and Nicolaus Lyra (d. 1340), the chief of mediaeval commentators, who, besides the Fathers,
consulted also the Jewish rabbis.^444
The basis for the New Testament was the second edition of Erasmus, published at Basel in
Switzerland in 1519.^445 His first edition of the Greek Testament had appeared in 1516, just one
year before the Reformation. He derived the text from a few mediaeval MSS.^446 The second edition,
though much more correct than the first ("multo diligentius recognitum, emendatum," etc.), is
disfigured by a large -number of typographical errors.^447 He laid the foundation of the Textus
Receptus, which was brought into its mature shape by R. Stephen, in his "royal edition" of 1550
(the basis of the English Textus Receptus), and by the Elzevirs in their editions of 1624 and 1633
(the basis of the Continental Textus Receptus), and which maintained the supremacy till Lachmann
inaugurated the adoption of an older textual basis (1831).
Luther did not slavishly follow the Greek of Erasmus, and in many places conformed to the
Latin Vulgate, which is based on an older text. He also omitted, even in his last edition, the famous
interpolation of the heavenly witnesses in 1 John 5:7, which Erasmus inserted in his third edition
(1522) against his better judgment.^448
The German Rendering.
The German language was divided into as many dialects as tribes and states, and none
served as a bond of literary union. Saxons and Bavarians, Hanoverians and Swabians, could scarcely
understand each other. Each author wrote in the dialect of his district, Zwingli in his Schwyzerdütsch.
"I have so far read no book or letter," says Luther in the preface to his version of the Pentateuch
(1523), in which the German language is properly handled. Nobody seems to care sufficiently for
it; and every preacher thinks he has a right to change it at pleasure, and to invent new terms."
Scholars preferred to write in Latin, and when they attempted to use the mother tongue, as Reuchlin
and Melanchthon did occasionally, they fell far below in ease and beauty of expression.
Luther brought harmony out of this confusion, and made the modern High German the
common book language. He chose as the basis the Saxon dialect, which was used at the Saxon
court and in diplomatic intercourse between the emperor and the estates, but was bureaucratic, stiff,
(^444) Lyra acquired by his Postillae perpetuae in V. et N. Test. (first published in Rome, 1472, in 5 vols. fol., again at Venice, 1540) the
title Doctor planus et utilis. His influence on Luther is expressed in the well-known lines:—
"Si Lyra non lyrasset,
Lutherus non saltasset."
(^445) Greek and Latin, 2 vols. folio. The first part contains Preface, Dedication to Pope Leo X., and the Ratio seu Compendium verae
Theologiae per Erasmum Roterodamum (120 pages); the second part, the Greek Text, with a Latin version in parallel columns, with brief
introductions to the several books (565 pages). At the end is a Latin letter of Frobenius, the publisher, dated "Nonis Fehr. Anno M.D.XIX."
A copy in the Union Theol. Seminary, New York. - Some say that Luther made use of Gerbel’s reprint of Erasmus, 1521. But Dr. Reuss
of Strassburg, who has the largest collection and best knowledge of Greek Testaments, denies this. Gesch. der h. Schriften des N. T., 5th
ed., II. 211, note.
(^446) See Schaff, Companion to the Greek Testament, etc., New York, 3d ed., 1888, pp. 229 sqq., and the facsimile of the Erasmian ed.
on p. 532 sq. Tyndale’s English version was likewise made from Erasmus.
(^447) O. von Gebhardt, in his Novum Test. Graece et Germanice, Preface, p. xvi., says of the second ed. of Erasmus: "Die Zahl der
Druckfehler ist so gross, dass ein vollständiges Verzeichniss derselben Seiten füllen würde." Comp. Scrivener, Introd. to the Criticism of
the N. T., 3d ed. (1883), p. 432 sq.
(^448) It first appeared in the Frankfort edition of Luther’s Bible, 1574. The revised Luther-Bible of 1883 strangely retains the passage,
but in small type and in brackets, with the note that it was wanting in Luther’s editions. The Probebibel departs only in a few places from
the Erasmian text as followed by Luther: viz., Acts 12:25; Heb. 10:34; 1 John 2:23; Rev. 11:2. In this respect the German revision is far
behind the Anglo-American revision of 1881, which corrects the Textus Receptus In about five thousand places.