(1) This book is to be read and regarded, not as we have done, as if St. Lucas had written in it only the personal works or history of the apostles, as an example of good works or good life, as St. Augustine and many others have regarded it as the best example, that the apostles had all goods in common with the Christians etc., which did not last long, and must cease in time; but let it be noted that St. Lucas, with this book, teaches all Christendom, to the end of the world, the right principal of Christian doctrine, namely, how we must all be justified by faith alone in JESUS Christ alone, without any help of the law or of our works.
This is his most important opinion and reason for writing this book. That is why he so powerfully expounds not only the apostles' preaching of faith in Christ, how both Gentiles and Jews were justified by it without any merit or works, but also the examples and history of such teaching, how the Gentiles as well as the Jews were justified by the gospel alone, without the law, and how, as St. Peter testifies, God in such matters made no distinction between Jews and Jews. Peter testifies Cap. 10, 28. and 15, 9. that God did not make any distinction between Jews and Gentiles in such matters; but just as He gave the Holy Spirit to the Gentiles who lived without law through the gospel, so He also gave the same to the Jews through the gospel, and not through the law or because of their works and merits. In this book, therefore, set both the doctrine of faith and the examples of faith with one another.
Therefore, this book should be called a gloss on the epistles of St. Paul. For what St. Paul teaches and does with words and sayings from the Scriptures, St. Lucas shows here and proves with examples and stories that it has happened and must happen as St. Paul teaches, namely, that no law or work makes men righteous, but only faith in Christ. And you will find here in this book a beautiful mirror in which you can see that it is true: Sola fides justificat, faith alone makes righteous. For there are all the examples and history in it, certain and comforting witnesses, which are not lying nor lacking to you.
For then behold how St. Paul himself is converted. How Cornelius the Gentile was converted by the word of St. Peter, as the angel had told him that Peter would preach to him, so that he would be saved. Item, the bailiff Sergius, and all the cities where St. Paul and Barnabas preached. See the first Concilium of the Apostles at Jerusalem, Cap. 15, 2. See all the sermons of St. Peter, Paul, Stephani and Philippi, and you will find that it all goes to this, that we must come to grace and be justified through the faith of Christ alone, without law and works. And with this book you can shut the mouths of the adversaries in a masterly and powerful way, who point us to the law and our works, and reveal their foolish ignorance to the whole world.
(5) Therefore Lucas also says that such examples of faith made even the devout Jews (who had become believers) almost distraught.
*) This preface is found in the Leipzig edition, vol. XII, p. 56 and in the Erlangen edition, vol. 63, p. 116.
and the other unbelieving Jews became mad and foolish about it. This was no wonder, because they were brought up in the Law and had been accustomed to it since Abraham, and it must have been annoying that the Gentiles, who were without Law and God, should be like them in the grace of God.
(6) But that our people, who are all Gentiles, should blaspheme and persecute such an article is ten times worse, since we see here, and cannot deny, that God's grace and Christ's knowledge came to our ancestors without law and merit, even in abominable idolatries and vices. But they will gain as much from their blasphemy and persecution as the Jews gained from their raging and raging.
have. For he who before had threatened the Jews and had Moses sing, "I will make you angry with him who is not my people, and I will make you mad with an ignorant people"; and Hosea Cap. 2, 23: "I will call my people that is not my people" (that is, those who live without law and work), and have kept it to them; the same one also threatens this to our blasphemers, and, as he has already well begun, 1) he will certainly keep it to them. But they will not believe this until they learn it (like the Jews), amen.
1) We have deleted the brackets around the words: "as he has already begun", because they are not a parenthesis. In the old prints the brackets are often used to emphasize something.