# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1847 10 13_S25
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.

"God's Word and Luther's teaching shall never now nor ever pass away."

Published by the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States.

Edited by C. F. W. Walther.

Volume 4.

St. Louis, Mo., October 20, 1847.

Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks, for an annual subscription price of one dollar for out-of-town subscribers, who must pay in advance and bear the postage themselves. — In St. Louis, each single issue is sold for 5 cents.

Only letters containing contributions for the paper are to be sent to the editor; all others, however — containing business matters, orders, cancellations, moneys, etc. — are to be sent here under the address: Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

(Submitted by Prof. Wolter.)

"Who told you that this (the Bible) is Holy Scripture?"

According to No. 19 of the Catholic Church Gazette (under the heading "An Interesting Occurrence"), it was this question by which a Catholic priest and doctor of Holy Scripture gave a noble Prussian Protestant the first and, it seems, also the decisive impulse to enter the bosom of the so-called Catholic Church. According to the report, the persons named are both said to have possessed not only refined manners but also much understanding and insight. The first may be granted; but it seems that the latter remark was made only with the intention of luring such simple or impure souls as, even in matters of faith, place stock in human judgment and outward show; for in truth the noble Protestant possessed a far greater measure of foolishness than of understanding, and with the Catholic priest and doctor of theology either the same was the case, or the measure of truth in him must have been very small indeed. Now, although we are not of the opinion that a believing Lutheran — that is, one who knows the faith from experience, and does not merely profess, "I hold to be true what the Lutheran Church teaches" — that such a one would be confounded by the question posed above and would have no answer to give, still, for the sake of the weak and for the furtherance of truth, we wish briefly to address the matter.

The "interesting occurrence" in question is, in substance, as follows: a Catholic priest meets with a noble Protestant Prussian; the latter wishes to enter into a detailed discussion with the priest concerning various matters of religion; the priest is willing, but considers it advisable that a third party be brought in as arbiter; to comply with this, the Protestant lays a Bible on the table; the priest leafs cursorily through the Bible and then turns to his opponent with the question: "My lord! You have laid down a book here; but who told you that it is Holy Scripture?" The nobleman answers: "Have you then not seen it?" The priest: "I have seen it, but I ask you again, who told you that this is Holy Scripture?" The nobleman, taken aback: "The whole world recognizes it as such, and do you yourself not recognize it as such?" The priest: "Oh, my lord! the case is very different between you and me; when I assure you that this is Holy Scripture, I assure it on the basis of an infallible testimony which vouches for it to me — I have it from her hand, and through her authority, which I hold to be infallible, I am certain of my ground; but you, my lord, on what do you base yourself, and how can you in fact be assured that this here is Holy Scripture, that this book has not been altered? And if you are not assured of that, how can you accept it as arbiter over our differing views? Furthermore — even if we agreed on the words of the text, but differed on their meaning, who would explain it to us in such a way that we could be perfectly certain of it?" These questions were so new and so difficult for the nobleman of much understanding and insight that he did not know how to help himself; he promises to think further on the matter, and the result of this reflection is that, after some years have passed, he is able to present himself to the Roman priest as a firm Catholic.

From what has been related, I hope the kind reader will not find it too harsh a judgment if we ascribe to the nobleman a fair measure of foolishness. For in the first place, this is already attested by his very answer: "The whole world recognizes the Bible as Holy Scripture." The nobleman must therefore not have known that, besides the Christians, there are also many millions of Jews, Muhammadans, and heathens, who likewise belong to the world and not one of whom holds the Bible to be Holy Scripture; otherwise he would surely have said, instead of "the whole world," "the whole of Christendom." Moreover, he must have been very poorly versed in the Bible, although he, according to his own statement, always carries it with him; otherwise he would have known that the word of the cross, which the Bible proclaims, is not only a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks, but that the reason of every unbelieving person takes offense at it, even if he, admittedly quite wrongly, bears the name of Christian. The nobleman, being a man of much understanding, might well have known that there are Rationalists (believers in reason), "Friends of Light," and similar folk among the Christians who do not truly hold the Bible to be Holy Scripture, and should therefore, instead of "the whole of Christendom," more correctly have said: "the whole of believing Christendom."

Secondly, the nobleman is simple enough not to notice that when the Roman priest asserts that he holds the Bible to be Holy Scripture because he has for it an infallible testimony (he means the Roman Church), whose authority he holds to be infallible — that the Roman priest has thereby not at all answered the very question he himself raised, but has only pushed it back; for how does the Roman priest himself know that the testimony which he holds to be infallible is really infallible? Is he not at least just as much obliged to prove this infallibility as the nobleman could be required to prove that the Bible is God's Word? And has not, in truth, the nobleman, even considered only outwardly, a far more general and more reliable testimony for his assertion? Does he not have on his side the whole believing Christendom of all times and all places when he declares the Bible to be Holy Scripture? The Roman priest, on the other hand, for the infallibility of his testimony, that is, the Roman Church, has, first, not the whole believing Christendom of all times, for the doctrine that the Roman Church is infallible was wholly foreign to the Christendom of the first centuries;