LUTHER AT THE MANGER CHRISTMAS SERMONS ON ISAIAH 9:6 TRANSLATED BY NATHANIEL BIEBERT

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1 LUTHER AT THE MANGER CHRISTMAS SERMONS ON ISAIAH 9:6 TRANSLATED BY NATHANIEL BIEBERT

2 Cover: Stained Glass Photograph, Robert Koester Art Director: Karen Knutson Design Team: Diane Cook, Pamela Dunn All rights reserved. This publication may not be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated, or converted to any electronic or machine-readable form in whole or in part, except for brief quotations, without prior written approval from the publisher. Northwestern Publishing House 1250 N. 113th St., Milwaukee, WI Northwestern Publishing House Published 2017 Printed in the United States of America ISBN ISBN (e-book)

3 CONTENTS Foreword to the Christian Reader... v Glossary of Terms, Persons, and Places... xxxii Reading Schedule... xliv Text of Isaiah 9: First Sermon... 2 Second Sermon Third Sermon Fourth Sermon Fifth Sermon Appendix I: Christmas Sermon by Veit Dietrich Appendix II: Christoph Starke s Prayer for Christmas Day... 77

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5 FOREWORD TO THE CHRISTIAN READER Martin Luther ( ) was always in fine form at Christmas. The significance of the mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God was never lost on him. He ran to it again and again, year after year, and it never got old for him. And it still never gets old for us. This book contains a translation of the sermon series on Isaiah 9:6 that Luther preached in the Wittenberg parish church (Pfarrkirche or Stadtkirche St. Marien) on four consecutive days in 1531, beginning on Christmas Eve. The schedule went like this: SERMON 1 Vigil of Christmas Eve, December 24 SERMON 2 Afternoon of Christmas Day, December 25 SERMON 3 Morning of the Festival of St. Stephen, December 26 SERMON 4 Afternoon of the Festival of St. Stephen, December 26 SERMON 5 Morning of the Festival of St. John, December 27 Luther also preached a sermon in the morning of Christmas Day, but he preached on the Christmas account from Luke 2:1-14, as you can infer from the beginning of the Second Sermon (p. 15; rf. also paragraph in italics on p. 14). You will also discover that in the morning of December 26, Luther began to preach on Luke 2:15-20, the appointed Gospel for the Festival of St. Stephen, but he then returned to his series on Isaiah 9:6 (pp ). v

6 LUTHER AT THE MANGER HISTORICAL CONTEXT SERMON SERIES At the time Luther preached these sermons, the parish church s regular pastor, Johannes Bugenhagen, was on a oneand-a-half-year leave of absence to introduce the Reformation in Lübeck, about 40 miles northeast of Hamburg near the coast of the Baltic Sea. Luther had taken over his duties in the meantime. It was an exacting time for Luther. Around this time he told his table companions, I am extremely busy. Four people are relying on me, and each one of them was in need of someone all to himself or herself. I m supposed to preach four times during the week, lecture twice, marriage cases need to be heard and letters need to be written, plus I m supposed to work on books for publication. 1 Luther was also frequently ill. During most of December and through all of January, he had to give up his weekday preaching due to hoarseness, though he made an exception for these Christmas sermons. In addition, his relationship with the Wittenberg congregation was not particularly warm. There had been an increase in adulterous relationships there in At the end of October, he had complained emotionally about the many people who were despising God s Word and the Lord s Supper. He also preached against the people s greed; some couples would not pay the students who sang at their wedding, and Luther constantly had to encourage contributions to the common chest, which was used to pay the preachers and support the poor. In view of all this, it is hardly surprising that Luther penned Bugenhagen a letter on November 24 begging him to return. Around that same time, he also told his table companions, Had I known beforehand about [everything the office of teaching entailed], [God] would have needed to take great vi 1 D. Martin Luthers Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe: Tischreden (Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1912), 1:73, no. 154; translation mine. The four people relying on Luther were his wife, Katie, his five-year-old son, Hans, his two-year-old daughter, Lena, and his roughly two-month-old son, Martin.

7 FOREWORD TO CHRISTIAN READER pains to get me into it.... I would not take the entire world to enter into it now because of the exceedingly great and severe anxiety and affliction it causes me. 2 In fact, at dinner after he preached Sermon 4 of this series on December 26, he told his table guests, My preaching is useless. It s like a man who sings in a forest to the trees and hears only the glad-sounding echo in return. 3 (See also footnote 53 on p. 43.) Yet Luther also told his table companions, On the other hand, when I consider the One who called me, I would also not take the entire world not to have entered into [this office]. 4 And immediately after his remark on December 26 noted above, he went on to say, So we must preach to the glory of God, even if it doesn t produce fruit. And although many people badmouth it, it is still good to preach Christ for the sake of the few who do not. 5 Because of the One who called him and for the sake of the faithful few who took the gospel to heart, Luther would not forego preaching the Christmas message in all its beauty. 6 HISTORICAL CONTEXT SERMON SERIES PUBLICATION In 1544, Veit (pronounced the same as fight ) Dietrich, who had previously served as Luther s personal secretary and stayed in his home for a number of years, published the first edition of Luther s House Postil. (A postil is a book of sermons.) 7 The book was composed mostly of ser- 2 Ibid., 1:42, no. 113; translation mine. 3 Ibid., 2: , no. 2320; translation mine. 4 Rf. fn Rf. fn For a fuller treatment of the historical background, see Martin Brecht, Martin Luther: Shaping and Defining the Reformation, trans. James L. Schaaf (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994), pp. 429, According to the highly regarded German dictionary of the Grimm brothers, postil (German: Postille) was borrowed in the 16th century from the medieval Latin word postilla, from the Latin phrase post illa verba sacrae scripturae [ after those words of Sacred Scripture ], which in ancient times was the customary opening of the sermons that were annexed to the text that had just been read (13:2029). vii

8 LUTHER AT THE MANGER mons that Luther had delivered at home between 1532 and 1534 on Sundays when he was not able to preach in the parish church on account of frailty. Luther had not written these sermons down. Dietrich, rather, had taken them down in shorthand as Luther was preaching them, and Dietrich claimed to be the only one who had done so in Luther s home. 8 However, while part of the reason for the publication of Luther s House Postil was to preserve Luther s sermons for future generations, it was not Dietrich s overriding purpose. He rather wanted to provide meditations on the gospel of Jesus that could be used throughout the year by fathers in Christian homes (especially on Sundays when their families were unable to make it to church), by country pastors who were sometimes unfit for preaching, and by those unable to listen to pure gospel preaching at any church. 9 In compiling these sermons for the entire church year, Dietrich followed the church calendar in the Nuremberg and Brandenburg Church Orders, since he himself was serving as pastor of St. Sebald Church in Nuremberg at the time. (Dietrich even gave these sermons a sort of trial run from his own pulpit during the year prior to their publication.) The church calendar in these orders was somewhat different than that in the Wittenberg or Saxon Church Order, which Luther followed. 10 So when Dietrich had no sermon of Luther at his disposal to fill out the House Postil, either because Luther had not preached in his home on that particular Sunday or festival, or because Luther did not observe the festival in question, Dietrich did not shy away from creating a 8 D. Martin Luthers Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe, vol. 52 (1915), p 5, lines 36-39; p. 8, lines Ibid., p. 5, line 34 to p. 8, line Ibid., p. ix, lines 14-15; p. 6, lines 29-30; p. 8, lines 14-20; p. 9, line 14. viii

9 FOREWORD TO CHRISTIAN READER sermon or taking one from a different source. Sometimes he created a sermon by adapting material from another publication of Luther. For one of the festivals he used a sermon by Philip Melanchthon, one of Luther s colleagues. And he also inserted his own sermons here and there a fact that he more or less acknowledges in his own preface. 11 In addition, sometimes Dietrich had at his disposal two or three sermons of Luther on the same Scripture text. Dietrich was not opposed to having more than one sermon per Sunday or festival (although sometimes he created these by dividing up and reworking a single sermon by Luther), but he preferred to have only one of Luther s sermons per text. So when he had more than one available, he worked Luther s multiple sermons into one sermon. As a result, the beginning, middle, or end of one or more of Luther s sermons was left out. 12 In Dietrich s defense, we must remember both his already mentioned overriding purpose in publishing the House Postil and that Luther himself actually wrote a short preface for Dietrich s edition. 13 In that preface, Luther acknowledges the sermons in the postil as his own, and he acknowledges Dietrich s efforts at recording and preserving them. When Luther begins his preface with I delivered these sermons in my house, he probably means the majority of them, in harmony with what Dietrich goes on to say in his own preface. 14 It could also be, however, that Luther s memory regarding 11 Ibid., p. xi, lines 8ff; p. 8, lines Ibid., p. ix, lines 6-9; p. xi, lines 4-8; cf. also the Overview of the House Postil Sermons on pp. xii-xxviii. 13 An English translation of Luther s preface can be found in Matthias Loy, ed., Dr. Martin Luther s House-Postil, or, Sermons on the Gospels for the Sundays and Principal Festivals of the Church-Year, 2nd ed. (Columbus, OH: J. A. Schulze, 1884), 1:vii-ix. 14 D. Martin Luthers Werke, vol. 52, op. cit. (fn. 8), pp ix

10 LUTHER AT THE MANGER these sermons was fading by the time he wrote this preface about ten years after he had preached them. Also, one cannot help but wonder how carefully Luther read through all the sermons before they were published. Luther was always alternating between being extremely busy and being sick, and he certainly trusted his close friend Dietrich. So what does all of this have to do with this 1531 Christmas sermon series, which was delivered by Luther not in his home, but at the parish church, and which was not included in Dietrich s edition of Luther s House Postil? Enter Pastor Andreas Poach (the ch pronounced like that in Bach). Poach was born in Eilenburg, about 15 miles northeast of Leipzig, in He enrolled in the University of Wittenberg for the summer semester of 1530, 15 had the Master of Liberal Arts degree conferred on him in September 1538, 16 and remained in Wittenberg until He became one of the most passionate students of Luther during that time, devot[ing himself] to [Luther s] style, language, and method as much as possible. 17 Luther and the other reformers, in turn, recognized Poach as a capable theologian. After serving as a preacher in Halle, Jena, and Nordhausen, in 1550 Poach accepted a call to serve as pastor of the Augustinian Church in Erfurt, which had gone over to the side of the Lutheran Reformation in the early 1520s. In 1559, for a number of reasons, Poach issued a new edition of Luther s House Postil Carolus Eduardus Foerstemann, ed., Album Academiae Vitebergensis ab A. Ch. MDII usque ad A. MDLX (Leipzig: Sumtibus et Typis Caroli Tauchnitii, 1841), pp. 138, Julius Köstlin, ed., Die Baccalaurei und Magistri der Wittenberger Philosophischen Facultät (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1890), p Georg Buchwald, Jenaer Lutherfunde, in Theologische Studien und Kritiken (Gotha: Friedrich Andreas Perthes, 1894), vol. 67, p. 377, lines D. Martin Luthers Werke, vol. 52, op. cit. (fn. 8), p. vii, lines x

11 FOREWORD TO CHRISTIAN READER First, Dietrich had passed away in 1549, thus enabling theologians to cast a more critical eye on his work without worrying about potential personal confrontation. Second, a number of preachers and Christians most notably Dr. Matthäus Ratzeberger, the personal physician of Elector Johann Friedrich I from and Johann Stoltz, court preacher in Weimar from 1547 until his death in 1556 prevailed upon Poach to oversee a new edition of the House Postil because of the weaknesses of Dietrich s edition. 20 Third, Poach had developed a close working friendship with the one man who could and did enable him to publish a new edition of Luther s House Postil. That man was Georg Rörer (pronounced RAY-rur). Rörer had begun transcribing Luther s sermons at the end of In May 1525, he was called as one of two deacon assistants to Pastor Johannes Bugenhagen in the Wittenberg parish church, and Luther himself ordained him. Rörer became a tireless and renowned copier of Luther s ser mons and lectures, and developed a complex system of Latin- German shorthand for this purpose. Elector Johann Friedrich I released him from his church duties in 1537 so that he could work full time as Luther s assistant, especially in the documentation of Luther s work. After the Smalcald War ended in 1547, Rörer stayed at the court of the elector in Weimar to help with the work of collecting and preserving Luther s works until he left for Copenhagen, Denmark, early in After his return, he took up residence in Jena in In 1552, Ratzeberger requested his release and moved with his family to Nordhausen, and some time later to Erfurt, where Poach was serving and where Ratzeberger died in Buchwald, op. cit. (fn. 17), p. 375, last par.; D. Martin Luthers Werke, vol. 52, op. cit. (fn. 8), p. viii, lines Brecht, op. cit. (fn. 6), p. 59, 284. On Rörer s complex system of Latin-German shorthand, see D. Martin Luthers Werke, vol. 29 (1905), p. xvi ff., esp. pp. xxii-xxiv. xi

12 LUTHER AT THE MANGER Poach had already made Rörer s acquaintance and copied some of his transcripts during his time in Wittenberg. Rörer had given him some more transcripts to copy during his time in Halle. Between 1553 and 1554, after Rörer returned from Denmark, Poach paid his old familiar friend a visit in Jena. During that visit, Rörer (a) permitted Poach to copy many of his transcripts of Luther s sermons; (b) permitted Poach to copy his catalog for all his notebooks so that Poach would know which sermons of Luther had not yet been printed; (c) taught Poach to read his shorthand; and (d) lent Poach an actual notebook containing his transcripts of Luther s sermons on John so that Poach could test his ability with his newly acquired knowledge. Poach proceeded to work through Luther s sermons on John and sent his draft to Rörer. Rörer approved. In fact, Poach passed the test so well that his draft was actually printed in Jena in The next item on Poach s list of publishing projects, it appears, was a new edition of Luther s House Postil using Rörer s transcripts. Rörer lent him several more of his notebooks for that purpose. 23 Fourth, in 1555, two years before Rörer s death, Duke Johann Friedrich II of Ernestine Saxony, with the help of his two brothers, Dukes Johann Wilhelm and Johann Friedrich III, acquired the vast majority of Rörer s notebooks for a handsome sum. (As part of this deal, Rörer also had a house in Jena put at his disposal.) This collection was placed in the university library in Jena in 1557, as the Jena Edition of Luther s Works ( ) was being published, in 22Buchwald, op. cit. (fn. 17), p. 377, line 5 to p. 378, line 2; D. Martin Luthers Werke, vol. 28 (1903), p D. Martin Luthers Werke, vol. 52, op. cit. (fn. 8), p. viii, lines 25-27; Buchwald, op. cit. (fn. 17), p. 375, last line to p. 376, line 1. xii

13 FOREWORD TO CHRISTIAN READER order that this treasure may remain with us and not be lost or suppressed. 24 Fifth and already touched on before, there was a spirit in the air of wanting to have the works of Luther printed by themselves and without any foreign material added. Poach said that it was partially for these reasons that the Jena Edition of Luther s Works had been published. By this time it was generally recognized that Dietrich s edition of Luther s House Postil did not have this desired character. 25 So Poach set about revising Dietrich s work. It didn t all go smoothly. Probably around 1556, Poach showed Ratzeberger, Stoltz, and Rörer the draft. They, in turn, forwarded the draft to the court in Weimar, where it was decided to have the new House Postil printed in Jena. But at that point there were still several sermons in Poach s edition of the House Postil whose transcripts were not at his disposal. So the necessary notebooks of Rörer were loaned to him, either from the court in Weimar (if in 1556) or from the library in Jena (if in 1557 or later), so that he could complete his work, which was finally issued in In revising Dietrich s work, Poach assumed that any sermon Dietrich included that was missing a marginal note indicating the year and place it was preached was a foreign sermon. He felt this was confirmed by the fact that these undated sermons also could not be found in Rörer s notebooks, as the dated ones could. Poach left out these foreign sermons in his edition, and in their place, inserted other sermons of Luther from Rörer s notebooks. Poach 24Buchwald, op. cit., p. 375, lines 12-14; p. 378, lines 5-7; D. Martin Luthers Werke, vol. 52, op. cit. (fn. 8), p. vii, lines The quote in the last sentence is from Nikolaus von Amsdorf s preface to Poach s edition of Luther s House Postil. 25 D. Martin Luthers Werke, vol. 52, op. cit. (fn. 8), p. viii, lines The quote is from Poach s own afterword to his edition of Luther s House Postil. 26Buchwald, op. cit. (fn. 17), p. 376, lines xiii

14 LUTHER AT THE MANGER also included in the margin when and where they were preached, whether in Luther s home or at church. 27 One of the undated sermons in Dietrich s edition, found in the last section that only included sermons for the chief festivals throughout the year, was one for Christmas Day on Isaiah 9:2-7. (You can read this sermon in Appendix I.) As with the other undated sermons, Poach also could not find this sermon in Rörer s notebooks. But Poach noticed that Rörer had taken down five sermons of Luther on Isaiah 9:6 during the Christmas season of the 1532 church year. (Rörer customarily dated Christmas sermons with those of the following year, and so he dated these sermons 1532, even though they were actually preached at the end of The Christmas sermons of 1532 were dated 1533.) 28 So Poach removed the one sermon on Isaiah 9:2-7 in Dietrich s edition and substituted the five sermons on Isaiah 9:6 from Rörer s notebooks for his edition. That is how this sermon series on Isaiah 9:6 came to be published for the first time. It should be acknowledged here that Poach did an excellent job giving more body to Rörer s transcripts, making them read and sound more like sermons and less like shorthand lecture notes. It might have helped that in all likelihood Poach was in attendance to hear the original sermons. (We have no way of knowing how much content he could recall clearly about 25 years after the fact.) I will discuss later, however, some of the weaknesses of Poach s method. 27 D. Martin Luthers Werke, vol. 52, op. cit. (fn. 8), p. viii, lines 7-13, 29-35; p. xi, lines 21-23, Ibid., p. xi, lines 30-31; pp. xxiv-xxv, notes on no. 77; pp. 578ff. Cf. the date in Rörer-Poach s edition, as found, for example, in Ernst Ludwig Enders, ed., Dr. Martin Luther s sämmtliche Werke, 2nd ed., vol. 6 (Frankfurt am Main und Erlangen: Verlag von Heyder & Zimmer, 1865), p Cf. also D. Martin Luthers Werke, vol. 36 (1909), p. xii; p. 391, line 1. xiv

15 FOREWORD TO CHRISTIAN READER What about the original sermon on Isaiah 9:2-7 in Dietrich s edition (found in Appendix I)? Is it a genuine Luther sermon or not? It does seem that Rörer did, in fact, attend some, perhaps even many, of Luther s house sermons from , even though he was still serving as a deacon at the parish church at the time. A certain Emericus Sylvius (who attended the University of Wittenberg at the same time Poach did) 29 asked Rörer s widow about this matter late in She recalled that even if her husband was the deacon on duty during a given week, once the preacher began his sermon on Sunday, Rörer would disrobe and hurry down the street to Luther s house to hear Luther preach in his home. (This was especially possible on Sundays when Pastor Bugenhagen preached, since he was notoriously longwinded, allowing Rörer time to return before his services were required again.) 30 However, to imagine Rörer adding note-taking to all this hurried activity, and to imagine him actually hearing every Luther house sermon in its entirety, is a little farfetched. Remember that Dietrich insisted that he was the only one who recorded Luther s sermons in Luther s home. Plus, as Luther scholar Georg Buchwald (BOOKH-vahlt) pointed out, the house sermons taken down from Rörer s hand show at first glance that they are copies of original transcripts; they also have a different character than his other transcripts.... [W]e can scarcely go wrong if we assume that these transcripts originated with Dietrich s hand Foerstemann, op. cit., p. 145; Köstlin, op. cit., p Georg Buchwald, ed., Andreas Poachs handschriftliche Sammlung Ungedruckter Predigten D. Martin Luthers aus den Jahren 1528 bis 1546 (Leipzig: Verlag von Fr. Wilh. Grunow, 1884), p. vi, last 3 lines to p. vii, lines 1-4; Martin Brecht, Martin Luther: The Preservation of the Church (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999), p D. Martin Luthers Werke, vol. 52, op. cit. (fn. 8), p. x, lines 8-10; p. xi, lines 1-3; translation mine. xv

16 LUTHER AT THE MANGER In other words, it seems that Dietrich was correct in asserting that he was the only one to take down Luther s house sermons. But at some point Rörer seems to have copied Dietrich s transcripts into his own notes so that his own collection of Luther s sermons would be more complete. Since Dietrich s original notes have been lost, Rörer s copies are the closest thing we have to an original collection of Luther s house sermons. It is also worth noting that Luther himself assigned Rörer the task of overseeing the Wittenberg printing of Dietrich s edition of the House Postil in According to Christoph Walther, who worked as a typesetter and proofreader at the print shop responsible for the Wittenberg printing, Master Georg [Rörer] accepted and performed this task willingly and gladly. He thoroughly proofread and corrected [Dietrich s] House Postil himself and took great pleasure and joy in it, also praising it in the highest terms. 32 This leads to two reasonable conclusions: First, Rörer must have been equipped for such a task, probably by virtue of his copies of Dietrich s transcripts. Second, Rörer respected Luther s and Dietrich s wishes and intentions and was not bothered by the fact that foreign sermons were included, at least not to the extent that those who later used his notebooks were. Finally, we know from Rörer s notebooks that the sermon on Isaiah 9:2-7 that Dietrich included has the best chance of being a genuine Luther sermon if it was preached in the morning of Christmas Day Luther was occupied with sermons on other texts in all the other regular Christmas Day preaching slots in the surrounding 32 Ibid., p. ix, lines 38-41; cf. p. x, fn. 3 (continuation from p. ix). Cf. Ernst Ludwig Enders, ed., Dr. Martin Luther s sämmtliche Werke, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (Frankfurt am Main und Erlangen: Verlag von Heyder & Zimmer, 1862), p. viii, last line to p. ix, lines xvi

17 FOREWORD TO CHRISTIAN READER years. 33 You can also read the Dietrich sermon in Appendix I and judge for yourself on the basis of both internal evidence and comparison with Luther s 1531 sermons and his other sermons. In my opinion, the sermon clearly demonstrates that its author was familiar with Luther and learned from him. But, among other things, it is missing some emphases that one would expect from Luther and contains other original thoughts that Luther does not have either in his 1531 Isaiah 9:6 series or in his two-sermon series on Isaiah 9:2-7 in 1525 (mentioned in footnote 12 on p. 8). Early in 1564, Poach fell out of favor with the court in Weimar and appears to have lost any access he might have had to Rörer s notebooks in the university library in Jena. He had published a version of four Luther sermons on 1 Corinthians 15 either from some Rörer notebooks that he secretly kept for himself or from his copies of those notebooks. Since the court had paid so much for Rörer s notebooks, and since Poach did not ask the court s permission to publish the sermons based on Rörer s notebooks, the court told the city council of Erfurt to summon Poach, reproach him, and bring him up on charges. Poach seems to have escaped formal charges, but he did have to go looking for other sermon transcripts when, for instance, he wanted to publish a revised edition of Luther s sermons on John 18 20, issued in Poach s edition of Luther s House Postil was reprinted in Jena in 1562 and Poach passed away in 1585, and Duke Johann Friedrich II, who had purchased Rörer s notebooks, passed away ten years later. After that, no one 33 D. Martin Luthers Werke, vol. 36, op. cit. (fn. 28), p. xii; vol. 37 (1910), p. xxviii, xix; vol. 41 (1910), p. xvi. 34 D. Martin Luthers Werke, vol. 52, op. cit. (fn. 8), pp ; Buchwald, Jenaer Lutherfunde, op. cit. (fn. 17), p. 374, last line to p. 375, line Enders, op. cit. (fn. 32), p. viii, lines 7-9. xvii

18 LUTHER AT THE MANGER seems to have known or cared about Rörer s notebooks in the University of Jena library. When the 1531 Christmas series on Isaiah 9:6 was reprinted in the Leipzig edition ( ), the Walch edition ( ), and the Erlangen Edition ( ) of Luther s Works, it was essentially a reprinting of Poach s 1559 edition. Rörer s original transcripts were not consulted. However, in 1893, Licentiate Dr. Georg Buchwald, serving at St. Matthew s in Leipzig at the time, was doing research in Weimar when he came upon the tense correspondence between the royal court in Weimar and Poach, dealing with Poach s aforementioned unauthorized version of Luther s sermons on 1 Corinthians 15. A letter from Poach to the court, dated March 6, 1564, offhandedly mentioned that Rörer s notebooks were in the library in Jena. And that is where Buchwald found them 329 years later. (Today, this library is called the Thüringer Universitätsund Landesbibliothek Jena.) 36 Now we must briefly trace the history of one other source for Luther s 1531 Christmas sermon series. Georg Rörer was not the only one who transcribed these Christmas sermons. Another copier recorded a number of Luther s sermons as they were being preached from October 1528 to February 1532, including his 1531 series on Isaiah 9:6. This copier s identity remains unknown, but from his transcripts of this series alone, we know that he knew Latin, German, and Hebrew and that he was adept at summarizing and paraphrasing Luther on paper while Luther was preaching, without getting distracted. The copier either was, or became, acquainted with Friedrich Myconius ( ), Luther s fellow reformer and intimate friend, so that Myconius ended up in possession of these transcripts, along with others. After Myconius death, 36 Buchwald, op. cit. (fn. 17). xviii

19 FOREWORD TO CHRISTIAN READER his codex ended up in the library of Joannes Aurifaber of Weimar ( ), who is most famous for his 1566 edition of Luther s Table Talk. Who obtained the codex from Aurifaber s library is not known, but at some point it was bound in pressed leather, came into the possession of a certain Seidel, and was appraised at the costly sum of 12 Reichsthaler (not necessarily in that order). Dr. Valentin Ernst Loescher ( ), a pastor known especially in Wisconsin Synod circles for his famous work against Pietism, The Complete Timotheus Verinus (Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House, 1998), appears also to have been a collector of rare books and manuscripts. He got a good deal on the codex in Berlin, purchasing it for 10 Reichsthaler, 20 Groschen, from the Storeroom of Seidel Manuscripts. It appears that the codex went straight from Loescher s library to that of Adam Rudolph Solger ( ), another Lutheran preacher who collected books. In 1766, prior to his death, the City Council of Nuremberg purchased Solger s collection from him, which is how it came to bear its current name: Codex Solger The codex appears to have gone unexamined in the Nuremberg City Library until the late 1800s. Dr. Ernst Ludwig Enders, pastor in Oberrad near Frankfurt and editor of the revised Erlangen Edition of Luther s Works, made Georg Buchwald aware of it in the 1890s, and Buchwald gave it its first thorough and critical examination. This codex is probably best known for containing a number of the exhortations Luther gave to the congregation after some of his sermons. (One of these exhortations appears in this 37 D. Martin Luthers Werke, vol. 27 (1903), pp. xvii-xviii; Privatbibliotheken on Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg s website: (accessed 28 April 2015). xix

20 LUTHER AT THE MANGER Christmas series, not after, but during the Third Sermon. See the paragraph in italics on p. 25.) These exhortations help to give us a good idea of what was going on outside of the church at the time. 38 The rediscovery of these two sets of transcripts Rörer s notebooks and Codex Solger 13 made it possible for Georg Buchwald to produce a truly critical edition of this sermon series, together with the rest of Luther s sermons from 1531, in volume 34 of the Weimar Edition of Luther s Works, published in Until 1996, however, only the majority of Dietrich s edition of Luther s House Postil had been available in English, and so this sermon series on Isaiah 9:6 also remained untranslated. But in 1996, Word & World, the theological publication of Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, published a series of Luther s sermons hitherto unavailable in English to observe the 450th anniversary of his death. Included in that series was a translation of the entire second sermon of Luther s 1531 Christmas sermon series (vol. 16, pp ), based on the Weimar Edition, but somewhat wooden and cumbersome. Another publication also came out in Eugene F. A. Klug, professor emeritus at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana, edited and helped to translate the volume of the St. Louis Edition of Luther s Works (vol. 13, part 2; based on the aforementioned Walch edition) containing the Rörer-Poach edition of Luther s House Postil. Baker Books published this translation in three volumes titled Sermons of Martin Luther: The House Postils, including this 1531 Christmas sermon series, on pp of volume 3. Later these three volumes were added to Baker s 38 Buchwald, Unbekannte Bugenhagenpredigten gefunden in der Nürnberger Stadtbibliothek und in der Zwickauer Ratschulbibliothek, in Theologische Studien und Kritiken (Gotha: Friedrich Andreas Perthes, 1892), vol. 65, p. 339, and Luthers Exhortationes post concionem, ibid. (1899), vol. 72, pp. 118ff. xx

21 FOREWORD TO CHRISTIAN READER previous Sermons of Martin Luther series to form volumes 5-7 of The Complete Sermons of Martin Luther (2000, 2007). Klug s translation is quite readable and has been described as having a homelike folksy presentation, but I will discuss its weaknesses below. One weakness I will mention here, which has nothing to do with the translation itself, is that these volumes are out of print as of this writing, so finding them for a reasonable price can be difficult. How I came to translate Luther s sermon series on Isaiah 9:6 is as follows: I belong to a circuit of pastors that meets once a month from September through May. Those meetings have traditionally begun with the host pastor reading a Luther sermon, or a portion of one, as the devotion. I was slated to host the meeting in December Since translating German and Latin is one of my favorite Godgiven hobbies and gifts, I searched for a Luther sermon that I could translate and deliver as a devotion and that would be appropriate for the season. I discovered this series on Isaiah 9:6 by checking the reference for the devotion for Thursday of Pentecost 23 in Day by Day We Magnify Thee (Augsburg Fortress, 2008). Here I would like to thank retired pastor Thomas Pfotenhauer for graciously bestowing on me his almostcomplete set of the German volumes of the Erlangen Edition of Luther s Works, as a gift during my vicar year. Without this set, I would not have been able to check this reference so easily and I might not have checked it at all. I decided to translate the entire first sermon from the Erlangen Edition for the circuit meeting. Everyone in attendance appeared to enjoy it, and we profitably discussed it with one another after it was read. This experience whetted my appetite for the remaining sermons. At that time, I was only familiar with the Word & World publication of the second sermon in this series, mentioned xxi

22 LUTHER AT THE MANGER previously. Thus I was under the impression that this series had not yet been translated into English in its entirety. Given the extremely edifying nature of the sermons and the glimpse they provide into Luther the man his sense of humor, his experiences in the Roman Church, his experience with the Peasants Revolt, his battle with what he called the sacramentarians and sectarians, and the downto-earth, sometimes earthy way he communicated God s Word to people I thought the absence of these sermons in English nothing short of a tragedy. So in the early months of 2012, I set out to translate the remaining sermons. As I did so, I discovered this series in the more critical Weimar Edition of Luther s Works, though I was still unaware of all the history detailed earlier. Consequently, I also consulted the Weimar Edition for my translation of the second through fifth sermons. I also went back and reviewed the first sermon. I then submitted the first manuscript to Northwestern Publishing House (NPH) for publication, and they informed me in November 2012 that the manuscript had been accepted. In December 2014, they informed me that they intended to prepare this series as part of the Wisconsin Synod s celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. I had had all sorts of time to review my translation in the meantime, so once the contract was signed early in 2015, I immediately began re-reviewing the English sermons with a fine-tooth comb, carefully comparing them especially with the Weimar Edition of Luther s Works. This review also led me to make a number of revisions to my initial foreword. Then the wrench was thrown into the gears. While making my revisions, I contacted Rev. Dr. Benjamin T. G. Mayes of Concordia Publishing House (CPH), now of Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, to find out xxii

23 FOREWORD TO CHRISTIAN READER whether CPH was planning on including these sermons in their 20 new volumes of Luther s Works. He informed me that they were not, but he also was the first to inform me about Klug s 1996 translation of this sermon series. This was the spur in the ribs, so to speak, that sent me running off on an intense journey of more translation and historical research, whose fruits are found in the historical background that you have been reading and in the comparisons and analyses printed in subsequent paragraphs. It also led me to review these sermons even more closely, to make sure they followed the Weimar Edition as closely as possible, which Klug s edition did not do. COMPARISON OF EDITIONS I proceeded rather strangely with this translation, as hinted at earlier. I started out with a fresh and complete translation of these sermons as printed in the Erlangen edition (EA) of Luther s Works (Dr. Martin Luther s sämmtliche Werke, vol. 6, 2nd ed. [Frankfurt am Main and Erlangen: Verlag von Heyder & Zimmer, 1865], pp ). 39 The EA essentially reproduced Poach s 1559 edition with updated German (updated for 1865, that is). However, having gone back through the translated sermons with a fine-tooth comb, carefully comparing them to the more critical Weimar Edition (WA) of Luther s Works (D. Martin Luthers Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe, vol. 34, part 2 [Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1908], pp , ) 40 and meticulously and thoroughly revising them as I did, I would say that in the end, the WA served as the primary basis for these sermons. Poach essen- 39 The Erlangen Edition is often abbreviated EA (the A is an abbreviation of the German word for edition). Hereafter, I will refer to this edition using this abbreviation. 40 The Weimar Edition is often abbreviated WA. Hereafter, I will refer to this edition using this abbreviation. xxiii

24 LUTHER AT THE MANGER tially served as my translation expediter and adviser, whose advice was sometimes helpful and sometimes not. We owe the preservation and transmission of these sermons to the two primary sources mentioned previously and reprinted in the WA Georg Rörer, whose transcript is in the possession of the university library in Jena (Thüringer Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Jena) and an anonymous copier whose work is contained in the so-called Codex Solger 13, in the possession of the Nuremberg City Library (Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg). My goal was to provide the English reader with Luther s 1531 sermon series on Isaiah 9:6 in a translation with both the readability of the EA and the reliability of the WA. To put it another way, I wanted readers to be able to cite any line from these sermons with the confidence that Luther said this, without someone responding, Yeah, but what does it mean? Why did I need to consult the WA? Or to put it another way, what are the strengths and weaknesses of Poach s German edition and Klug s English edition? Georg Buchwald, the editor of these sermons for the WA, generally speaks highly of Rörer-Poach s House Postil : It was Poach s endeavor to reproduce Luther s preaching as accurately as possible on the basis of Rörer s transcripts.... Even when he, like Dietrich, makes use of a sermon already available in print by itself, he does not fail to reach back to Rörer s transcript.... [H]e truly does himself very proud on the precise dating of Luther s sermons I also already pointed out Poach s editing skills, that he does a fine job transforming Rörer s shorthand notes into actual flowing sermons that you can almost hear Luther preaching in all his gospel zeal. 41 WA 52:xi. xxiv

25 FOREWORD TO CHRISTIAN READER But Poach is hardly beyond criticism. First, his edition is based on one man s transcribed notes. That one man, Georg Rörer, was skilled in his craft, perhaps the best of all those who transcribed Luther s sermons, but he was still a fallible man. Thus Poach sometimes misses an entire chunk of something Luther preached, not by his own fault but by Rörer s. We can gather this by comparing Rörer s transcript with the usually skimpier, but sometimes more complete, anonymous Nuremberg transcript from Codex Solger 13 printed beneath Rörer s in the WA. For instance, compare the end of the Second Sermon between Rörer s transcript (R), Poach s edition of Rörer s transcript (P), and the Nuremberg transcript (N): R: [The prophet] has just said that he [Christ] carries his kingdom. Now he shows how the carrying takes place, because he first said that a child [is born to us], etc. He [also] shows what kind of son he is, namely, [one] on whom [you should] lay all your sin [and] sadness, etc. How that takes place follows through the six names [the prophet gives him]. P: Now after the prophet has said that Christ carries his government on his shoulder, he continues and further shows how such carrying takes place. He has said that the child is born to us and the son is given to us, and that all our sins, distress, misery, sorrow, and grief are upon him, and that he wants to help us out of all of them by his carrying. But he explains how this takes place through the following six names he gives to this child and son. We will save them for later. N: [He is called] Wonderful, Counsel, [Strength, Champion, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace]. Now [the prophet] explains how the carrying takes place; he adds the six names. If I have time and am healthy, I will preach [them] to you. If not, then let another do [it]. For it stands written in the books just as well as I can preach it. xxv

26 LUTHER AT THE MANGER Here you can see (a) how choppy and cumbersome it would be simply to read a literal translation of Rörer s transcript, (b) the generally fine job Poach did filling out the sermons, and at the same time, (c) what Poach missed by having only Rörer s transcript at his disposal. Only the Nuremberg transcript gives us the interesting insight into Luther s ill health at the time; the conclusion of the series is in doubt at that point. Second, the preceding example, while showing Poach s skill in general, also betrays an admittedly minor weakness of his editing. Occasionally, he rather arbitrarily substitutes we for you and our for your, or vice versa, and makes other such minor but unnecessary changes or additions here and there. Third, even though Poach reproached Dietrich for adding his own material, Poach occasionally goes beyond simply filling out Rörer s notes, to the point that he must be regarded as adding his own material. For instance, he often has Luther quoting additional Bible passages at length. Poach certainly had good intentions in doing so, and the passages are well-chosen, but he simply had no good reason to add them on the basis of Rörer s notes. A number of footnotes in my translation document these additions, as well as other substantial additions. Finally, Poach also reproached Dietrich for cutting out the beginning, middle, or end of some of Luther s sermons. But Poach does the same thing with the Third Sermon in this series, cutting out the entire mini-sermon on Luke 2:15-20 with which Luther began before returning to his series on Isaiah. We can understand why Poach did this; he was attempting to substitute for a sermon on Isaiah 9:2-7 in Dietrich s edition of the House Postil. But we cannot excuse his method, especially since he rebuked Dietrich for doing the same thing. xxvi

27 FOREWORD TO CHRISTIAN READER By cutting out the opening to Luther s sermon, he also omits the very first line, which has to be regarded as one of the most memorable first lines in the history of homiletics. Luther was hoarse and ill himself; he had concluded the previous sermon by saying he would only preach on the six names Isaiah gave the Messiah if I have time and am healthy enough. But he had decided to tough it out, and he mounted the pulpit in the parish church in the morning of St. Stephen s Day to preach his first sermon actually dealing with the six names themselves. But as he reached the top of the pulpit, he was greeted with a barrage of coughing, sneezing, and wheezing that prevented him from saying anything at first. So when he finally got the chance, either with a look of disgust or with a barely discernible smile on one side of his face, he began: They say it s amazing how quiet the Muslim Turks are in church... Luther could roast with the best. Since Klug follows Poach s edition for his English edition, his English edition consequently has all of these same weaknesses. In addition, Klug occasionally does have significant and glaring inaccuracies, even if one only has Poach s edition in view. For instance, at the time of publication, Klug apparently did not understand Rörer-Poach s method of dating the sermons, as discussed on page xiv. Thus he incorrectly dates all five of these sermons to 1532, the date given in the St. Louis Edition, when they were actually preached in Another standout in the Klug edition is on pages 215 and 216, 16 and 17, in the First Sermon. In 16, Luther refers to the hymn, Ein Kindelein so löbelich, a wellknown hymn at the time. There the English translator does not attempt to keep the meter and simply translates the first two lines of the hymn into English prose A child so praiseworthy is born to us today. That is a fine translation. However, in the very next paragraph, 17, when xxvii

28 LUTHER AT THE MANGER Luther refers to the exact same hymn and, in Poach s edition, recites the entire first stanza, the English translator puts down a completely different hymn a combination of stanzas 2 and 3 from Luther s own hymn, From Heaven Above, which Luther did not even write until three or four years after he preached these sermons. Klug uses the King James Version for biblical texts and quotes. A minority of readers may view this as a strength. But considering that the still-popular traditional version of the Lord s Prayer with its art, thy, and thine requires regular explanation, use of the King James Version with its many other archaic expressions must be regarded on the whole as a weakness. Finally, the information Klug imparts in his preface in volume 1 contains a number of factual inaccuracies (e.g., stating unequivocally that Dietrich and Roerer both made stenographic notes of Luther s house sermons, when in fact Rörer appears to have copied Dietrich s transcripts on separate occasions). I too am a fallible and sinful human, and so part of me trembles as I present this critique. A scholar much smarter and wiser than I could list the weaknesses of my own translation and leave me lying on my back, blinking, wondering what sort of freight train just ran me over. Plus, in the case of Klug s edition, for all its weaknesses, its volumes are invaluable as solid, accessible devotional literature, putting sinful souls into contact with the clear and saving gospel of Jesus. Nevertheless, as God has given me the desire, strength, and ability, I have attempted to offer these 1531 Christmas sermons of Luther to the public with my already-stated, twofold goal, and to do so avoiding at least the most glaring examples of the weaknesses of previous editions just listed. I also am convinced that, for these reasons, my edition will not be offered superfluously or in vain. I have also included a glossary to help the reader with any person, place, or thing he may not be familiar with xxviii

29 FOREWORD TO CHRISTIAN READER and two appendices. In the first, I present in English for the first time the original sermon on Isaiah 9:2-7 found in Dietrich s edition of Luther s House Postil (WA 52: ). 42 In the second, I present a fresh translation of Pastor Christoph Starke s ( ) prayer for Christmas Day (Gebetbuch or Tägliches Hand-Buch in guten und bösen Tagen, rev. ed. [Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House], pp ). NOTES ON EDITING All bracketed words appearing in any part of a sermon whether in the body or in a footnote are my own additions. Most of them contain Scripture references or monetary equivalents. To arrive at such rough equivalents, I mainly used the discussion on pages in E. G. Schwiebert s Luther and His Times (Concordia Publishing House, 1950). The footnotes are mine; I apologize for the degree to which they might distract you from your pious meditation. All quotations from Scripture or the Christian creeds I have either translated from Luther s German, as found in the 1534 Luther Bible or the EA (in the case of creed excerpts), or I have translated a paraphrase if the transcripts in the WA warranted thus. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the following: My parents had me baptized as a Christian soon after I was born and diligently performed the difficult task of raising me in the confessional Lutheran faith. My father is responsible for getting me interested at an early age in the life of Martin Luther. His love for all things both Christand Luther-related has always been evident. 42 Matthias Loy s three-volume English translation of Dietrich s edition of Luther s House Postil, mentioned previously in fn. 13, is incomplete and does not include this sermon. xxix

30 LUTHER AT THE MANGER The two rural congregations in Wisconsin God has called me to shepherd Grace, in Wausau (town of Maine) and St. Paul-Naugart, in Athens (town of Berlin) are a source of continual encouragement and support in my God-given calling as a pastor. By requiring me to continue fulfilling my God-given duties as their pastor throughout this project (though they themselves were mostly unaware of the project), they also helped to keep me grounded and sane. My wife not only patiently endures it when I go on one of my translation or research binges, but she also supports and assists me, not least of all by quietly and cheerfully going about her regular, day-to-day duties. Luther said that no one perceives anything special in that kind of woman (p. 33). But the only things more special are the things that Jesus himself does. I love you, Katie. I am still relatively young and have had no special degrees conferred upon me. Northwestern Publishing House could have justifiably dismissed my manuscript out of hand. They did not. They have not only published my work but have also worked very patiently with me through the editing process especially Pastor Curtis Jahn. The triune God chose me to be his own from eternity, redeemed me by his blood, washed me and made me his own in baptism, and gave me all that I am and have. CONCLUDING PRAYER May the Holy Spirit make Luther s childlike awe, conviction, and personal application of the prophet Isaiah s words your own, dear reader yes, may he make yours even greater, and may he lead you to treasure even more the surpassing gift God the Father has given you in the person of his Son. xxx Pastor Nathaniel J. Biebert

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