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Commentary on Genesis, Vol. 1: Luther on the Creation
In the Introduction of Vol. I in the Psalms, to which the reader is referred, it was stated that the key-note of all of the "sacred books" of the East is "Salvation by Works." And yet in the face of this Protestants are asked to believe that they are "sacred books," when their main teachings are directly contrary to what we have been taught to esteem as most sacred, namely, our Christian faith in the grace of Christ for salvation. To Protestants they are not sacred books but the very opposite. I would far rather call the writings of Luther sacred, which teach and defend the doctrine of salvation by grace as taught by the one great Book, although it stands alone and protests against the false teachings of the so-called sacred books of the east.
However let us now look more closely at the west. Here we find that Protestants have shown commendable zeal and enterprise in translating, publishing and circulating the large libraries of the Greek and Latin church fathers. Every pastor continuously receives circulars with the almost irresistible temptation to purchase the patristic writings of both Catholic churches. This is all well, but we should not forget that the Anglo-Saxon people are neither Greeks nor Latins, but Teutons, and that our Teuton church fathers are Protestants and they also should be translated, published, circulated and read and taught. Little Wittenberg dare not fall behind Constantinople and Rome. It ought not.
For "Saxon and Norman and Dane are We."
True the Teutons can and do learn from the Greek and Latin church fathers, but we also believe that the children of the old Greeks and Latins can learn much from our Teuton fathers, and that they have as good reasons to welcome our classic church literature as we have theirs; and we hope the day may soon come when they will translate and read ours as faithfully and impartially as we do theirs. What a blessing that would bring to Christendom!
In some quarters however English Protestants have been in danger of appreciating the fathers of the Greeks and Latins to the extent of neglecting to give due honor to their own. Many Protestant ministers' libraries contain all classics except the Protestant classics. Let the whole world have the Greek and the Latin fathers as it has, but let Protestants awake and give the world theirs. Is it not a shame and a pity that while all the writings of the Greek and Latin fathers have been translated into many languages, yet the complete works of Luther, the first and chief of the Protestant fathers, have never been translated into any language, though his loyal disciples are numbered by the hundreds of thousands in different tongues, as the fruits of those writings? For of the 70,169,000 Lutherans in the world, 43,731,000 speak German, 7,300,000 Swedish, 3,500,000 Norwegian, 3,200,000 Danish, 3,000,000 Finnish, 1,100,000 Esthnish, 400,000 Hungarian (or 4,500,000 of the Finnish or Magyarian race), 4,000,000 English, 2,000,000 Lettish, 500,000 Slovakian, 300,000 Polish, 200,000 French, 100,000 Dutch, 100,000 Russian, 82,000 Icelandic, 50,000 Bohemian, 63,000 Wendish, 113,000 Lithuanian, 250,000 the heathen dialects of Asia and 280,000 the heathen dialects of Africa. And further as all German speaking Reformed churches use Luther's version of the Scriptures, so they welcome his writings also.
True in all these 17 or more languages some of Luther's writings have appeared. But it is distressing to learn how few they are, and how out of date and imperfect some of these are. Luther is the common property of all Protestants, and so are his writings. They would be helpful in all time to the 21,000,000 Episcopalians, the 17,000,000 Methodists, the 11,000,000 Baptists, the 9,000,000 Presbyterians, the 4,500,000 Congregationalists, and all other Protestants; and not only to the 140,000,000 Protestants, but also to the 80,000,000 Greek Catholics and 200,000,000 Latin Catholics and to the heathen, to the infidel, to the state as well as to the church. The first thing for Protestants to do is to give all nations the Bible; and the second, to give them the best Protestant classics. We can. Will we?
No nation or race is greater than its greatest men, and those greatest men are not greater than their best writings. Hence little is of more value in literature than the honest critique by these greatest men of the best writings of the most civilized and cultured nations before their time. Therefore of the greatest interest are the following
CRITICISMS OF THE GREATEST TEUTON CHURCH FATHER ON THE GREEK AND LATIN CHURCH FATHERSThey are taken literally from his Table Talk and read thus: I will not presume to criticise too closely the writings of the fathers, seeing they are received of the church, and have great applause, for then I should be held an apostate; but whoever reads Chrysostom, will find he digresses from the chief points, and proceeds to other matters, saying nothing, or very little, of that which pertains to the subject. When I was expounding the Epistle to the Hebrews, and turned to what Chrysostom had written upon it, I found nothing to the purpose; yet I believe that he at that time, being the chief rhetorician, had many hearers, though he taught without profit; for the chief office of a preacher is to teach uprightly, and diligently to look to the main points and foundation on which he stands, and so instruct and teach the hearers that they understand aright and may be able to say: This is well taught. When this is done, he may avail himself of rhetoric to adorn his subject and admonish the people.
Behold what great darkness is in the books of the fathers concerning faith; yet if the article of justification be darkened, it is impossible to smother the grossest errors of mankind. St. Jerome, indeed, wrote upon Matthew, upon the Epistles to the Galatians and to Titus; but, alas, very coldly. Ambrose wrote six books on Genesis, but they are very poor. Augustine wrote nothing to the purpose concerning faith; for he was first roused up and made a man by the Pelagians, in striving against them. I can find no exposition upon the Epistles to the Romans and Galatians, in which anything is taught pure and right. What a happy time have we now as to the purity of the doctrine; but alas, we little esteem it.
We must read the fathers cautiously, and lay them in the gold balance, for they often stumbled and went astray, and introduced into their books many monkish things. Augustine had more work and labor to wind himself out of the writings of the fathers, than he had with the heretics. Gregory expounds the five pounds mentioned in the Gospel, which the husbandman gave to his servants to put to use, to be the five senses, which the beasts also possess. The two pounds he construes to be the reason and understanding.
The more I read the books of the fathers, the more I find myself offended; for they were but men, and, to speak the truth with all their repute and authority, undervalued the books and writings of the sacred apostles of Christ. The Papists were not ashamed to say, What are the Scriptures? We must read the holy fathers and teachers, for they drew and sucked the honey out of the Scriptures. As if God's Word were to be understood and conceived by none but themselves, whereas the heavenly Father says: "Him shall ye hear," who in the Gospel taught most plainly in parables and similitudes.
Augustine was the ablest and purest of all the doctors, but he could not of himself bring things back to their original condition, and he often complains that the bishops, with their traditions and ordinances, trouble the church more than did the Jews with their laws.
I am persuaded that if at this time, St. Peter, in person, should preach all the articles of the Holy Scriptures, and only deny the pope's authority, power and primacy, and say that the pope is not the head of all Christendom, they would cause him to be hanged.
Jerome should not be numbered among the teachers of the church, for he was a heretic; yet I believe he was saved through faith in Christ. He speaks not of Christ, but merely carries his name in his mouth.
Again he says, Jerome may be consulted for the purpose of historical study. As to faith, and good true religion and doctrine, there is not a word about them in his writings. He writes only respecting fasts, sorts of food, virginity, etc. I have already proscribed Origin. Chrysostom possesses no authority in my estimation. Basil is but a monk, for whom I would not give the value of a hair. The Apology of Philip Melanchthon is worth all the writings of all the doctors of the church put together, not excepting those of St. Augustine.
Tertullian is a thorough Carlstad; Cyprian the martyr is a feeble theologian.
The fathers said nothing decisive during their lives, respecting justification by grace; but at their death they believed in it. This was the more prudent course for them to follow, in order neither to encourage mysticism, nor discourage good works. These worthy fathers lived better than they wrote.
Since I became, by the grace of God, capable of understanding St. Paul, I have been unable to esteem any of these doctors; they have shrunk into insignificance in my estimation.
PREFACES AND DEDICATIONS
—of—LUTHER'S "DEAR GENESIS."HIS "SWAN SONG" AND HIS "IT IS FINISHED."We certainly will be pardoned for issuing here and at this time the Prefaces: of Veit Dietrich, who published the first of these lectures in Latin; of Basil Faber, who was the first to translate parts from Latin into German; of Dr. Walch, who issued one of the best editions of Luther's complete works; and of Dr. Cole, who was the first to translate a small part from Latin into English. The words of these four men are a stronger appeal than we can write for the extensive circulation among English Protestants of this the last and the greatest of Luther's writings.
It is as Mathesius says: "Surely the last thoughts are the best when they at the time refer to the Word of God and spring from it. The sermons and books of aged men are worthy of consideration and preservation." Hence, Jerome Weller called this commentary Luther's Swan Song, and Morlin calls it the "Consummatum Est," "It Is Finished," of Luther.
A new interest will be taken in the lines of this book when it is remembered how dear they were to the Reformer himself. He frequently expresses his love for his "dear Genesis," and had the prophetic impression that his labors in Genesis and his earthly life would terminate together. And so they did. This was the last public work of Luther's forty years of professorial, ministerial and reformatory labors. This saint of God, who was "a lion before men, but a lamb before God," concludes his commentary thus: "This is now the dear Book of Genesis. May our Lord grant that others may do it better than I have done. I can no more; I am so weak. Pray to God for me, that he may grant me a good holy hour at death!"
A friend, one of the collectors of these comments, records these remarkable coincidences at the foot of the Commentary: "The man of God, Doctor Martin Luther, finished his Commentaries on the Book of Genesis in the year of our Lord 1545, on the 17th day of November; having commenced them in the year 1535. In his opening remarks he had said, 'This exposition I shall pore over and die over (immorabor et immoriar).' According to this prophecy concerning himself he died at Eisleben, Feb. 18th, 1546, piously and continually calling upon the Son of God."
DEDICATION OF VEIT DIETRICH
To the Most Illustrious, High-Born Prince and Lord, John Ernest, Duke of Saxony, Landgrave of Thuringia, Margrave of Misnia.
It is this glorious and beautiful architectural building, the world; that is, the heavens and earth with all that in them is, as the stars, the elements, the trees, the plants, and all kinds of animals, etc., created so admirably for it and wisely ordered by God in their relations to one another, that teaches us to know God as the one eternal and almighty Creator and the right Master-builder, and to understand that he created us for this life, body and soul, and gave us reason and a spirit in order that he might thereby be worshipped. And such knowledge would have remained pure and beautiful in the hearts of all men without doubt and error of any kind had human nature not fallen through disobedience into such miserable darkness and other innumerable calamities.
For what blindness and ignorance of God, his nature and will, his providence and government, there is in the hearts of all men in their corrupt and infirm nature, is evident from the doubts which stick in the hearts of everyone, concerning which Plato was right when he wisely said, "That the minds of men are so overpowered with conviction by the laws of the motion of the heavenly bodies and other testimonies of nature, that they are compelled to confess that the world had for its Creator an eternal and almighty divine Mind." And yet we find that this knowledge and this conviction are darkened and deranged when we consider how enormous and confused all things are in the world and in this life, and when we find ourselves so often plunged into such great misery and need without help or rescue as if there were no God left to his creatures.
From such doubts all those mad-brained opinions of philosophers have arisen. Some, as the Epicureans, denied the existence of God altogether; others, as Aristotle and the Stoics, believed God was an eternal mind, yet bound and confined him to second causes; just in the same way as the poets fable that Saturn was bound by Jupiter. Thus they ascribe to him no action, but that which the general concurrence of second causes produces. Hence having their minds infatuated with this delirium, they can neither ask any good thing of God, nor expect any good thing from him, because, with them events are necessarily only consequents which responsively follow upon their natural first causes.
Therefore, while these men thus reasoned, they did not bring forth their own private and personal opinions only, but the common errors which lie concealed naturally in the minds of the whole human race. The greatest part of mankind fix their eyes upon second causes; but these never raise them so high as the great Over-ruler of all; so as to wait for the government or pressing forth of second causes from and by him, as Elijah did, when he prayed for rain in the midst of a drought, and as Isaiah did, when he drove back an army of the enemy by prayer.
When this darkness in the mind of man had followed upon the fall of our first parents, God came forth anew out of his secret habitation, and immediately made himself known again, with a distinct voice and with fresh testimonies; that the human race might not appear to be created in vain nor without a mighty purpose, nor for destruction only. The creation indeed was a great benefit and blessing from God. But much more so was his revelation of himself to the human race from the very "beginning," by certain testimonies and evidences; delivering with a distinct voice the promise of eternal life and salvation, and making a declaration concerning a judgment to come, in which after this life he would separate the righteous from the wicked. The Law also, though known to nature at first, he renewed, and showed what was his true worship. He caused it moreover to be attended with signs, which could be wrought by no power less than infinite. He recalled the dead to life, he stopped the motions of the heavens and the course of the sun, and he even turned the sun back in his course to refute a human delirium, which pretended to suspend God by second causes as by the golden chain of Homer.
And lastly, the Son of God himself assumed human nature and lived openly with us, taught us and became a sacrifice and offering for our sins; and after having overcome death rose and lived again, and discoursed with many in an open and familiar manner; and moreover preached to a great multitude of hearers. And although these things, on account of their greatness, seem to human judgment to be mere fictions, yet they are attested and sealed by sure and certain evidences and miracles; so that they are as surely true as that it is mid-day when the sun has mounted in his course to the mid-heaven.
To these blessings we are also to add this, that God was pleased that there should be a history of the human race from the very "beginning," and a record of all those testimonies, by which he revealed himself, committed to writing and engraven on biblical monuments, which should remain forever. Nor will God be known in any other way than by these testimonies; nor will he consider any assembly of men, who are ignorant of these testimonies, to be his Church, nor will he receive the prayer of those, who do not call upon him as the same God, who does thus make himself known by these his testimonies.
The Mohammedans and Turks call upon God as the Creator of universal nature, but they set themselves against his Son and his Son's doctrine. They say, that he who can approve such doctrine cannot be God. And as to his Son, in whom God more especially reveals himself, and concerning whom he says himself, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him," on him they spit with infuriated madness!
And what says Plato here? Although Plato does raise his mind above the common opinions of the vulgar, and does not ascribe divinity to statues of wood and stone, but really does inquire after God with very wise reasoning; and although he defines him to be "an eternal mind" and the great Cause of all good in nature, yet he still errs very widely from the true God. But how is that, some one may say? What description of God will you find more appropriate than Plato's? I acknowledge that he thought most learnedly and wisely concerning the nature of God; but concerning his will, he hangs in doubt himself and leaves all his readers and disciples in doubt also; and to use his own expression "bestormed and shipwrecked in their reasoning." Neither Plato nor Mohammed knew whether God heard and received the unworthy; nor how, nor why, he received them.
Plato ought however to have inquired not only how God manifested himself in the creation of things, and what traces of himself he impressed upon the face of nature, but also whether or not he had uttered any voice by any certain signs or testimonies, and how that voice was spread abroad and made known. He might have heard these things when studying mathematics in Egypt, and might easily have learned all particulars from their neighbors the Jews. But the greater part of men always despise the voice and the Church of God.
But to what purpose is all this far-fetched Introduction? It is for this end, that we may know the true Church of God is nowhere but among those, who have and who embrace the writings of the prophets and the apostles; that God is nowhere rightly called upon, but where the doctrine contained in these books truly shines forth. And here again we have to consider another singular blessing of God: That he was pleased to cause a whole connected history of all ages, from "the beginning," to be recorded in these books, and has preserved them by his own peculiar care. Nay, the whole Mosaic Economy was ordained for this very preservation of them. For what was the whole of that Economy, but a school and library of these books?
And the fountain of all is the first book of Moses, called Genesis, which profane men may perhaps laugh at and consider that it does not differ from the "Timon" of Plato, in which also the creation of the world is described. But the godly reader knows that there is a wide difference between profane descriptions and this description given us from above. For the latter not only informs us of the beginnings and nature of created bodies, but gives us a description of God himself. And it contains also an account of the beginnings of the Church; for the sake of which all other things were created and made, all which things we must know before we can understand whence the doctrine of the church proceeded and how the knowledge of it was spread abroad in the world.
All heathen superstitions crept into the assemblies of men without any certain authors, and were afterwards accumulated by fanatical persons on various occasions. But from "the book of Genesis" we learn that the doctrine of the church was delivered to our first parents by the voice of God, and that thence the knowledge of it was preserved and spread abroad in the world by a continued series of persons and events, and not without manifest evidences and testimonies. Enoch was taken up into heaven; Noah truly preached of the Flood and was afterwards preserved in the Flood; Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, etc., for there are many signs and evidences that they were teachers and priests, truly called of God, were most certain witnesses, that the doctrine which they embraced and preached was from heaven.
Symmachus objects against Christians, that all agree that the oldest doctrine must be the true one; but that the apostolic doctrine is a recent fiction. But Symmachus is here in a very great error; for it can be most manifestly proved that the doctrine now held by the Church is the first doctrine that was ever delivered to the world. And that is plainly shown in this "Book of Genesis," where both the doctrine is recorded as having been delivered of God; and also the increasing nations are described, which departed from the purity of that doctrine and formed for themselves new opinions concerning God and set up idols, instead of worshipping him. Therefore, we must come to this Book for a description of the beginnings of the Church, and for testimonies of its propagation; and it is to this Book that all doctrines must be referred in order to discover their origin or antiquity.
Philosophers knew nothing of the cause of sin, of the cause of death, nor of the cause of the great calamities to which the human race are subject; nor did they know anything of the restitution of all things, nor of eternal life. They were continually inquiring, how there is so much misery in the nature of the human race, which is so exalted and excellent. How often do they exclaim against and lament man's violent and impetuous inclinations to vice! They see that his virtues are weak and that they are only faint attempts which soon vanish and end in nothing; as we see in Pausanius, who was the great general of the Greeks against Mardonius; and in Alexander; also in Themistocles and many others. Aristotle seeks for the cause of the death of the human race and of all other living creatures in their material nature; and to make good his hypotheses, he enumerates privation among the principles of natural things; that he might in some way or other make out a continual lapse of matter, decaying and perishing, in order to assume other forms.
But the Book now under consideration sets before us a far different cause of the death of the human race and of the corruptions which defile it; it shows that the cause was a turning away from God in our human nature at "the beginning;" which human nature, casting away the light and knowledge of God and of life, procured to itself a confusion in its powers and a subjection to the tyranny of the devil and of death. The greatness and enormity of these evils appeared in our first parents, in the murder of Cain and in other horrible wickednesses, seen in those first flowers of the human race, which excelled all others in purity and excellence.
Then again we have a beautiful view and proof of this in the propagation and continual renewing of the Church; where it appears that the Church is not a kingdom or body politic, belonging to this world, enclosed and guarded by armed garrisons; but a body formed of widely dispersed assemblies, though not hidden and obscure; bearing about with them the divine voice and the Word, and dispensing it in public congregations of honest men, to kings, rulers and cities; and calling and drawing many everywhere to prayer and to the true worship of God; though they are all the while derided, cast out, and driven away by tyrants and by the great part of mankind.
Melchizedek, whom the old divines supposed was Shem, the son of Noah, surpassed all the men of that time in wisdom, righteousness and age; and he preached for a long time to the people of Sodom and the neighboring places, for his dwelling was not more than eight English miles from Sodom. Therefore no doubt he had a congregation, by no means insignificant, which contained the families of Abraham, Lot and many others. For although the Church was small, yet there was always some Church existing; and that no obscure nor inconsiderable assemblage. And these little schools or congregations of hearers were protected and defended from on high. For all the neighboring cities, Sodom the chief in power, with infuriated madness despised the heavenly doctrine, and railed at and hated its preachers.
