# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 05 09_S149
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

149

Lutherophilus.

Old and New for the Promotion of a Fruitful Study of Theology, edited by E. G. W. Keyl, Pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran St. Paul's Congregation in Baltimore.

Number 1.

Under the above title, at the beginning of May, the 1st number of a periodical will appear from the publishing house of Schäfer and Koradi at Philadelphia, which, by God's gracious assistance, intends to pursue the purpose stated in the title. It will meet the desire which showed itself at our last Synodical convention at Cleveland and led to the resolution to entrust to two members of the Synod the publication of a periodical that might serve theological study in our communion. The persons so commissioned had reason from the first to hesitate to begin so difficult a work, because they soon had to give up the hope of being able to leave the labor to the hands of a second professor to be called to St. Louis; yet afterward, when they nevertheless began to think of the possibility of a beginning, they were wholly prevented by their official duties, especially by the heavy school work incumbent upon them, from carrying out the preparations even of a first number. The more gladly does the undersigned announce the undertaking of Mr. Pastor Keyl, and he would commend it with his best powers to his brethren in office and to all fellow-believers who wish to promote the noble science of theology.

The contents of this first number, which comprises about 2 sheets (48 octavo pages), are 6 letters of the editor, in which he treats of the study of the writings of Luther. The First Letter shows: "How the author came to the exclusive study of Luther," and thereby gives the reader opportunity to test whether his own experiences also do not point him, indeed drive him, to the attempt at a similar study. Pastor Keyl does not confine himself entirely to the reading of Luther's writings—that is not meant by "exclusive," as many of his essays in the Lutheraner testify—but the center of his study is formed by Dr. Luther: he gathers knowledge from many other theological writings, but his scientific zeal is devoted to Dr. Luther. This kind of theological study was better known in former times. Not only to me, but doubtless to many another student also, it has been striking that our theological fathers and masters so often relate that they had studied this or that theologian before all others and had worked their way up by him: does not Luther himself testify that he grew up to be a theologian chiefly by Augustine? Theologians ought to be more than men who have gathered so and so great a quantity of theological knowledge; they ought to be men who, firmly grounded on the Word of God, can march at the head of the Church militant, and who equally with the Word of God as the water of life can refresh the faint and weary fighters of their company, as with the Word of God as the sword of the Spirit they can strike the adversaries to the ground. Therefore the theologians who lead the several companies and little bands of the Church militant should attach themselves to those whom the Lord has appointed and endowed as leaders of the multitude of companies and little bands, and learn from them to discharge their office of leadership. Such captains are quite easily recognized: they are those who in their writings give not just this or that item of their knowledge, but themselves, their own Christianly gifted and Christianly formed personality, whose writings were written not because they had sought out the need for them, but because the need for them had sought them out, who also made not many preliminary studies for their writings and wrote with much racking of brains and chewing of quills, but wrote what just filled and moved their heart, and thereby guided their neighbors after their will, after God's will. Augustine was such a captain; by Augustine Luther grew up: has one like him come after Luther? No one;—so Luther also is still the theologian by whom we can become theologians, and the motto of this periodical still holds: quo propior Luthero eo melior theologus. In his writings he stands in our midst, the captain of the Church in the more recent time, and we little ones, who are appointed over 50 or 100 fighters of God, should learn leadership from him, while, so far as time is left us for it, we may seek in the writings of the most recent time the knowledge which through the researches of the learned has been brought to light up to today in ever greater quantity.- Pastor Keyl came to his study of Luther because, first, he despaired of the manner of preaching which had been taught him; because, second, he was stirred to it by the testimonies of the most excellent theologians; and, third, because the first attempt which he made was attended with the most desirable success. The chief work of leading, therefore, namely preaching, was the first thing which he sought to learn from Dr. Luther, and so in the 2nd letter he describes how for 12 years he has prepared himself for the sermon from Dr. Luther's sermons, and in the 3rd letter he gives an example of such preparation, with the one on the Gospel for the Feast of Epiphany. The 4th letter then leads to the study of Luther's collected writings, how it is to be carried out fruitfully; the 5th letter shows the benefit of such study; and the sixth finally dismisses various objections and gives good counsels, and closes in particular with a weighty testimony which the highly able Kirchner gives for the study of Luther.

This manner of training for theologians is for us a thoroughly new one. We have indeed learned to buy Luther's writings, yes, to read them also, and few members of our Synod will neglect, in preparing their sermons, to read through Dr. Luther's sermons; but whoever has time for it may well do so with the writings of the excellent preachers such as Scriver, Arndt, etc.; Luther, on the contrary, is to be studied, so that in reading one writes down the thoughts in their progress, notes where their form and expression are especially striking and pleasing, notes them also in their form, and, when a section is finished, takes what has been noted before one's eyes again, arranges it, lays it to heart, etc. Not merely the pure doctrine would in this way become ours, and with it at the same time the precious churchly form of the wholesome words, but rather the fullness of pure and unmixed doctrine in its noblest, purest form, attractive to the educated, understandable and pleasing to everyone: we should be driven into the Scriptures, driven out of the arid wastes of abstract theology and empty speculation. Now if it is true that the manner in which the theologians of the present time are trained produces people who know many things but by no means speak with one speech, who know the pure doctrine at most in the dry form of those books with the title "Doctrines of Distinction," and on the other hand themselves in the end preach only their own thoughts, and finally are masters neither of the form of the wholesome words nor of a churchly speech at all; if it is right that present-day theology requires a reform and new shaping upon churchly ground and soil, then in this first number of the Lutherophilus there is given us, if not a fruitful beginning, yet at least an impulse to develop, from a definite point of view, a method of theological study, and to extend it to the several theological sciences, which might train shepherds of the flock, leaders of the hosts of Christ; the thought thus expressed is new, and therefore needs elucidation and development; it is a strange thing for our heads, and therefore challenges a contest which we may carry on among ourselves with confidence, without harm to the unity in the faith, and which may lead us to much insight into the damages of the more recent theology and to new ways and paths; finally, this thought has already borne fruit for us all, the "Exposition of the Catechism," and is therefore certainly worth being heeded, followed, or, if it must be, opposed. As, therefore, all friends of Christian theology are called upon to receive the 1st number of the Lutherophilus kindly, so the request and exhortation is addressed to them to let the editor have, in prepaid letters, either directly or through the bookhouse of Schäfer and Koradi in Philadelphia, questions, opinions, objections, refutations, and whatever else seems to them worthy of remark in regard to the matter raised, so that a second number may appear quite soon, which will take account of the needs thus expressed and communicate the voices of other people.

The "Lutherophilus" appears in unrestricted numbers. The first number costs 20 cents; on orders in quantities the price will be considerably reduced. Order of: "Schaefer & Koradi--Philadelphia Corner of 4th & Wood Str."

God bless this work, that it may further us in the truth unto godliness!

A. Hoyer.