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He was, according to all that is known of his father's family, the oldest son. According to the old Thuringian law the home place and appurtenances of a peasant freeholder passed to the youngest son. McGiffert regards the custom as "admirably careful of those most needing care." If Hans was a fugitive from justice, he was certainly unwise in not fleeing far enough.
We remarked before that we would not apologize for Luther's rashness and coarse speech. Luther's acts are self-vindicating; they will approve themselves to the discriminating judgment of every reader of history. We can appreciate this sentiment of McGiffert : "As well apologize for the fury of the wind as for the vehemence of Martin Luther."
It is here to give coherence and unity to the objects of the understanding, "to finish and crown the whole of human knowledge." Experience of transcendence thus becomes impossible. As Professor McGiffert in The Modern Ideas of God says: "Subjectively considered, religion is the recognition of our duties as commands of God.
Erasmus and others published versions of the Greek Testament which were disturbing to the Vulgate as a final version. McGiffert, Martin Luther. The other great event of that same century was the invention of printing with movable type. It was in 1455 that Gutenberg printed his first book, an edition of the Vulgate, now called the Mazarin Bible.
Beside the general works in Church History and History of Doctrine, see the Lives of Luther, in German especially those of Köstlin-Kawerau, Kolde, Berger and Hausrath; in English those of Beard, Jacobs, Lindsay, Smith and McGiffert; also Boehmer, Luther im Lichte der neueren Forschung, ad ed., Leipzig, 1910.
McGiffert has the right perception of the Luther of 1517-1519 when he describes him as "the awakening reformer," thus: "He had the true reformer's conscience the sense of responsibility for others as well as for himself, and the true reformer's vision of the better things that ought to be.
It is my hope that the present sincere discussion will assist, in some small measure, the coming of such a religion. McGiffert, The Rise of Modern Religious Ideas, p. 272. We must, perforce, admit that our ancestors awoke to consciousness of themselves and their surroundings at a time when they knew practically nothing, as we understand knowledge.
LUTHER AND LUTHERANISM. Of innumerable biographies of Luther the best from sympathetic Protestant pens are: Julius Koestlin, Life of Luther, trans. and abridged from the German ; T. M. Lindsay, Luther and the German Reformation ; A. C. McGiffert, Martin Luther, the Man and his Work ; Preserved Smith, The Life and Letters of Martin Luther ; Charles Beard, Martin Luther and the Reformation in Germany until the Close of the Diet of Worms . A remarkable arraignment of Luther is the work of the eminent Catholic historian, F. H. S. Denifle, Luther und Luthertum in der ersten Entwickelung, 3 vols.
The account of the conversion of Paul, on the other hand, brief as it is, has at least minor dramatic elements in it. On the whole, the Old Testament is far more dramatic than the New. McGiffert, Life of Martin Luther. There is even less of the oratorical element in the Scripture. There is, to be sure, a considerable amount of quotation, and men do speak at some length, but seldom oratorically.
He might interpret his confidence as trust in God, won by the path of a complete contempt of his own powers; but however understood, it gave him an independence and a disregard of consequences which made his conscience and his vision effective for reform." McGiffert suggests a comparison of Luther with, let us say, Erasmus. But he was neither humanist nor schoolman.
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