Denifle, who, thanks to his expert acquaintance with the material, was able to examine so many of Luther’s theological assertions concerning the Middle Ages, deals amongst other things with the question, whether Luther was really the first to advance the theory, “that Christ is the whole content of Scripture,”[2117] the enunciation of which had been claimed as “the greatest service rendered by Luther to the Church and to theology.”—The truth is, however, that the Church of old was so full of the idea that the “Holy Scriptures before Christ were written only to proclaim Him and His Church,” that it was an easy task for Denifle to overwhelm his adversaries beneath a mass of quotations, for instance, from Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and J. Perez of Valencia (the latter representing Luther’s older contemporaries).
Catholics have rightly gone even further, and asked whether it was not Luther himself, who, by his arbitrary treatment of some parts of Scripture, and its actual words,—to say nothing of its interpretation—thrust the Bible under the bench? Surely, his destruction of the Canon of Scripture, his alterations in the text and the liberty he arrogated to himself in his glosses[2118] are but little calculated to qualify him to be called the saviour and liberator of the Bible.—It is nothing more than an appeal to the imagination of the populace, when, in connection with this, popular works on Luther refer to the Bible, which the youthful Luther when still a student in the world, found chained in the library at Erfurt (though this itself is a matter of history). To hear of the Bible having been “bound in chains before Luther’s day” may sound very dreadful, but, as all should know, the only reason why valuable books were chained in those days was to guarantee their preservation for the use of the reader. Scholars are well aware that the printed works which were then so costly, and still more the manuscripts, were usually kept chained in the libraries in order to prevent visitors carrying them off; the custom still obtains in Rome to-day in the parlours of some of the convents, where books are displayed for the perusal of those waiting. Wattenbach in his “Schriftwesen des Mittelalters”[2119] enumerates a whole series of instances from earlier centuries. One of the most remarkable which goes back to about Luther’s day, is that of the Medicean library of manuscripts, the so-called Laurentiana at Florence, where, even to-day, the valuable MSS. in their splendid book-cases are fastened by chains and have to be unlocked when called for for use in the Reading-Room. In his catalogue of the Greek Codices in the Laurentiana Bandini gives an interesting sketch of these curious book-cases. Even under the Elector Johann Frederick of Saxony, in 1535, in Luther’s own time, the books belonging to the Princely Library at Wittenberg were chained.[2120] On the other hand, the copy of Holy Scripture which Luther was given during his student years at the Erfurt monastery, and the diligent study of which was enjoined upon him both by the rule of his Order and the words of his Superior, was evidently not thus chained.
Finally as regards the German translations of the Bible before Luther’s day. Of the seventeen printed editions of the whole Bible referred to above (p. 536) as dating from the years 1450-1520, the oldest is the so-called Mendel edition of Strasburg, probably dating from 1466,[2121] in which year the copy was purchased which now lies in the Munich State Library. The German Plenaries commence with the year 1470. We hear, for instance, of a printed German Bible being bought for nine florins.[2122] The lower price of the Plenaries, on the other hand, made them easier to obtain. Thus according to the data collected by Franz Falk, Johann Schöffer, a printer, in 1510, sent from Mayence to the Easter fair at Leipzig, amongst other books, seventy-three German Postils (Plenaries), priced at five copies a florin. In the following year Schöffer’s agent had to render an account after the Michaelmas fair for the sale of seventy-two postils.[2123] The German postils in those days served much the same purpose as Goffine does to-day.
Besides the printed editions, the manuscript translations still preserved must also be taken into account. Some twenty years ago Wilhelm Walther, the Protestant theologian, devoted a study to this particular branch of research.[2124] The results he then arrived at have since been amplified and corrected by Franz Jostes and others, and still await further additions. Walther examined 202 MSS. German Bibles, or portions of Bibles, and came to the conclusion that they represented no less than thirty-four various forms of translation. They have indeed much in common, though they differ slightly according to the dialect of the locality they hail from, or the alterations made by their writers. The translations are, in every case, made on the Latin Vulgate.
Yet all the printed German Bibles dating from before Luther’s time resemble each other so much in the translation that we can, in reality, speak only of one German Bible. They all sprang originally from a single MS. translation and practically constitute a sort of German vulgate. The type was not, however, of Waldensian origin, as some formerly thought owing to the fact that the Tepler Bible, which had been placed first on the list, shows traces of that heresy. The earliest German translation is, on the contrary, as orthodox as the printed editions. This is probably the fragmentary Bible translated by Master Johann Rellach. It seems to be older than the Tepler Bible, and the first Mendel edition and all the others might well go back to it. Franz Jostes was the first to suppose that “the pre-Lutheran printed version of the Bible is the work of Master Johann Rellach.”[2125] The translator was, so he opines, a Dominican belonging to a convent in the diocese of Constance. He happened to be in Rome in 1450, the Jubilee year, and, hearing from Bishop Leonard of Chios of the destruction of the magnificent library at Constantinople he and his brethren were led to vow to make good this loss to the best of their ability by translating the Bible into German. They doubtless made use of even older translations in their work.
As for the slight difference shown in the seventeen printed editions of this translation still extant, they are easily explained. The printers, out of consideration for their readers, were pretty free in introducing dialect forms.
If we glance at the language, we shall find here some good points, but as the original manuscripts of which Johann Rellach made use were not all equally good, the same holds of all the printed translations. Of the different varieties which never appeared in print at all, Walther praises some on account of their excellent German, for instance, the one he places second on his list, and which may date from the second half of the 14th century. As a whole, however, particularly in the printed translation, the language suffers from a too slavish adherence to the style of the Latin text. A more exact classification, according to the excellence of the language, is, however, impossible until the whole field has been explored by our German philologists.[2126]
Owing to the matter not having yet been sufficiently investigated, we cannot determine accurately what influence the earlier translations had on the German Bible published by Luther. Luther himself says never a word of having used them.