Page:Thirty-five years of Luther research.djvu/50

24 years later, a publication by Georg Loesche appeared22 that has further enriched our knowledge of Luther's table-talk. Using Seidemann's handwritings, he published a manuscript from Nuernberg, which, though indirectly, is traceable to Johann Matthesius. But this lost a good deal of its value, when, ten years later, Ernst Kroker in a manuscript at Leipzig found trustworthier reproductions of the notes of Matthesius, the most important parts of which he published in 1903.23 How much had already been accomplished through these findings, and how much closer the actual table-talk had been brought us! And since the endeavors of Seidemann several other written collections were found, especially the one in Veit Dietrich's own handwriting. Even Wrampelmeyer contributed another part out of a manuscript, that is traceable back to Cordatus, and is now kept at the Royal Library at Berlin (1905).24

Not only was it deemed satisfactory to make all these sources accessible through publication, but it was also made the beginning of submitting them to critical examination. Preger especially proved himself a very keen witted critic in the introduction to his publication of the notes of Schaginhaufen, mentioned above. But more than others, Wilhelm Meyer25 busied himself with this object in a special investigation (1896). He shed light especially on the work Lauterbach performed in arranging and grouping the table-talks.

In America Preserved Smith26 acquainted different circles with the questions connected with Luther's table-talk, through his critical study. New York, 1907.

In the last decade, commissioned by the committee for the Luther edition of Weimar, Ernst Kroker devoted himself to an intensive and critical study of the manu-