Dr. Johann Franz Buddeus, which contains for the most part sermons and prefaces of Luther, but besides these also his exposition of the 10 Commandments of 1516 and 1517, the first translation of the Psalter of 1524, which has become extremely rare, the Augsburg Confession, and a few letters and prefaces by others. Most of this was already available earlier in single printings, only a little being drawn from manuscript sources. A second part, which was to follow, did not appear.

4. The Leipzig Edition.
1729 — 1740.

It was edited by the Professor of Theology, Dr. Joh. Gottlieb Pfeiffer, and Dr. Christ. Friedr. Börner, with the cooperation of M. Joh. Jak. Greiff, who compared the Altenburg copy that was to be reprinted with the original printings and corrected it accordingly, was the first to translate several Latin writings, and prepared the index. The arrangement of the writings is not chronological, but ordered according to subject matter. The edition is indeed more complete than the Altenburg, since it comprises not only the whole extent of the latter, but also the Halle Supplementary Volume of 1702, and contains several writings of Luther that were previously partly never printed, partly known only in single printings, as well as several Latin ones in a first translation. Nevertheless it is still very defective, in that it lacks 1. all of Luther's original Latin writings and 2. of 169 of these also the translations (see Registerbd. p. 145). Besides, it suffers 3. from a great mass of misprints, since, according to the complaints of the editors, the printing was hurried too much and the necessary expense was shunned. Up to the 16th volume Dr. Börner did indeed furnish prefatory reports to the writings contained in them; from the 17th on, however, he remained behindhand with them, allegedly because he was minded to write a book of his own on the subject. The index is diligently made and very useful.

5. The Walch Edition.
1740 — 1753.

The index volume of the "Leipzig Collection" had not yet appeared when the bookseller Gebauer in Halle in 1739 had a new edition of Luther's writings printed in 4to, from 1740 to 1753, under the direction and supervision of Prof. Dr. Johann Georg Walch of Jena. In the prefaces and introductions to each part Walch has given the necessary historical and literary notices about the writings contained in it. Indisputably this edition is, of all that had appeared up to that time, the most complete and the most convenient, in that it not only took up several writings which were lacking in the earlier collected editions but had already been printed singly, but also furnished many Latin ones in a first translation, and interwove a great multitude of writings of other authors, especially such as bear upon the history of the Reformation and are polemical, for the elucidation of the Lutheran ones. Nevertheless it too has its considerable faults and defects. For

1. it gives Luther's Latin writings not in the original language, but merely in translations, of which, moreover, the older ones here and there deviate considerably from the originals, so that learned theologians must always have at hand, alongside the Walch edition, also the Wittenberg or Jena Latin edition, together with the separate printings not contained in the latter (such as, for example, the Enarrationes in Genesin, which appeared at Nürnberg in 1554 in four quarto volumes, and the Enarrationes in psalmos XXV. priores, likewise printed only at Nürnberg in 1559), and then after all must still do without all the Lutheran writings newly discovered within the last 100 years.

2. it does not properly give account of the original printings and manuscript sources laid at the foundation of its text. It indeed frequently assures us that the original editions have been carefully compared, but does not state the bibliographical marks of the original printings used, and thus affords no guarantee for the genuineness of its text. But since many a writing of Luther's appeared at Wittenberg two or three times in one year with all manner of alterations, or in the course of time was reissued improved and enlarged, (not to mention the many reprints with their often ruinous variants, of which Luther makes such bitter complaint): it is indeed of great importance to know whether the right original printing has also been used. Likewise one does not learn in many cases from Walch whether the manuscripts used were originals or copies, and where they are preserved.

3. The language of the Walch edition is not the language of Luther, but that of its editor, who, in order to make it palatable to his readers, has not only blurred the original forms and inserted into the text, or removed from it, a countless number of little words, but also very frequently exchanged good and right expressions for others, often distorting the sense, often reversing it, yes, even, through carelessness, left out whole lines and sentences.

4. Finally, the Walch edition lacks all those letters, opinions, prefaces and sermons which since 1753 have been brought to light for the first time by Lingke, Riederer, Schütze, Faber, Strobel-Ranner, Bruns, Bollmann, Höck, and the Erlangen edition, and whose extent is not small.

6. The Erlangen Edition.
1826 — 1849.

Both on account of the defects and faults of the Walch edition and in order to meet the need of the reawakened life of faith in the Protestant Church, the late publisher Mr. Karl Heyder of Erlangen undertook in the year 1826 a new, as complete as possible, cheap and convenient hand edition of Luther's collected works in both their original languages. In the announcement it had been promised "to furnish not a mere reprint of an earlier edition, but a text newly revised with the use of all available aids." Namely, however, there were to be

1. in the case of every writing, the oldest editions once more compared,

2. in the case of repeated impressions, the text of the new edition revised by Luther himself furnished,

3. prefaces and dedications of the collectors and translators excluded,

4. to each division a short historical introduction prefixed,