# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1863_S56
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

56 A New Homiletical Monthly.

the Lutheran translation of Holy Scripture. It is a peculiar phenomenon that it is precisely those learned gentlemen of decidedly unionist mind who, with all the outwardly expressed regard for Luther's Bible translation, are nevertheless driven by an inward aversion to it, and who work by every possible means toward its being set aside and, little by little, put out of the way.

What spirit, properly speaking, is at work among the Unionists has long been clear to sober Lutherans: namely, under the cloak of union, the spirit of confusion, the spirit that destroys all churchly unity, the old enemy of the one firm, certain, confident faith. Who then will wonder that this church-destroying spirit is at work, so that its work is completed, and now even the foundation of the one faith, the firm and certain Word of God itself, is undermined? The German people have no other Word of God, and can have no other, than a German translation of it. Luther's Bible translation is, to the German people, the Word of God. This is now to be taken from them as well; they are no longer to take confident comfort in it; they are no longer to strike their enemies with confidence with the words, "it is written!" — but instead doubt is to be instilled, and the question is always to be carried in the heart: is it really written so? They are to grow accustomed to thinking no longer, "it is written," but only, "it stands translated" — whether rightly or wrongly, that of course they themselves do not know. That would then be the triumph of the union: the one firm faith, as well as the one firm Scripture, would be gone! — Dr. Schaff now begins his operations very practically. He does not, say, first translate the whole of Holy Scripture, lay it before the church for examination, and seek, upon her approval, to introduce it among the people. No — that goes far too slowly, and might also meet with possible obstacles. Instead he composes catechisms and sermons, in which his "corrections" of the translation of Holy Scripture are introduced straightway, without further ado. Thus the corrections of the German Bible come before the people's eyes even sooner than the "corrected" translation itself. But the people must naturally wish to have a Bible that agrees with their catechism — and what will Schaff do then? He must already move on to the great work of his own Bible translation, and so he arrives at the goal after all, only by the reverse route. Incidentally, every other scholar evidently has the same right as Schaff to correct the uncorrected people, in catechisms, with Bible verses corrected on his own authority and by his own self-conceived wisdom. And it might well happen that before long every college would have its own corrected Bible. What sort of churchly unity would arise from that, anyone may easily judge for himself. — Truly, Mr. Dr. Schaff has provided very poorly for the unity of the German churches, which he indeed seems so eager to pursue, seeing that he takes from them — so far as lies in his own part — the one bond of union they still have, the one Lutheran translation. — He says, in the preface to his "Christian Catechism," which at the end