1. Luther's lectures on the prophet Joel,
according to the Altenburg manuscript.*)
Held in July; finished August 9, 1524. Printed in Dietrich's first edition in 1536; after the Altenburg manuscript in 1884. Newly translated from Latin.
Preface on Joel.
All prophets have the same opinion, because this is their only aim, that they aim at the future Christ or at the future kingdom of Christ. All their prophecies aim at this and need not be related to anything else. Although they include various histories of either present or future things, all of them serve to make known the future kingdom of Christ. Therefore, the prophets, whether they speak of misfortune or of prosperity, have always
The prophets who have denounced the Kingdom of God, wanted the Kingdom of Christ to be in view. This can also be seen in the prophet Joel, who first speaks of an exceedingly harmful destruction that came upon the Jewish people, which he used to frighten the Jews and to call them to repentance in their fright, so that they would expect the future Christ (of whose kingdom he will speak later in many words). Therefore, from the first chapter of this pro-
*) As we have already said in the first note to the previous writing, it can be assumed that Luther had read only once about the minor prophets, and that all existing relations, as different as they are, can be traced back to the same lectures in the years 1524 to 1526. The interpretation of the three prophets Joel, Amos and Obadiah is, however, only in 1566 in print published at Strasbourg in Octav under the title: Lnarratio D. Martini I^utiwri in trss propdstas, loüslsin, Xrnos, 6t Xdäiam. Anne prirnurn in In66in aeüita. Xooessit aeüitioni Uuio Inäex ioonpletissimus. Xr^ntorati, Ximo M.V.XXXVl. At the end: Xr^ontorati apuä lokan. XU)6rturn, Ximo, M.V.XXXVI. In the preface, the printer Johann Albert says that he has a copy of Luther's lectures on all the prophets except Hosea and Daniel t Instead of Daniel. it should probably have been called Malachi sWeim. Ausg., Bd. XIH, p. XIP because we are dealing here only with the minor prophets, and of the major ones Luther interpreted only Isaiah and part of Daniel).
pheien das meine Meinung, 1) dass er im ersten Kapititel nicht weissagt, sondern, wie ich gesagt habe, einfach die gegenwärtige Historie erzählen von jenem Verderben und von der Vernichtung
1) From here to the end of the paragraph Dietrich has instead of the following in the text: .that he predicts the future defeat which the people would receive from the Assyrians. But he calls the Assyrians in figurative speech "caterpillars, locusts, beetles and vermin", because the Assyrians plucked the Jews little by little and curtailed their power, until they finally led away the whole people captive. But Sanherib suffered a great defeat in the siege of Jerusalem. He commemorates this in the second chapter below.
of the seeds and all the fruits of the land that he had seen.
In the second chapter, however, he seems to begin the prophecy, which deals with another kind of locusts, namely with the Babylonians. So this is the summary of the first chapter and the prophet does not deal with anything else in it than that he frightens the people of the Jews by that destruction that the Lord had sent before their eyes, so that they, thus frightened, might repent and recognize themselves.
The author is of the opinion that he has a very good knowledge of the subject, which a certain scholar (stuckioso) has picked up with the utmost diligence. For the editing of these notes, he called in a careful and godly scholar who had studied in Wittenberg for many years, so that he could survey everything with good judgment and bring the interpretation into harmony with the German translation [of the Bibles. This editor was Veit Dietrich, who had become a preacher in Nuremberg around New Year's Day 1536 (cf. De Wette, Vol. IV, p. 664) after almost fourteen years in Wittenberg. To Justus Menius, who had asked him to publish the remaining prophets as well, he wrote on October 30, 1538 (Kolde, analseta I^rrtksrarra, p. 331) that Luther had not approved of his earlier work on the three prophets, as people in Luther's immediate surroundings (cmi eum so duditant) had reported to him. Now here the question comes to us: Should we now, as happened in the old editions (also in the "Walchs"), leave in our edition writings that Luther did not approve of? Luther had good reason to disapprove, because Dietrich, as the Weimar edition says and also proves, "often suppressed Luther's opinion, even turned it into the opposite". This question requires us to look back to the sources. These are presented to us in the Weimar edition, and in part also in the Erlangen edition. "In the Gymnasium library at Altenburg (says the Weimar edition) a manuscript in quarto is preserved, on the 50 pages of which are Luther's lectures on the ten prophets Joel to Zechaxiah. Linke has not exactly discovered it, but has published it for the first time in the Erl. Edition op. exsZst. XXV-XXVIII. The codex is written by one hand so carefully that a transcription in the college cannot be thought of. In time, this manuscript came into the hands of Spalatin, whose hand made short summaries in the margins, above and below the lines, once in the text also corrigirte a German word." We briefly summarize here the results of the detailed study of the Weimar edition on this manuscript. The scribe, or rather Conzrpient (for even as he was writing he was still crossing out and changing and not anxiously adhering to his original), compiled the Commentaries on the Ten Prophets for a man (namely Spalatin) who had requested it. According to the whole way in which he dealt with his model, one could assume Dietrich to be the scribe, but the writing does not allow this. The interpretations on the prophets Nahum and Zephaniah in the Latin Wittenberg edition, torn. IV, col. 613 and 647, agree verbatim with the Altenburg manuscript (except for a few passages that offer a handhold for criticism). However, the Wittenbergers did not have this manuscript in front of them, which is evident from the fact that the additions found in it have not been included, even those that appear in the continuous text. From this it can be concluded that both go back to a common original. This original will be the one that came into the hands of the printer of our manuscript, Johann Albert. Of course this original also came into Veit Dietrich's hands, since it had to be left to him by the printer for the purpose of the publication of the three prophets Joel, Amos and Obadiah in the year 1536. He must have taken a copy of it, which he expanded for the edition just mentioned. This expansion was necessary preliminary work. During the publication itself, he then reworked this expanded copy. Where he thought he had no reason to do so, the text of the 1536 edition is identical word for word with the Altenburg manuscript. From Dietrich's copy (which had not yet been reworked for printing) flowed the Altenburg manuscript. It contains minor deviations from the original, mostly only stylistic changes, addition of some marginalia and additions from other sources. Since the matter is now so, so we will in our present writing and also in the two following prophets the text of the Altenburger manuscript as the more original basis, but the deviations of the Dietrichsche edition in the notes refer, as the Erlanger and also the Weimarsche edition have already done) Likewise we will proceed with the prophets Nahum and Zephaniah; the few deviations of the Wittenberg edition will be indicated in notes. The Altenburg manuscript is first published by v. Linke in the Erlanger Ausgabe, exe.]. opp., tom. XXV-XXVIII, and then also printed with many improvements in the Weimar edition, vol. XIII. Our writing is found in the Erlanger Ausgabe, exe^- ovv., tom. XX V, p 51 and in the Weimar one, vol. XIII, 88. Dietrich's adaptation is found in the Latin Jena edition (1603), tcnn. Ill, lol. 478d; it is not included in dre Wittenberger. The German translation is found in the Leipzig edition, Vol. Vlll, p. 156 and in Walch, Vol. VI, 2066. Our translation is based on the Weimar edition, from which we have also taken the chronology. Minor deviations, which have an influence on the Winn kern, will not be added to the notes. At the end of our writing is noted in the Altenburg manuscript: IVittkrndsrZa" in prokssto I^arrrsiitii s9. Augusts H)XXIIII.
1418 L. xxv,ss-56. interpretations on the prophets. W. vi, 2ms-sv72. 1419
But since this is the way of the world, that it despises and scorns the word of God, for we see that this has always happened and still happens today, there is therefore no doubt that the same thing happened to Joel. The world never leaves its kind. Its prince is Satan, through whom it is led as its driver to all evil. For it is the kingdom of darkness, which cannot help but hate the light (Joh. 1, 5. [3, 19. f.). And so it despises the proclaimers of the Word of God, persecutes them, calls them fools and finally even kills them as unworthy people. For Paul calls the Christians a sweep offering of the world [1 Cor. 4, 13.). Here we have nothing better to hope for.
It is not known exactly at what time Joel prophesied, for he is silent both
of the time relations as well as of the kings, which other prophets tend to send ahead of their prophecy. To me he seems to be an old prophet, to the extent that I believe he prophesied before Isaiah, Hosea and the other prophets, namely at the time when the kingdom of the Jews was still in bloom and in the highest peace, and that he saw then this destruction of which he speaks here. By the way, the order of the prophets, even that of the other books of the Scriptures, which Jerome and others have approved, is useless. They are completely in error, since they think that the prophets followed each other as they are ordered. Some think that he prophesied under Hosea, but this does not seem likely to me.