LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW - Brock University

ZWECK: LUTHER ON JAMES 63
Thus Luther could construct a “miniature canon” of the New Testament,
consisting of the Gospel of John, the Epistles of Paul (especially
Romans), and the First Epistle of Peter. 33
This really is quite overblown. Pelikan is guilty of ignoring the context
in which these remarks of Luther were made. They were made in the
introduction to the New Testament, in the first edition of his German
translation of the New Testament (1522). The situation is that many of the
readers for whom Luther had prepared this translation would now have
access to the New Testament for the first time. Before this, they had to rely
upon the reading of the pericopes in Latin. A few may have had access to
inferior German translations made from the Vulgate. But, by and large, his
readers would be confronted for the first time with the whole New
Testament. Luther certainly is not attempting to assert that the Synoptic
Gospels are any less Scripture than is the Gospel according to St John, or
that the Catholic Epistles are any less the Word of God than the Letters of St
Paul. His comments are in no way an attempt to establish a canon within the
canon, but simply good advice on where they should begin their reading of
the New Testament Scriptures. Furthermore, Pelikan’s remarks are plainly
mischievous, in that he implies that, for Luther, the “canon within the
canon” includes the Gospel of John, the Epistles of Paul, and First Peter,
over against all the rest, including James, while Luther himself indicates that
James is in a different category: more needs to be said about it elsewhere.
11. DID LUTHER REDEFINE CANONICITY
It is a complete misunderstanding of Luther’s comments on apostolicity
to imagine that he is here inventing a new principle, of a “canon within the
canon”. He is simply adhering to the criteria established by the early church,
which held apostolic content to be every bit as important as apostolic origin.
He is being consistent with the practice of adhering to both the formal
principle of the faith and the material principle. It is not legitimate to turn
one of these principles against the other. Scripture is God’s authoritative
Word both because it comes forth from God (formal principle) and because
it proclaims Christ (material principle). Lutheran theology has never
admitted the validity of making any doctrinal issue church-divisive unless it
really is a doctrinal issue: that is, unless it impinges upon the Gospel, the
material principle of the faith. This principle is expressed repeatedly in the
Book of Concord. For example, consider the following paragraph from the
Preface to the Book of Concord:
33 AE 21:xv.