Alps to the North Cape he would almost every day have caught some new form of Teutonic speech. The old High German was on the upper Rhine; the old Saxon, the Frisic, the dialects of the Angles and the Jutes, he would have heard as he passed along. The Norse languages, the Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Icelandic, "ab uno discite omnes." All these were of one great family, with a sisterly likeness and unlikeness. He who knew one would hardly have needed an interpreter among the others. Of alphabetical writing he would have seen little

or none.

"Rona," secret, a Gothic word, gives the name Runic to a system of signs, practically an alphabet, of sixteen characters, devised among the Gothic races in north-western Europe. The date of their invention is past finding out, but they are not to be confounded with the Druidic symbols. Their full name is "Run-stafas," mystery characters.

The Runes have a stiffness and simplicity of shape such as is easy to carve, and when in the sixth century the Roman letters came to be used, these were still cut upon tombstones, swordhilts, and the like.

A Runic carving on a rock by a lake in Sweden was declared by the great Berzelius to be breakings and erosions of the stone, but it was afterward translated. A Danish pirate cut upon a marble lion in Athens a Runic record of his visit, and it may now be seen in Venice. From their use by these sea-rovers the Runes at length came to be regarded as symbols of heathen violence and barbarism, and then of sorcery and magic. All Christianized people discarded them, for the Roman characters came in with Christianity and seemed a part of it. The word "Rune" came to mean in English whisper. It was also used of the chirping and chattering of birds, as being to human ear mysterious and unintelligible. It means, too, private conversation, and even Ulfilas says, "runa nemun," they took counsel. Its last appearance in English seems to be in a participial form, whispering, rounding, for whispering round. (Winter's Tale, Hammer's amendment.)

So came our English to the North Sea shore. From Schleswig, where a little district still wears the name, long since known around the world, it made its way, per varios casus, to England and to ourselves.

ART. IV.-LUTHER AS BIBLE TRANSLATOR.

[ADAPTED FROM THE GERMAN: AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE Evangelical UNION BY PROF. E. RIEHM, D.D., OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HALLE.]

AMONG the blessed gifts which, through Dr. Martin Luther, the grace of God bestowed upon the German people, the German Bible may be mentioned as the greatest and noblest. It has been asked, and with abundant reason, if among the blessings of the Reformation this one had been wanting, what would have become of the others? It is then most befitting that our people in this jubilee year, the four hundredth anniversary of Luther's birth, before every thing else should recall again to their minds what a great, imperishable treasure-a treasure which never grows old-they possess in the Bible of Luther. As one fleeting hour will not suffice to point out from all sides the great value of this treasure, I shall have to confine myself to some of the principal points. And as I can neither hope to illustrate my remarks sufficiently nor have the time to support them with citations, allow me, therefore, to call attention at the very beginning to a book which is not nearly as well known as it deserves to be a book which no evangelical theologian should leave unread. I refer to the work of Dr. Georg Wilhelm Hopf: "The Value of Luther's Translation of the Bible as Compared with the Older and More Recent Translations." *

It would be contrary to Luther's spirit if we were to speak of his merits as Bible translator without at the same time mentioning his faithful co-workers. In January 13, 1522, he wrote from the Wartburg to Amsdorf: "It is a great work, worthy of our united labors, because it is for the common welfare." And again: "I will not touch the Old Testament unless you take a part and assist." He says, in his "Table-talk," + speaking of Jerome: "He would not have done amiss had he associated with himself in this work of translation one or two learned men, for the Holy Ghost would have manifested himself more powerfully according to the words of Christ: Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I shall be in the

* "Würdigung der Lutherischen Bibelverdeutschung mit Rücksicht auf ältere und neuere Uebersetzungen." Von Dr. Georg Hopf, Nürnberg, 1847. Luther's Works, 57, 4.

midst of them.'" "Translators ought not to be alone, for proper expressions do not always occur to one man." In the preface to the Old Testament of 1523, he writes: "In short, though we all labored together, yet all of us had enough work on the Bible in order to bring it to light, one with the meaning of the text, another with the language to express it. I am not the only one who has worked upon it, but on the contrary, I have pressed into service all those I possibly could.”

Melanchthon, above all, was his helper from the start. He revised Luther's work done at the Wartburg before passing it through the press. He, in his turn, enlisted the aid of sympathizing learned men, especially Joachim Camerarius and Georg Sturz, a physician of Erfurt, to aid in questions of archæology, such as that of coins and measures mentioned in the New Tes tament, as well as to assist Luther in giving a "finer finish" (ausfeilen) to his translation. It seems, however, that the haste with which he pushed on the work did not allow him sufficient time. At least, on the rendering of the Greek text, even when the Latin exactly corresponded with it, there was a great number of minor inaccuracies, of but little importance so far as the sense was concerned, which were not corrected until the thorough revision of the New Testament that appeared in a decidedly improved edition in 1530.* This was the joint work of Luther and Melanchthon; and the correction of the abovementioned inaccuracies for the most part, according to all probability, must be placed to the credit of the latter. Not one of the canonical or apocryphal books of the Old Testament was published until the translation had been carefully examined by Magister Philippus. So necessary did the co-operation of his friend appear to Luther, that he suspended work upon the Prophets as long as Melanchthon, being absent at the second Diet of Spiers (1529), was hindered from helping him. It was a mistake of Chytræus to suppose that Luther did not translate the two books of Maccabees, but rather that it was the work of Melanchthon. Luther, by means of correspondence, received counsel and direct assistance from Spalatin in the selection of

* See Bindseil u Niemeyer's Dr. M. Luther's Bibelnebersetzung nach der letzen Original ausgabe. Halle, 1845-1855.

Compare H. Schott. Geschichte der deutscher Bibelnebersetzung Dr. Martin Luthers. Leipzig, 1835, p. 34f. 41.

some appropriate German expressions, such as the names of precious stones and animals.*

Besides Melanchthon, his principal assistants on the Old Tes-tament were M. Aurogallus, who, upon Luther's recommendation, had been called as teacher of Hebrew to Wittenberg; and in translating the prophets, Caspar Cruciger, installed at Wittenberg in 1528. These Hebraists afforded him much. help by comparing the so-called Chaldee paraphrases and the rabbinical commentaries; for Luther's knowledge of these-as. his "Enarrationes in Genesen " prove was purely indirect,. almost altogether borrowed from Nicholas de Lyra, but occasion-ally also from Jerome and St. Pagninus. Finally, we learnfrom Matthesius that a thorough revision of the entire translation of the Bible, and especially of the Old Testament, was undertaken by a weekly conference styled by Luther "A Sanhedrin of the best people existing at that time." This work was commenced by Luther in 1539; the fruit of it came to light in 1541. Regular members of this conference were Melanchthon, Cruciger, Aurogallus, Bugenhagen (well versed in the Latin Bible), Justus Jonas, and Magister Georg Roerer, proofreader at the Lufft's printing establishment. Sometimes learned men from a distance took part in the deliberations, namely: Dr. Bernhard Ziegler, of Leipsic, and Dr. Johann Forster, whose opinion in regard to difficult passages was ever welcomed by Luther. But with whatever gratitude Luther may have recognized the co-operation of his friends, and however much he may have praised them to the world, he nevertheless had perfect right to say of his translation, "It is my Testament and my translation, and shall remain mine." All the creative work belonged to him; that of his coadjutors consisted only in assisting in embellishing (ausfeilen) and emending particular portions, and even these finishing strokes and emendations were overwhelmingly Luther's own work—a work to which he applied himself with restless zeal and conscientious carefulness during his whole life. His assistants regarded him. at all times as the Bible translator whom God had called, and who alone wasequal to the great task.

Compare Schott, p. 34, 89f.

+ Ibid., 69, 88.

Comp. Siegfried: Raschis Einfluss auf Nikolaus v. Lyra und Luther in der Auslegung der Genesis in Merx Archiv für wiss, Erforsch. des A. Ts., I, 428, ff.; II, 39, ff. 24-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. I.

In order to appreciate fully this master-work of Luther, one must represent to himself the great task which had been undertaken. Whoever is acquainted, even in a limited degree, with the ideas prevalent in his time regarding the work of translation, must admire him as the gifted pioneer, having clear and certain apprehension of his duties. There was a German Bible before Luther's. The oldest known MS. of this is in Leipsic, and was written in 1343 by Matthias (Martin?) von Beheim, a monk of (our) Halle. Up to the year 1518 no less than fourteen different editions of this translation had been printed in the High German. It was a translation of the Vulgate, in which, without any clear apprehension of the genius either of the Latin or of the German language, the Latin text was imitated mechanically and with slavish literalness, and very often wholly misunderstood. If, then, the Vulgate did often render the original text, especially in the Old Testament, in poor and sometimes unintelligible Latin, we can easily see that in such a German translation the true sense of many words must, in numberless passages, have been completely concealed, and it is not difficult to understand why Matthesius calls the German Bible, which he had read in his youth, “un-German (undeutsch), vague, and obscure." The same lack of intelligence and taste meet us also in the contemporaneous translations of Sallust, Livy, Virgil, and Pliny: for example, patres conscripti is translated, "O ye written together fathers!"

That Luther did not undertake a translation of the Vulgate, but rather of the original text, is not singular, for in this he merely followed the intellectual current which was produced by the study of the "humanities." But his complete deliverance from the chains of ecclesiastical authority, as well as his great courage and his faith in God, were also necessary in order that he, as translator of the Bible, should follow this current, and be enabled to bid defiance to the numerous and violent accusations of his opponents, who claimed that he had forsaken "the approved old text of the Christian Church." Besides, there were whole mountains of difficulties to be scaled, arising from the low condition of philology and exegesis at the time; and again, one must not lose sight of the limited and inadequate helps at his command. He declares, and that repeatedly, how he and his helpers had to sweat (schwitzen) and trouble themselves,