# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1855_S208
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

208 Lutheran-Theological Pastors’ Library.

that it might not fail, we would gladly contribute something toward this end, however small our part. Flacius, incidentally, was born in 1520 in the town of Albona in Istria, a part of Illyria (for which reason he is also often called simply Illyricus), and died in 1575 at Frankfurt a. M. with the sigh: Jesu Christe, fili Dei, miserere mei! [Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me!]

c. As already noted, a Lutheran pastor undoubtedly needs, in addition to aids for understanding the New Testament in general, a resource specifically for a deeper study of the Holy Gospels. For this purpose, however, apart from the commentaries found in Luther’s works, in our judgment there is nothing better than the following famous work: “Five Books of Gospel Harmony, First Begun by the Most Excellent Theologian Dr. Martin Chemnitz and Continued by Dr. Polycarp Lyser.” To this also belongs: “Continuation of the Chemnitz-Lyser Harmony of the Evangelists, Elucidated by J. Gerhard with an Appropriate Commentary.” This work is an exposition of the four Gospels based on a harmonious arrangement of their texts. Martin Chemnitz, the principal co-author of the Formula of Concord, born at Treuenbriezen in 1522 and deceased as superintendent at Braunschweig in 1586, began this work and continued it through the fifty-first chapter (namely, through Matthew 7:29; Mark 3:30; Luke 6:49; John 5:47, not counting several passages from later chapters that Chemnitz had already included and explained here for the sake of the harmony). Death, however, called this incomparable theologian away from his blessed labor to eternal rest. Polycarpus Leyser, his successor in office, who died in 1610, brought Chemnitz’s manuscript to light and first published the work in print in 1593. Though unfinished, it was so valuable that he urged its readers fervently to call upon God for a capable continuator. When no one had been found by 1599, and Leyser published Chemnitz’s work for the second time, he promised to yield to the requests of his friends and himself venture upon the further completion of the harmonious exposition already begun, urgently asking the readers for their earnest intercession on his own behalf. Yet neither was the learned, brilliant, and godly Leyser granted the privilege of bringing the great work to completion. His work extends through Matthew 20:34; Mark 10:52; Luke 19:28; John 11:45. After Leyser himself had published the first two parts of his work in 1603 and 1608, his son of the same name, then professor and superintendent at Leipzig, published the final part in 1611 after his father’s death. To the profound regret of the entire theological world of that time, the work then remained a fragment for many years. No theologian could be found who was willing to undertake the completion of a work begun by predecessors such as Chemnitz and Leyser. All the urgent private appeals—and Johann Gerhard received no small number of them for this purpose—could not persuade this theologian, as humble as he was great, to do so. When