# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1855_S62
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

62 Lutheran-theological Pastors' Library.

an almost inexhaustible mine for every branch of theology; they are so rich
a treasury that they alone could well take the place of a great library, but
no library, however great, can take their place. We subscribe with our
whole soul to what Professor Dr. Thomasius writes in the preface to the
first part of his Dogmatics (Christ's Person and Work, Erlangen, 1853):
"We have, for some time now, and rightly, begun again to go back to our
older dogmaticians; but we would do well to immerse ourselves still more
than heretofore in the man in whose heart the blood of evangelical faith
pulsed the warmest and most vividly; there is still, as it seems to me,
infinitely much to be gained from Luther for the revival and refreshment
of our dogmatics, of which it has recently been said 'that it is beginning
to grow somewhat barren.'" — As for the edition of Luther's works that we
recommend to the reader, and especially to the theological reader, it is
the Halle edition prepared by the late J. G. Walch, in twenty-four quarto
volumes, published in the years 1740–1753. To be sure, the new Erlangen
edition has, over the aforementioned Halle edition, a number of
indisputable advantages; among them belongs, first, the old orthography
of Luther left almost untouched in the former, which alone is the right,
fitting garment for the classically archaic, inimitably vigorous yet
simple language of Luther, whereas through the orthography followed in
Walch — which at times even tampers with sentence construction — many of
Luther's peculiarities and beauties have been effaced.*) To those
advantages belongs, second, the greater completeness of the Erlangen
edition, in that it includes everything found since Walch, including
Luther's literary remains that had until then remained unprinted. Yet the
Walch edition still retains essential advantages over all others, not
excepting even the Erlangen edition. Among these belong, first, the
thorough and detailed introductions that Walch gives to each individual
writing of Luther, which as a rule provide the most desirable information
about the time, occasion, content, and fortunes, etc., of the writing, and
contain all manner of rare biographical and literary-historical notices. A
second advantage is that this edition also includes the most important
counter-writings, for example those of a Carlstadt, Zwingli, Oecolampadius,
Erasmus, and others — a great mass of the most important and rarest
documents useful for illustrating the course of the work of the
Reformation, in the most careful selection — and all the important
prefaces, with

*) Only ignorance can deny the importance of orthography. Christoph
Walther writes in his report on the Wittenberg Bibles: "The man of God
commanded, with especial care and deliberation, that every word in his
Bible and all his other books be printed with its proper letters; after
he, Dr. Martinus, and Caspar Cruciger had helped one another polish the
German language pure and good. And these two men earnestly commanded
their descendants to keep such order and orthography always and with all
diligence." (See Walch's edition, XIV, 813, 814.) It would be
desirable if the Erlangen edition had likewise kept the original
punctuation. Luther bestowed great care on this as well, and it is just
as difficult, and often just as decisive for the sense, to punctuate
Luther's speech correctly.