[1433] O. Scheel (above, p. 392, n. 2), p. 47, after having instanced Luther’s adverse criticism of the Epistle of St. James and the prophetical books, remarks: “He took exception to the Epistle of Jude, to Hebrews and to the Apocalypse. The Book of Esther deserved no place in the Canon any more than the second Book of Machabees, though the first was worthy of canonisation. [It was, as Luther says in the Preface to his German translation of it (Erl. ed., 63, p. 104), ‘not unworthy of being included amongst the sacred writings of the Hebrews,’ because in the history of Antiochus it gives us a picture of the fall of the real Antichrist, viz. Popery!] Luther makes a distinction even between the books he does not impugn. Of the Pauline writings he gives the first place to Romans, just as he places St. John’s first among the Gospels. He esteems the synoptics less highly because they record the works and deeds of Christ and not the message of righteousness by grace.” Scheel notes (p. 49 f.), that Luther’s criticism was based, not on learned historical arguments, but on the “religious stimulus” these writings supplied, viz. on the extent to which they might prove of service to his doctrine, i.e. on “inward considerations.” “The fact that the Epistle of James says nothing of Christ and Justification by grace was ground enough for Luther to reject it. Analogous is the case of the Epistle to the Hebrews.... From all this it is evident how much Luther placed religious criticism in the foreground and what secondary importance he attached to historical criticism.” He cares little whether a writing is apostolic or not; what he wants to know is whether its contents agree with what he has perceived to be the kernel of Scripture. “He did not even shrink from impugning the authority of the Apostles in favour of a higher standard” (p. 52). Scheel then deals with the statements more favourable to Luther made by J. Kunze (“Glaubensregel, heil. Schrift und Taufbekenntnis,” Leipzig, 1899, pp. 509, 521) and H. Preuss (“Die Entwicklung des Schriftprinzips bei Luther bis zur Leipziger Disputation,” Leipzig, 1901, p. 99). “With Luther’s independent criticism of Scripture,” he says (p. 64 f.), “the assumption of the inspiration of Scripture hardly agrees.... Kunze also denies that the effect of the mediæval doctrine of inspiration appears at all in Luther; the belief that the Apostles spoke by the Holy Ghost should not be identified with the doctrine of inspiration in its concrete and historical shape.” True enough Kunze admits (p. 504, n. 1) “some after-effects” of that doctrine upon Luther, but the question is “how such after-effects were compatible with the uniform theory of Scripture,” which he finds in Luther. On the consistency of Luther’s theory, see Scheel’s remarks below, p. 407.—Adolf Harnack repeatedly declares, that Luther’s attitude towards the Bible was characterised by “flagrant contradictions” (“Dogmengesch.,” 3^[4], pp. 868, 878; cp. pp. 771 f., 791 f.), because his criticism “demolished the external authority of the written Word.”—Of Luther’s treatment of the Apocalypse, G. Arnold, the spokesman and historian of the Pietists, complains in his Church History (Frankfurt edition, vol. ii., 1699, p. 39); he said of it “very much what all the fanatics said, viz. that each one might believe concerning it what his Spirit inspired him with; his [Luther’s] Spirit could not agree with the book, and the fact that Christ was neither taught nor recognised in it was sufficient for him not to esteem it highly.” Arnold also complains that, in the Preface to the Apocalypse (“now usually omitted”), Luther says, “that it was too bad of John to command and threaten about this book,” etc.; the book, according to Luther, was neither apostolic nor prophetical, indeed not by the Holy Ghost at all, seeing that it did not treat of faith or Christian doctrine but merely of history.
[1434] Köstlin, ibid., 2², p. 29.
[1435] F. Loofs (“Dogmengesch.,”^[4] p. 747) says that Luther reintroduced the Catholic ideas he had “vanquished,” and made this “burden in Protestantism heavier than it had ever been before.” Cp. above, p. 398 f.
[1436] Jan. 18, 1518, “Briefwechsel,” 1, p. 142.
[1437] Mathesius, “Aufzeichnungen,” p. 52.
[1438] In this remarkable passage of his exposition of 1 Cor. xv. (1534, “Werke,” Erl. ed., 51, pp. 102-104), he exhorts all to “hold fast to the doctrine and preaching for which we have both sure Scripture and also inward experience. These should be the two witnesses and the two test-stones of true doctrine.” He here inveighs against the fanatics because they taught, “what not one of them had experienced,” “an uncertain delusion of which not one of them had had any experience.” “None of the fanatics are able to prove their contention either by their own experience or by that of others.” Of himself, however, he could say: “I have experienced it; for I too was once a pious monk,” etc.; then follows the legend of his life in the monastery and of how, before his discovery of the sense of the text on which his new teaching rested, he had never known what it was to have a “gracious God.” “Hence, whoever wishes not to err, let him look to these two points, whether he is able to bear witness to his doctrine out of Scripture and a sure inward experience, as we can to our doctrine and preaching.”
[1439] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 23, p. 250. “An Exposition of the Christian Faith,” 1537. Before this: “This is to have the Holy Ghost, when we experience in our hearts the Creation and Redemption.” “The Pope and his people do not feel this in their hearts.”
[1440] “All the articles which he believed he had repeatedly drawn from Scripture.” “Werke,” Weim. ed., 26, p. 500; Erl. ed., 30, p. 363. “Vom Abendmal Christi Bekentnis,” 1528.
[1441] “Lehrb. der DG.,” part 2, Erlangen, 1898, p. 289 f.
[1442] Seeberg refers to “Werke,” Erl. ed., 28, pp. 413 f., 346 f.; 9¹, p. 29 ff.; 13¹, p. 221 f.; 20¹, p. 297 f.