Johann Michael Reu

“ The great and unifying thought, that joined the north and the south was lacking, the mastering and ponderous gravity of a great personality, who knew how to press the German language into the service of a great cause, over which every German could enthuse. In order to realize this great aim among the German people, Luther was forced to bring the many beginnings for a popular and unified language to their full development. ”

“ The word of the 'greatest man of the people, the most popular character Germany ever possessed,'27 as one of the famous men in Germany once called Luther, can not only appear before the nation in all its monumental greatness, it must, like once when it set aflame the hearts of all the people, be heard by and become the warp and woof of the people. The new complete edition of Luther's works must be accorded a reception among the German people that is in proportion to its work. ”

“ Luther and the Wittenberg-Concord, 1536
It was a momentous event when, in 1536, the Wittenberg-Concord was established between Luther and the upper Germans, and when Luther said: "We have now heard the answer and confession that all of you believe and teach that in the Eucharist the true body and the true blood of the Lord is given and received and not only bread and wine; also that this giving and receiving takes place in reality and not in imagination; you only take offense, because the real presence is there also for the impious. ”

“ Any minister to-day who has had a Greek course of a college and seminary is a far better scholar than Luther. Let such a man, if he thinks Luther's achievement possible, attempt the accurate translation of a single chapter of the New Testament — such a translation as he would be willing to print under his own name — and multiply the time consumed by the 260 chapters. He will be speedily convinced that the feat attributed to Luther is an impossible one. ”

“ He will always have this school to thank for the strong accentuation of the will in the idea of God, for the beginning of his understanding of faith as building upon positive facts of revelation and mistrusting reason. The moral undertone in the way of salvation, as the School of Occam taught it, aided in multiplying his inner restlessness. The tension between reason and faith, self and the will of God is intensified, and, for the time being solved, through the reading of Augustine, whose earlier writings, tinged with New-platonic ideas, Luther at that time preferred. ”

“ Risch in his comprehensive essay (compare also Kuehn) calls attention to the fact that the student in following the "German Bible" in the Weimar edition can not only trace how Luther in the course of time much better commands the text, but also ever better and with increasing skill handles the German language. Here the development of the modern High German can be discerned as nowhere else, and one also sees his genius for language and his fidelity in the work for the language of his people in all its wonderful uniqueness. Overwhelming and humiliating alike it stands forth in bold relief. ”

“ Learn to know your Luther, not covered with political halo, not the commanding figure, hewn out of solid granite, but Luther as he worked and lived, in his greatness and in his weakness, in his zealousness and in his overzealousness, in his wisdom and his abruptness. ”

“ H. von Schubert says of it in the preface of the second edition: "Hausrath's Luther is conceived and portrayed as Carlyle conceived and portrayed his heroes, with the mind of an historian and poet. It may be that here and there corrections may be made, that here and there the brush daubed on too vivid colors, but forsooth the highest has been achieved: The great personality has been so vitally understood from its very depths and has been accorded its place in its time, that its visible, world-known and world-recasting influence is made believable." ”

“ Sohm, Kolde, Brandenburg, Koehler, Drews, K. Mueller, Holl, Hermelink and Waring aim at making us acquainted with this view of Luther of the State and its relation to the Church, as well as with the dream of founding ideal congregations that was once dreamed by him.70 Space does not permit to dwell longer upon this matter. May it suffice to say that the principle of the freedom of the Church as well as the freedom of the State, so dear to us Americans and so fundamental for the sound development of the future of our nation, was laid down by no one else than by Luther. ”

“ Many a Protestant, in the belief that Janssen is right, thinks that he must recast his judgment, and that not for the better, of the Reformation and the reformers. In the press and in public gatherings one continually meets with opinions of Protestants concerning the faith of their ancestors, its origin and its influence upon the life of the people, upon morals, art, and economic conditions, opinions all of which are echoes from Janssen. ”

“ Furthermore, it is a fact that Luther soon after his Doctor-promotion began to work on the Psalms and that in these lectures, extending from 1513-1516, we have an important milestone of his inner development. Without placing himself, after a critical examination, in opposition to the system of doctrine of the Church, still there are moments when rays of true evangelical faith break through these lectures, especially can we more and more gain glimpses into a soul that has found its peace in that righteousness of God that makes all sinners just. ”

“ One must clearly visualize this mental revolution with its psychological results for the linguistic expression of the masses, who stood in the midst of the stream, in order fully to appreciate Luther's importance for the history of language." "The stronger projection of the dialect during the 15th century plainly reveals how the politically disjointed Germany also cultivated but little of mental touch and intercourse. And the international character of humanism was even less in a position to afford the people the mental unity. ”

“ Reu is one of the most prolific authors of the Lutheran Church in our country. To the books that he has written, he has again added another: Luthers Leben fuer die reifere Jugend vind das christliche Haus. It is one of the best books that the anniversary year has produced, and is more profusely illustrated, so far as we know, than any other. The beautiful, clear type deserves special mention. If any one desires to add another book to the list of his anniversary volumes, or if he has no biography of the great Reformer, he should not pass by Dr. Reu's book. ”

“ Then also can it be ascertained how much of the offensive and vulgar, which Roman Catholic writers seem to find in the table-talks, is really to be attributed to Luther, and in what connection these outspoken statements were made. So it is already proven that the saying: "Wer nicht liebt Wein, Weib und Gesang, der bleibt ein Narr sein Leban lang" is not to be traced to Luther, but is of Italian origin. In short, when their publication in the Weimar edition has been completed these table-talks for their greater part will only afford a true estimate of Luther's personality. ”

“ Although the efficient co-operation of a catholic historian in the effort to shed more light upon the last centuries of the Middle Ages was highly gratifying even to Protestants, yet the publication of his history of the German people, the first volume of which appeared in 1877, proved a blow aimed at the very heart of Protestantism. ”

“ His report was a letter of information rather than of complaint against Luther. Pope Leo X. put the whole matter into the hands of Cajetan, his advisor in questions concerning faith and doctrine. That keen-sighted cardinal readily recognized that the point at issue in Luther's theses and other writings was not merely his rejection of indulgences, but also two other propositions of very great importance, (1) that natural man has no power to do what is really good and acceptable to God; (2) that the sinner is justified before God and saved alone through faith in Christ. ”

“ He shows how these ideas, by no means, caused him to appear contemptible, but how in reality his firm belief in the reality of the Devil, through whom God inflicts his salutary punishments upon man, and how his idea of the mightiness of Satan were for Luther a stimulant for a continual fight against evil, as he found it within and without himself, and an incentive for the good, for the perfection of others and himself. ”

“ Knaake, Enders, Kolde, Kawerau, Brieger, Tschackert, Buchwald, Walther, the constellation around Koestlin, constituted an able group of excellently trained historical investigators, fully qualified to investigate Luther's life and theology according to the principles of Ranke's school, successfully to cope with Janssen's caricatures, and thus to place before the eyes of the Protestant Church an undistorted, truthful picture of the great reformer. ”

“ In this work Janssen had placed his extensive knowledge of the religious conditions of the end of the Middle Ages into the service or subservience of the proof that the church, art, and science enjoyed a period of flourishing growth in the era just preceding the Reformation, only to be trampled to death under the roughshod feet of Luther and his followers. The volumes following, with their characterization of Luther and the Reformation, follow the same methods and thoughts employed in the first volume. ”

“ Here we see the lightning flashes of the great themes of the following years much more frequently and distinctly than in the lectures on the Psalms and we watch the Reformer's inner man develop in an astonishing manner. Here Luther also proves himself a lover of German and a scholar in the best sense of this word. Ficker says (1. c, p. LII) : "Luther is the first German professor who, in the academic lecture room, made use of his mother-tongue, and it is the lecture on Romans, in which he used it to a large degree. ”

“ Ever since the 13th century the need became apparent, and various circumstances during the 14th and 15th centuries tended to a unification of language: the ground was prepared. And this all the more so, since that very German, which through Luther's pioneer work was destined to be the mediator, the Middle German, had since the 14th century, where the literary center of gravity had shifted from the South to Middle Germany, received a greater literary importance than in the past and more and more had assimilated upper German elements. ”

“ Kolde, "Ueber die Grenzen, etc.," p. 4. "It is commonly acknowledged nowadays that secular and church history do not run parallel to each other like two streams, that only touch, when one of them overflows its banks, but, that they continually permeate and limit each other, and that the history of countries, of society, and of the entire intellectual life are no less of the highest importance for
Decoration at the end of the second part of Luther's Old Testament. ”

“ Cajetan, who during these weeks represented the pope at the Diet of Augsburg in 1518, was to get the dangerous Wittenberg monk into his power. Yes the authorities even considered the idea of proceeding against the Elector if he continued to shield Luther. It seemed as if Luther were lost. But God so changed the political situation that the pope suddenly was obliged to depend on the good will of the Elector of Saxony if he hoped to carry out his plans. And the Elector improved the situation to protect Luther. ”

“ The Dominican brethren lent their assistance all the more willingly because they were filled with envy, when they saw how Luther drew large numbers of students to Wittenberg, and how through him the Augustinian order forged ahead to honor and respect. Under the leadership of Doctor Rab, prior of the Monastery of St. Paul in Leipzig, to which Tetzel himself belonged, the Dominicans held a meeting of demonstration in Frankfurt a. O., and here decided vigorously to press the charge of heresy against Luther in Rome. ”

“ No one can afford to pass by this volume on catechetics, to whom the uplift of our Lutheran standards of instruction is a matter of deep concern.— Director Schaller, Wauwatosa, Wis. Dr. Reu's book represents the latest and best results of modern learning, and offers the catechist who desires to improve upon former methods of instruction so much material for study and so many suggestions for its practical application that we hope that it will be widely read also in our circles. One can only benefit by its diligent use. ”

“ The new High German can indeed be termed the Protestant dialect, whose freedom breathing nature has long since, unknown to themselves, conquered poets and authors of Catholic faith," — this lofty evaluation of the services of Luther in behalf of the German language has been characterized as a "Protestant' legend" (compare P. Pietsch, Luther's Werke, Weimar Ed. 12, p. VII) .
Among the men who have carefully investigated this question Burdach and Pietsch, the Germanistic co-laborer in the Weimar Luther edition, deserve especial mention. ”

“ These were the convents of Nuernberg, Kulmbach, Koenigsberg in Franconia, Sangerhausen, Nordhausen, Sternberg in Mecklenburg and Erfurt. They were afraid that, instead of the ideal of the "Observantes" being assimilated by the "Conventuales" through this union, the levity of these would find access into their own ranks. When all other means had failed they did not hesitate to send a delegation to the General of the Order at Rome, in order to nullify the union and make their ideal secure. As a member of this delegation the monastery at Erfurt elected the monk, Martin Luther. ”

“ Modern research has ever more shown how much of German literature was in existence prior to Luther. Of course the lifted treasures have not yet been carefully sifted and studied. Yet Kluge, Pietsch, Daumer, Schuett, Boehme, and others have begun to study this field. The limits of this research work, however, must ever be more extended. The question, just in how far the various German chief dialects prior to Luther have found a unification ("Einigungssprache") has been made the subject of careful research by Burdach. ”