Page:Thirty-five years of Luther research.djvu/84

50 gain glimpses into a soul that has found its peace in that righteousness of God that makes all sinners just. Outside of Hering it was Dieckhoff especially who busied himself more intimately with these lectures.45

Already, before completion of the lectures on the Psalms, Luther in 1515 began with the Epistle to the Romans. This commentary has been well treated by its first editor, Johannes Ficker46, in an extended introduction. Here we see the lightning flashes of the great themes of the following years much more frequently and distinctly than in the lectures on the Psalms and we watch the Reformer's inner man develop in an astonishing manner. Here Luther also proves himself a lover of German and a scholar in the best sense of this word. Ficker says (1. c, p. LII): "Luther is the first German professor who, in the academic lecture room, made use of his mother-tongue, and it is the lecture on Romans, in which he used it to a large degree. How direct and personal this fact alone made this lecture! Further, it is also the first lecture of a German theologian, in which the words of the original of the New Testament, as soon as this was accessible, were spoken and explained. Here Luther stands before us a scholar strictly scientifically trained, making use of the foundation laid by the past as far as they prove trustworthy to him and at the same time utilizing every progress in knowledge and scientific tools as soon as they are at hand, well versed in the application of the method and the whole apparatus of the Humanism." Meissinger46 makes us acquainted with the meaning of "Glossæ" and "Scholiæ" in Luther's lectures. We are given a characterization of his lectures on the Psalter, Romans and Hebrews, an investigation concerning the position Luther took over against the Vulgata, and con-