He therefore insisted on this insertion in spite of all outcry against it. His defense is verycharacteristic. "If your papist," he says,^458 "makes much useless fuss about the word sola, allein,
tell him at once: Doctor Martin Luther will have it so, and says: Papist and donkey are one thing;
sic volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas. For we do not want to be pupils and followers of the
Papists, but their masters and judges." Then he goes on in the style of foolish boasting against the
Papists, imitating the language of St. Paul in dealing with his Judaizing opponents (2 Cor. 11:22
sqq.): "Are they doctors? so am I. Are they learned? so am I. Are they preachers? so am I. Are they
theologians? so am I. Are they disputators? so am I. Are they philosophers? so am I. Are they the
writers of books? so am I. And I shall further boast: I can expound Psalms and Prophets; which
they can not. I can translate; which they can not .... Therefore the word allein shall remain in my
New Testament, and though all pope-donkeys (Papstesel) should get furious and foolish, they shall
not turn it out."^459
The Protestant and anti-Romish character of Luther’s New Testament is undeniable in his
prefaces, his discrimination between chief books and less important books, his change of the
traditional order, and his unfavorable judgments on James, Hebrews, and Revelation.^460 It is still
more apparent in his marginal notes, especially on the Pauline Epistles, where he emphasizes
throughout the difference between the law and the gospel, and the doctrine of justification by faith
alone; and on the Apocalypse, where he finds the papacy in the beast from the abyss (Rev. 13), and
in the Babylonian harlot (Rev. 17).^461 The anti-papal explanation of the Apocalypse became for a
long time almost traditional in Protestant commentaries.
On the other hand, the Roman Catholic translators used the same liberty of marginal
annotations and pictorial illustrations in favor of the doctrines and usages of their own church.
Emser’s New Testament is full of anti-Lutheran glosses. In Rom. 3:28, he protests on the margin
against Luther’s allein, and says, "Paul by the words ’without works of the law’ does not mean that
man is saved by faith alone, without good works, but only without works of the law, that is, external
circumcision and other Jewish ceremonies." He therefore confines the "law" here to the ritual law,
and "works" to Jewish works; while, according to the best modern commentators, Paul means the
whole law, moral as well as ceremonial, and all works commanded by the law. And yet even in the
same chapter and throughout the whole Epistle to the Romans, Emser copies verbatim Luther’s
version for whole verses and sections; and where he departs from his language, it is generally for
the worse.
The same may be said of the other two German Catholic Bibles of the age of the Reformation.
They follow Luther’s language very closely within the limits of the Vulgate, and yet abuse him in
the notes. Dr. Dietenberger adds his comments in smaller type after the chapters, and agrees with
(^458) In his Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen, in the Erl.-Frkf. ed., vol. LXV., p. 107 sqq. It was published in September, 1530, with special
reference to Emser, whom he does not name, but calls "the scribbler from Dresden" ("der dresdener Sudler").
(^459) The Revisers of the Probebibel retained the interpolated allein in Rom. 8:28, the nur in 4:15, and the incorrect rendering in 3:25,26,—a
striking proof of Luther’s overpowering influence even over conscientious critical scholars in Germany. Dr. Grimm, the lexicographer
(l.c., p. 48), unjustly censures Meyer and Stier for omitting the word allein. I have an old copy of Luther’s Testament, without titlepage,
before me, where the word allein is printed in larger type with a marginal finger pointing to it.
(^460) The Prefaces are collected in the 7th volume of Bindseil’s edition of the Luther Bible, and in the 63d volume of the Erlangen ed. of
Luther’s works. The most important is his preface to the Epistle to the Romans, and his most objectionable that to the Epistle of James.
(^461) He adds in the marginal note on Rev. 17: "Hie zeiget er die römische Kirche in ihrer Gestalt und Wesen, die verdammt soll werden."
His friend Cranach, in the accompanying picture in the first ed., and also in the ed. of 1535, represents the harlot as riding on a dragon
with a triple crown on her head.