Luther’s Works: Companion Volume. Sixteenth-Century Biographies of Martin Luther ed. by Christopher Boyd Brown

Abstract

Reviewed by: Luther’s Works: Companion Volume. Sixteenth-Century Biographies of Martin Luther ed. by Christopher Boyd Brown Timothy J. Wengert Luther’s Works: Companion Volume. Sixteenth-Century Biographies of Martin Luther. Edited by Christopher Boyd Brown. St. Louis: Concordia, 2018. 728 pp. In 1959 Concordia Publishing House produced a companion volume to Luther’s Works [American edition], written by Jaroslav Pelikan: Luther the Expositor: Introduction to the Reformer’s Exegetical Writings. Not only was that volume extremely limited in scope (focusing chiefly on the Lord’s Supper), it quickly became outdated, especially as the study of Reformation biblical interpretation accelerated in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Now Christopher Boyd Brown has produced a second companion volume, which promises by contrast to serve Luther studies for many years to come. Unlike its predecessor, this volume provides not one scholar’s opinions of Luther but instead new translations of the most important biographical works on Martin Luther from the sixteenth century, the influence of which continues to shape our views of Luther. Accompanied by impeccable notes and a stunning introduction of nearly one hundred pages, this book needs to be on the shelves of anyone interested in the theology and history of Wittenberg’s central reformer. [End Page 472] The book begins with several smaller, early contributions by Luther’s Wittenberg colleagues and friends and concludes with Johannes Mathesius’s large set of sermons (seventeen in all), in which the Wittenberg graduate and pastor in Joachimstal presented a detailed look at many aspects of Luther’s life and career. Readers can now read Luther’s preface to a catalogue of his works, the report of Justus Jonas and Michael Coelius (court preacher to the counts of Mansfeld) on Luther’s last days in Eisleben, the funeral sermon of Johannes Bugenhagen, Philip Melanchthon’s funeral oration, and the latter’s preface to the second volume of Luther’s works from June 1546. Johann Walter, a musician and collaborator with Luther on hymnody and other compositions, produced an interesting and (for modern ears) very different genre of remembering, a sixty-four stanza poem outlining Luther’s life and teaching, “A New Spiritual Song about the Blessed, Precious, and Highly Gifted Man, Dr. Martin Luther, the Prophet and Apostle of Germany.” All these works fill only 100 pages; the remaining 500 pages consist of Mathesius’s sermons. The translations are excellent, including Kevin G. Walker’s highly readable, entertaining rendering of Mathesius’s work. If one reads no other section, the seventh sermon, preached on Shrove Tuesday for Mathesius’s mining congregation, contains selected fables and other stories recounted by Luther, Melanchthon, and Mathesius. This lighter side of the reformers is often lost in today’s biographical works and demonstrates aspects of Luther’s personality easily stifled by overly pious or intellectual approaches. Editor Brown demonstrates his excellent command of sixteenth-century Latin with his translation of the two Melanchthon pieces into remarkably clear and accurate English. The annotations and introduction are of the very highest quality. Brown shows his complete mastery of the secondary literature and, in the case of Melanchthon’s work, proves among other things how relatively little Erasmus figures in those writings, countering a popular (and mistaken) theory of James Michael Weiss regarding the various versions of the funeral oration. He also thoroughly appreciates Melanchthon’s use of rhetorical forms in constructing both the oration and the preface. Throughout, Brown succinctly informs [End Page 473] the reader about historical problems—for example, debates over the posting of the 95 Theses—using recent bibliographical sources. The annotations also help the reader through the thicket of occasionally incorrect renderings of Luther’s biography, especially in Mathesius’s work. Even so, Brown reminds us that Mathesius’s work continues to set the parameters of Luther biographies. (One of the few exceptions to the Mathesius model may be the unique and still valuable contribution of Heiko A. Oberman, Luther: Man between God and the Devil [New Haven: Yale, 1989].) What kind of Luther do we find on these pages? Perhaps the varied answers to this question demonstrate the importance of this collection, as we discover Luther the scholar (and humanist), Luther the...