# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1864_S211
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Christian Catechism; A Guide to Religious Instruction. 211

I should bear witness unto the truth." At chapter 5:33 likewise the dative is used. If Christ were only to bear witness to the truth, he could not have said, "I am the truth." But precisely so that this truth of the Gospel, which was hidden from all men, might become known, Christ, as the Truth itself, was to give testimony through his appearing. Sebastian Castellio, that great philologist and translator, renders the former passage: veritatem tester, and the latter: verum testatus est. At Romans 3:28 Dr. Schaff has the apostle Paul write thus: "We conclude, then, that man is justified by faith," etc. What German does not feel that Luther says it far more beautifully: "So halten wir nun" ["So we hold now"]! In parentheses the author adds: "The 'alone' of the Lutheran translation does not stand in the original text, but is suited to the sense of the passage." Thank you for your kindness, Herr Doctor! If it is suited to the sense of the passage, why should we not retain it, especially since Christians read the Bible in order to grasp its sense. But it can hardly be unknown to the author that Luther himself defended the word sola — already attacked in his own day — better than anyone else could. At 2 Corinthians 7:1 the new translation says: "and perfecting holiness in the fear of God." It cannot be denied that the word ἐπιτελεῖν has the meaning of "completing"; but, judging by comparison with most of the passages in which it is used, there underlies it a continuing — a completing by ever-continuing addition (ἐπί). Pure completion is expressed rather by the words ἀποτελεῖν and συντελεῖν. If, then, the new version is not exactly wrong, there is still not sufficient reason to depart from Luther's likewise not incorrectly translated "continuing" [Fortfahren]. As evidence that the new translation also departs from Luther's Bible-language without need, the passage 2 Peter 1:5ff. may serve: "add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity." As we have already seen, the author does not remain faithful to his resolve to translate literally. Whereas at 1 John 3:2 it reads, "that we shall be like him (not equal to him)," at Matthew 22:39 it reads: "And the second is like unto it (ὁμοία)." Likewise, in the translation of the passage Isaiah 42:8, ani jehovah, "I am the LORD," one could make the author's own marginal note: "am" does not stand in the original text. The good Doctor boasts of having translated Isaiah 58:13 literally: "if thou call the sabbath a delight." The difference between the two is that Luther speaks German, Dr. Schaff speaks Hebrew. But that at Genesis 2:3 the word asah is translated by "accomplished" — namely, "which God had created and accomplished" — has little basis, unless it be the one, to show that it can also be expressed otherwise than by "made." A particular example of a euphonious translation is Colossians 3:22: "Servants,