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122 sessed for his use a copy of the collection of Lauterbach which contained a revision of the Ms. at Halle. Furthermore, he had the use of a smaller collection in which talks of Luther were systematically arranged and which was already completely translated into German (preserved in Wolfenbuettel: 878 Helmst). Aurifaber worked the second part of Lauterbach's translation into the first and interlarded his collection with sayings from other notations. At the same time he combined and interlarded the texts of different versions of the same conversations, or again offered the same conversation in different recensions at different places. Like the German collection of Wolfenbuettel, which he took over word for word into his collection, he translated Latin pieces into German. Therefore his work, which has conserved Luther's table-talks until the present day, possesses only secondary or even less value as a collection of original talks, the work originally being meant to serve its readers only in an edifying and entertaining way. The historical investigator must leave it out of consideration and go back to original notations still in existence. The editor committed many errors and was often desultory; his practice of combining parallel texts is critically questionable; his usually apt translations often become verbose paraphrases. There can, however, be no thought of intentional fraud here, although at times his prejudices show themselves quite plainly.

19 "Tagebuch ueber Dr. Martin Luther gefuehrt von Dr. Conrad Cordatus, 1537," published for the first time by H. Wrampelmeyer, Halle, 1885.

20 Compare with this the explanations of Kroker in vol. 2 of the Table-Talk Collection in the Luther edition of Weimar, p. xx ff.

21 "Tischreden Luthers aus den Jahren 1531 und 1532 nach den Aufzeichnungen von Johann Schlaginhaufen," published from a Ms. at Muenchen by William Preger, Leipzig, 1888.

22 "Analecta Lutherana et Melanchthoniana. Tischreden Luthers und Aussprueche Melanchthons, hauptsaechlich nach Aufzeichnungen des Johannes Matthesius. Aus der Nuernberger Handschrift des Germanischen Museums mit Benutzung von D. Joh. Karl Seidemanns Vorarbeiten herausgegeben und erlaeutert von Georg Loesche. Gotha 1892.