# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1855_S150
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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

A similar manner of speaking is found in Genesis 24:55, where Laban says to Eliezer: “Let the maiden remain with us a day or ten,” that is, about ten days. Likewise, Dr. Luther says: “I have also celebrated a Mass or ten at Rome”; furthermore, in the Large Catechism on the Seventh Commandment: “There you can steal a florin, thirty, forty, and more in a year,” that is, some thirty or forty florins. The clearest example is found in a letter of Luther’s in which he asks the Elector for a salary increase of fifteen florins for a pastor. It reads: “May Your Electoral and Princely Grace graciously arrange for one florin or fifteen to be given.” (Schütz, Unpublished Letters of Luther I, 400.)

That Dr. Luther attached the meaning indicated above to that expression is clear from a letter he wrote soon after the appearance of that preface, in which he says: “But I think and desire that private Communion should be abolished entirely everywhere, namely in such a way that the people would be taught in the sermon to receive Communion three or four times a year, and thereafter, through the comfort of the Word and the strength derived from it, to fall asleep blessedly at any time when God should summon them.” (Walch XXI, 1194.)

The expression “chief part” is found in no edition of the Small Catechism, though the individual sections do have headings according to their content, such as “The Ten Commandments,” “The Creed,” etc.

Regarding the number of these sections, Dr. Luther says in the second preface to the Large Catechism: “Thus one would have, in all, five parts of the whole Christian doctrine,” namely, in addition to the first three, those concerning Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. To these, beginning with the second edition of the Small Catechism, the section on Confession was added; nevertheless, until the end of the sixteenth century, the Wittenberg church retained the division into six chief parts.

Matthesius, by contrast, in his biography of Luther, which first appeared in 1565, counts six chief parts, designating Absolution as the fifth; and this division is found in various catechisms and church orders of the sixteenth century.

In all editions from 1529 to 1542, the First Commandment reads: “You shall have no other gods”; nevertheless, the promise at the beginning, “I am the LORD your God,” is consistently omitted, as are the words at the end, “beside Me.”

The Second Commandment originally reads: “You shall not use the name of your God in vain” (in the Book of Concord: “not misuse”). The threat, “For the Lord will not leave unpunished anyone who uses His name in vain,” is consistently omitted.

The promise attached to the Fourth Commandment, “that it may go well with you and that you may live long upon the earth,” is found only in Luther’s final edition of 1542; the Book of Concord does not have it.

The conclusion of the Ten Commandments reads throughout as follows: “I, the