# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1855_S63
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Lutheran-theological Pastors' Library. 63

into which some other edition of Luther's writings has been introduced.
A third advantage is that the Walch edition gives all the works Luther
originally wrote in Latin (though with a few exceptions) in a good German
translation. A fourth advantage is that this edition contains a compact
account, richly furnished with factual detail, of Luther's life, his work,
his merits, his gifts, his peculiarities, as well as of the attacks and the
vindications he experienced from enemies and friends alike. A fifth
advantage is a so-called comparative index it contains, by means of which
one is enabled to find, without laborious searching, in the Walch edition
the passages cited from the other editions with their page numbers.
Admittedly, this edition is becoming ever rarer and its price therefore
higher. This incomparable work — by whose production, accomplished with
unbelievable effort, the dear late Walch alone earned imperishable merit
for the Christian church — is, however, well worth a greater outlay of
money wherever a pastor is in any way able to raise it. A pastor who
possesses it can walk about in the midst of it, even in the wilderness,
as in a paradise. — The edition to be recommended next is, to be sure,
the Erlangen edition, which, besides the two important advantages named
above, also recommends itself by its unparalleled cheapness.*) Perhaps
the publishing house in question will resolve also to give, in German
translation, the writings so far offered only in Latin (for example, the
exposition of the first book of Moses and of the Epistle to the Galatians;
the tracts On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church and That the Free
Will Is Nothing, etc.); then this edition would, for those not versed in
the Latin language, come nearly to replace the Walch edition as well. —
The next best, and the edition to be recommended after that, is the
Leipzig edition in 23 folio volumes, published in the years 1729–1740.
It too contains all the important works Luther originally wrote in Latin,
in German translation, including the postils; the Table Talk, however, is
still lacking in it. This edition is thoroughly worth its price and is
surpassed only by Walch's valuable introductory and documentary
additions and by the greater completeness of the Erlangen edition,
although the Leipzig edition still has the advantage, for many, of giving
the Latin original writings precisely in German. — The next most
complete is the Altenburg edition in 10 folio volumes, from 1661–1664.
This one, too, already contains the principal Latin original writings in
German translation; but besides the Table Talk it still lacks the
postils. The chronological order followed in it, given the absence of
critical introductory remarks, is an advantage of this edition. — The
next to be recommended

*) According to a notice recently given in the "Lutheraner," the
publishing house in Erlangen and Frankfurt am Main is offering the now
completed collected edition of Luther's German works, consisting of 64
volumes, for 21½ Prussian thalers, and grants a further price reduction
on the purchase of lots of 25 to 50 copies.