from his Epistle to the Romans. It is also a well-known fact that Luther had a hierarchy of books within the New Testament, and that he developed what Inge Lønning,46 Eric W. Gritsch,47 and others have called “a canon within the canon.” What Luther scholars have not agreed on, however, is what book Luther placed first within this hierarchy or canon.
At the beginning of his “Preface to the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans,” Luther claimed that “This epistle is really the chief part of the New Testament, and is truly the purest gospel.”48 In the last paragraph of this preface, Luther stated:
In this epistle we thus find most abundantly the things that a Christian ought to know, namely, what is law, gospel, sin, punishment, grace, faith, righteousness, Christ, God, good works, love, hope, and the cross; and also how we are to conduct ourselves toward everyone, be he righteous or sinner, strong or weak, friend or foe—and even toward our own selves. Moreover this is all ably supported with Scripture and proved by St. Paul’s own example and that of the prophets, so that one could not wish for anything more. Therefore it appears that he wanted in this one epistle to sum up briefly the whole Christian and evangelical doctrine, and to prepare an introduction to the entire Old Testament.49
Thus when one uses this preface to establish Luther’s hierarchy of New Testament books or his “canon within the canon,” one would conclude that for Luther the Epistle to the Romans came first.
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