He writes to his friend Wenceslaus Link of his difficulties with the prophet Isaias on which, with Melanchthon,[1952] he was hard at work in June, 1528: “We are now sweating at the translation of the prophets. Good God, what a great and arduous task it is to cram the Hebrew writers into a German mould! They absolutely refuse to submit to the barbarism of the German tongue. It is as though a nightingale were being forced to exchange its sweet melodies for the call of the cuckoo.”[1953]
With particular care did Luther devote himself to polishing up each new edition of the Psalms; it is easy to see his efforts, not merely to render the words accurately, but also to breathe into his translation some of the fervour and poetic feeling of the sacred text.
As to the prophets; with the exception of Isaias, he set to work on them only in 1530, beginning with Ezechiel during his stay at the Coburg. In Feb., 1532, he had finished the prophets, which appeared in a volume apart. He was now at last able to set to work on what he called the “Apocrypha”; regarding them as popular tales his translation of them was very free. Among these he included Judith, the Book of Wisdom, Tobias, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the first and second Book of the Machabees, portions of Esther, etc. They found a place at the end of his Old Testament.
At the commencement of 1534 his Bible, which was now finished, was published for the first time as a complete work under the title: “Biblia, das ist die gantze Heilige Schrift Deudsch,” with his name and that of the printer, Hans Luft (Lufft). The Old, like the New Testament, was illustrated by Lucas Cranach, the subjects having been selected and distributed by Luther himself. The Old Testament was also furnished by Luther with marginal glosses in the form of short notes explanatory of the text, or giving his own commentary on it. Prefaces were prefixed to each division. A new edition of the Old Testament was ready as early as 1535.
New reprints of the whole Bible or of portions of it were constantly making their appearance, those appearing at Wittenberg always embodying the author’s latest emendations. From 1530-40 the latest bibliographer of Luther’s Bible enumerates thirty-four Wittenberg editions and seventy-two reprints in other parts of Germany; from 1541-46 there were eighteen Wittenberg editions and twenty-six similar reprints.[1954] According to a fairly reliable authority no less than 100,000 complete Bibles left Lotther’s press at Wittenberg between 1534 and 1584.[1955] The same bibliographer describes in the Weimar edition eighty-four original editions and 253 reprints as having appeared during Luther’s lifetime. Since each edition may be reckoned to have comprised from one to five thousand copies, one is almost justified in saying that Germany was flooded with the new work or portions of it. Half the South-German printers found a living in printing Bibles. In this respect the history of Luther’s works supplies the best data for the history of the printing and bookselling trade in that age.
It is true, no doubt, that many bought Bibles, because, among Protestants, it was considered the right thing for every man of means to have his Family-Bible. In the case of many alienated from the practices of the Church, the possession and the reading of the Bible constituted, as a Protestant recently put it, a sort of “opus operatum,” yet, according to the same writer, “the contradiction between the Bible and the moral behaviour” of some of its most zealous readers “cannot in many instances be questioned.”[1956] Others, however, no doubt provided themselves with the new Bible from really religious motives and interests, and refreshed and fortified themselves with its sublime and edifying eloquence. We may assume this to have been the effect of Luther’s Bible in the case of the simple folk who had been led unconsciously into Lutheranism, or had grown up in it, and who owed their acquaintance with the work to its use in public worship, though they themselves may have been unable to read, or, maybe, not rich enough to purchase a Bible of their own.[1957]
His success encouraged Luther, diligently to revise his work. So far, not a single edition had appeared without some alterations, and, as we see from certain recently discovered data, he again went through the Psalter in 1531, “with great pains and labour,” and also set about revising the whole of his Bible subsequent to Jan. 24, 1534—being assisted in both these undertakings by Melanchthon and Cruciger. Nevertheless another revision of the Bible on a large scale was begun in 1539, as we have fully learnt only in our own day from two witnesses and from the notes in Luther’s own private copy.
One of the witnesses is George Rörer, the Wittenberg deacon who corrected the Bible proofs, and who declares: “In 1539 they went through the Bible once more, from the beginning even to the Apocrypha [i.e. the Old Testament], and gave a clearer German rendering to certain words and phrases, as may be seen from the book with the sermons [i.e. the notes] delivered by this same man in 1541-2.”[1958]
The other witness is Mathesius, who had been a guest at Luther’s table in the spring of 1540 and whose detailed account was already generally known, though, owing to the fresh data discovered, it now appears in a stronger light. “When first the whole German Bible had appeared and temptations had improved it day by day, the Doctor once more gathered the Holy Books, and, with great earnestness, diligence and prayer, went through them again; and ... D. Luther formed a sort of Sanhedrin of his own, composed of the best men then to be had, who met for several hours once a week before supper in the Doctor’s monastery, namely, D. Johann Bugenhagen, D. Justus Jonas, D. Cruciger, Master Philip, Matthæus Aurogallus and also M. George Rörer, the proof-reader. Doctors and learned men from outside frequently took part in this sublime work, for instance, Dr. Bernard Ziegler [Professor of Hebrew at Leipzig], D. Forstemius [Professor at Tübingen, who in 1540 became Provost of Nuremberg].... The Doctor, having first gone through the Bible already published, ... came into the consistory with his old Latin and new German Bibles, always bringing also the Hebrew text along with him. Mr. Philip brought with him the Greek text, and Dr. Cruciger both the Chaldean and the Hebrew Bible. The professors had also their Rabbinic books with them. D. Pommer had also a Latin copy before him with which he was very well acquainted. Each one had prepared beforehand the text to be discussed and had consulted the commentators, Greek, Latin and Jewish. Then the President propounded a text and listened to what each one in turn had to say on the peculiarity of the language or on the commentaries of the ancient doctors. Beautiful and instructive things are said to have been said during this work, some of which M. George [Rörer] noted down, which were afterwards printed as short glosses and notes in the margin of the text.”[1959]