Contemporary Catholic pens were not slow in assailing in the strongest terms Luther’s translation on account of his surreptitious introduction of the word “alone.” The translator also regarded the protest as of sufficient importance to warrant his devoting his leisure in the Coburg in September, 1530, to composing a reply. The tract in question, entitled “Sendbrieff von Dolmetzscheñ,” he sent to his friend Wenceslaus Link at Nuremberg instructing him to have it printed.[2000]
In it he gives two reasons in vindication of his arbitrary action: He had been obliged in this instance to add the word “alone” in order first of all to render the Apostle’s meaning in correct German, for it was the German usage to use the word “alone” or “only,” when, of two things, people wanted to deny one and affirm the other, for instance, if one wished to say that a peasant had brought the wheat asked for but not the money, then he would not say “he has brought the wheat but not the money,” but “he has brought no money but only corn.”[2001] Luther, however, was only able to show that this was in accordance with the spirit of the language in certain instances, not that it was necessary or indispensable in every case, particularly in the instance in question; still less could he prove that there were not circumstances affecting the words and the meaning where such a use of “alone” or “only” must be avoided in order not to change the tenor of the sentence. It might rightly have been urged against him that fidelity was far more important a matter than good phraseology.—The second reason he alleges in support of the interpolation bears directly on his erroneous view of the Apostle’s doctrine: “I have not followed merely linguistic considerations, for the text and the meaning of St. Paul absolutely demand it.” “He deliberately cuts away all works.” “Whoever would speak bluntly and plainly of such a dismissal of works must say: faith alone,” etc. If “this be so obvious,” “why then not say so”?[2002] Thus he makes the word “alone” a sort of hall-mark of his own “public” teaching.
He is determined to defy his opponents and to challenge them yet again. “And I repent me,” he cries, “that I did not add thereto the word all, thus: without all works, all law whatsoever, so that it might be spoken out with a full, round sound. Thus therefore it shall remain in my New Testament, and though all Pope-asses should go raving mad they will not alter my decision.”[2003]—In a similar way and with redoubled energy he turns on those who had found fault with his translation of the Hail Mary because he had discarded “full of grace” in favour of “gracious.” “The Papists are furious with me for having spoilt the Angelical Salutation, but, as a matter of fact, in good German I ought to have said, ‘God greet thee, dear Mary.’ I shall translate, not as they, but as I please!”[2004]
The remarkable “Sendbrieff,” other portions of which are of the highest psychological interest, must be regarded as in reality a product of the author’s mental overstrain at that time. On the one hand he was on tenterhooks wondering what the fate of the new Evangel would be, threatened as it was by the Diet of Augsburg; on the other hand he was overmastered by the sight of his own achievements, particularly his much-belauded translation of the Bible. He was also profoundly exasperated by the translation of the New Testament published by Emser (see below, p. 519), the “Dresen [Dresden] Scribbler” as Luther called him,[2005] and by the prohibition issued at Leipzig against the sale of his German Bible in the duchy of Saxony.
Hence he relieves his feelings in his usual way by an outburst of noisy vituperation: “All the Papists in a lump” are not “clever enough to understand or translate a single chapter of Scripture aright, no, not even the first two words.” Their braying, their “he-haw, he-haw, is too weak to harm my translation. I know full well what art, industry, reason and common sense go to make a good translation, but, as for them, they understand this less even than the miller’s beast.” It is quite true, so he says, that the four letters, s o l a, do not occur in Romans, “which letters these blockheads stare at as stupidly as a cow does at a new gate”; but, so he goes on, it is not our business to inquire “of the Latin letters how to speak German, as these donkeys do.” “No Pope-ass or mule-ass, who has never even attempted it himself, shall I suffer to be my judge, or to find fault with me in this matter. Whoever does not want my version has simply to let it alone and ... be rewarded with the devil’s thanks.”[2006] “For the future I shall simply despise them and get others to do the same, so long as they remain such people, I beg your pardon, donkeys.”[2007]
In his efforts to express his contempt in the strongest words at his command we have the key to what he says in conclusion, which some of his opponents took too seriously. The famous “Sic volo, sic iubeo” with which his tract ends, though of course not meant in earnest, is nevertheless very characteristic of him.
“If,” he writes, “your new Papist makes much ado about the word sola, just say straight out to him: Dr. Martin Luther will have it so and says Papist and donkey are one and the same thing.... Sic volo, sic iubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas.” He too would boast for once and rail against the blockheads as St. Paul [!] had done against his crazy saints. Hence he parodies St. Paul’s words and scoffs at the Papists who wished to make themselves out to be doctors, preachers, theologians and disputants, reiterating for each category the words “And so am I.” He then goes further: “I am able to interpret the Psalms and the Prophets, which they cannot do. I can translate, which they can’t. I can read Holy Scripture, they cannot. And to come to other matters: I am better acquainted with their dialectics and their philosophy than the whole lot of them together, and know for certain that not one of them understands his Aristotle. And if there is one among them who understands one introduction or chapter of Aristotle, then I am ready to be tossed in a blanket.”[2008]
The whole tract is one of the most extravagant examples of this stamp of polemical satire. It is hardly possible to determine where exactly the “great doctor” ceases and the satirical rhetorician begins.
In addition to the mistakes and the wilfulness of the translation, the character of the glosses appended by Luther, and still more his attitude towards the Canon of the Bible, laid his work open to objections of the most serious kind.
In the glosses on many passages he shows wonderful skill in manipulating the text in favour of his wrong views. This is carried so far that, to the account of the anointing of Our Lord’s feet by the Magdalen (Mat. xxvi. 10), he adds the marginal gloss: “Thus one sees that faith alone makes the work good,” because only faith could transform this seeming waste into a good work.[2009] Of Mat. xvi. 18: “Thou art Peter and on this rock I will build my church,” he gives the following explanation, which plainly rests on his own partisan and anti-Papal standpoint: By Peter all Christians together with Peter are meant, and their confession is the rock. “All Christians are Peters on account of the confession which here Peter makes, which also is the rock on which Peter and all the other Peters are built. The confession is common to all; hence also the name.”[2010]