# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1855_S127
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

On the Original Form of the Small Catechism, etc. 127

on the one hand reveals how Luther’s genius dominated the entire intellectual atmosphere of that time from the very beginning, while on the other hand it shows us how Luther himself had to have the final word in this matter as well, and how he alone could write such a model little book as the Small Catechism.”

What was it, then, that chiefly compelled the dear man of God to put his own hand to the work? He himself tells us in the words of his preface: “I was forced and compelled to set forth this catechism, or Christian doctrine, in such a brief, plain, and simple form by the deplorable, wretched distress that I recently encountered when I too was a visitor” (namely, during the general visitation of the Saxon churches, in which he himself took part in November 1528). “Help us, dear God! What misery I saw—the ordinary people know absolutely nothing about Christian doctrine, especially in the villages, and unfortunately many pastors are almost entirely unfit and incompetent to teach.”

Thus Dr. Luther composed his Small Catechism in the year 1529; the precise month in which he completed it has not yet been determined, although such a date would be just as important as the date on which he completed his translation of the New Testament. *)

Aurifaber, a pupil of Dr. Luther, says that in the month of January he first had the German Catechism issued in print. This statement agrees with information given by Luther in a letter to M. Görlitz dated January 15 of that year: “I am just now engaged in preparing the catechism for the uncivilized heathen.”

Buchholtzer gives the same information in his Index chronol. and adds that the Large Catechism appeared about the month of October. (Osiandri Epitome sec. XVI.)

Matthesius, by contrast, says that Dr. Luther composed first the Large and then the Small Catechism. The two works by Mönckeberg and Schneider mentioned above contain detailed investigations into the question of which catechism appeared first, and their conclusion confirms what Matthesius says.

Only one more point should be noted here: if the first edition of the Small Catechism did not appear until toward the end of 1529, it would be difficult to explain not only how all the copies could have been used up, but also how a second edition could have been produced in that same year. The fact that Dr. Luther refers to the Large Catechism in the preface to the Small Catechism cannot prove that the former was composed earlier, since that preface was not yet included in the first edition, but only in

*) According to Hopf’s statement in his work on Luther’s translation of the Bible (p. 58), this was September 21, 1522; Dr. Bugenhagen also celebrated a festival annually on that day in grateful commemoration of the publication of the revised Lutheran translation of the Bible (1541). See Dr. Rudelbach’s biography of Bugenhagen, in which, however, St. Matthias’s Day is confused with St. Matthew’s Day; the former falls on February 24, the latter on September 21.