letters, the Reformer saw all that was passing in the world beneath him. He scattered from his mountain-top, far and wide over the Fatherland, epistles, commentaries, and treatises, counsels and rebukes. It is a proof how alive he had become to the necessities of the times, that almost all his books in the Wartburg were written in German.
But a greater work than all these did Luther by-and-by set himself to do in his seclusion. There was one Book — the Book of books — specially needed at that particular stage of the movement, and that Book Luther wished his countrymen to possess in their mother tongue. He set about translating the New Testament from the original Greek into German; and despite his other vast labors, he prosecuted with almost superhuman energy this task, and finished it before he left the Wartburg. Attempts had been made in 1477, in 1490, and in 1518 to translate the Holy Bible from the Vulgate; but the rendering was so obscure, the printing so wretched, and the price so high, that few cared to procure these versions. Amid the harassments of Wittenberg, Luther could not have executed this work; here he was able to do it. He had intended translating also the Old Testament from the original Hebrew, but the task was beyond his strength; he waited till he should be able to command learned assistance; and thankful he was that the same day that opened to him the gates of the Wartburg, found his translation of the New Testament completed.
But the work required revision, and after Luther's return to Wittenberg he went through it all, verse by verse, with Melanchthon. By September 21, 1522, the whole of the New Testament in German was in print, and could be purchased at the moderate sum of a florin and a half. The more arduous task, of translating the Old Testament, was now entered upon. No source of information was neglected in order to produce as perfect a rendering as possible, but some years passed away before an entire edition of the Sacred Volume in German was forthcoming. Luther's labors in connection with the Scriptures did not end here. To correct and improve his version was his continual care and study till his life's end. For this he organised a synod or Sanhedrim of learned men, consisting of John Bugenhagen, Justus Jonas, Melanchthon, Cruciger, Aurogallus, and George Rover, with any scholar who might chance to visit Wittenberg. This body met once every week before supper in the Augustine convent, and exchanged suggestions and decided on the emendations to be adopted. When the true meaning of the original had been elicited, the task of clothing it in German devolved on Luther alone.
The most competent judges have pronounced the highest eulogisms on Luther's version. It was executed in a style of exquisite purity, vigor, and beauty. It fixed the standard of the language. In this translation the German tongue reached its perfection as it were by a bound. But this was the least of the benefits Luther's New Testament in German conferred upon his nation. Like another Moses, Luther was taken up into this Mount, that he might receive the Law, and give it to his people. Luther's captivity was the liberation of Germany. Its nations were sitting in darkness when this new day broke upon them from this mountain-top. For what would the Reformation have been without the Bible? — a meteor which would have shone for one moment, and the next gone out in darkness.
"From the innumerable testimonies to the beauty of Luther's translation of the Bible," says Seckendorf, "I select but one, that of Prince George of Anhalt, given in a public assembly of this nation. 'What words,' said the prince, 'can adequately set forth the immense blessing we enjoy in the whole Bible translated by Dr. Martin Luther from the original tongues? So pure, beautiful, and clear is it, by the special grace and assistance of the Holy Spirit, both in its words and its sense, that it is as if David and the other holy prophets had lived in our own country, and spoken in the German tongue. Were Jerome and Augustine alive at this day, they would hail with joy this translation, and acknowledge that no other tongue could boast so faithful and perspicuous a version of the Word of God.We acknowledge the kindness of God in giving us the Greek version of the Septuagint, and also the Latin Bible of Jerome. But how many defects and obscurities are there in the Vulgate! Augustine, too, being ignorant of the Hebrew, has fallen into not a few mistakes. But from the version of Martin Luther many learned doctors have acknowledged that they had understood better the true sense of the Bible than from all the commentaries which others have written upon it.'"
These manifold labors, prosecuted without intermission in the solitude of the Castle of the Wartburg, brought on a complete derangement of the bodily functions, and that derangement in turn engendered mental hallucinations. Weakened in body, feverishly excited in mind, Luther was oppressed by fears and gloomy terrors. These his dramatic idiosyncrasy shaped into Satanic forms. Dreadful noises in his chamber at night would awake him from sleep. Howlings as of a dog would be heard at his door, and on one occasion as he sat translating the New Testament, an apparition of the Evil One, in the form of a lion, seemed to be walking round and round him, and preparing to spring upon him. A disordered system had called up the terrible phantasm; yet to Luther it was no phantasm, but a reality. Seizing the weapon that came first to his hand, which happened to be his inkstand, Luther hurled it at the unwelcome intruder with such force, that he put the fiend to flight, and broke the plaster of the wall. We must at least admire his courage.
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