LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW - Brock University

58 LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW IX
spoken through me.” … The Holy Scriptures are spoken through the
Holy Ghost according to the statement of David. 23
An anecdote from 1542 reads:
The Epistle of James we have thrown out from this school [Wittenberg],
because it has no value. It has not one syllable about Christ. It does not
even mention Christ once, except in the beginning. I hold it is written by
some Jew who heard only a dim sound concerning Christ but no clear,
distinct message; and because he had heard that the Christians put great
emphasis on faith in Christ, he thought I will oppose them and emphasize
works. And this he did. Of the Passion and the Resurrection of Christ,
this heart of the preaching of all the apostles, he does not say a word.
Then, there is no order nor method. Now he speaks of clothes, now of
wrath, jumps from one thing to another. He uses this simile: As the body
does not live without the soul, so faith is nothing without works. O Mary,
Madonna! What a poor simile! He compares faith with body while it
should rather be compared with soul. Already the ancients saw this,
therefore they did not number this Epistle with the Catholic Epistles. 24
Note, once again, Luther’s appeal to the external evidence to settle the
question of canonicity: “Already the ancients saw this, therefore they did not
number this Epistle with the Catholic Epistles.”
Another anecdote reads: “Here at Wittenberg we nearly thrust James
out of the Bible.” 25 There may be reason to query whether the schir
(=schier), translated here as “nearly”, should be understood as a synonym of
rein “completely” or as a synonym of beinahe “nearly”. In any case, this
statement should be understood in harmony with other statements of Luther.
He has elsewhere consistently made it clear that, for himself, he does not
consider James to be part of the Bible. Some wish to take this statement as
something of a retraction, as if he is now willing to grant James a kind of
“deutero-canonical” status. Such an interpretation would contradict what
Luther has said on this subject, both before and after this time. Some wish to
reinterpret this statement, as if Luther had said “I”, and not “we”. A more
likely explanation is that we should note the “we” and the “here at
Wittenberg”, and interpret this statement in keeping with the statement
recorded from 1542: “The Epistle of James we have thrown out from this
23 Qtd Preus 119.
24 WA TR 5, no. 5443. Qtd Reu 26.
25 Qtd Reu 26. WA TR 5, nNo. 5974: “Jeckel wollen wir schir aus dem Bibel stoßen hie
zu Wittenberg, denn er redt nichts von Christo ne una quidem syllaba nisi in principio et
praeludio et videtur contradicere Paulo nec de euangelio nec de lege recte loquitur. Ich hallt,
es sey ein Jud gewest, der hab gesehen, das die christen souil de fide sagen, und hab die
epistel dawider gemacht: Ey, es soll nit als der glaub sein; es mußen auch werk etwas sein!
Es ist der papisten epistel. Sie nemen sich keiner so hefftig an als der. Paulum laßen sie wol
stehen.”