Page:Thirty-five years of Luther research.djvu/87

Rh cerning his consideration for the Hebrew and Greek text — Luther took up the study of Hebrew before Greek; the Greek New Testament (Edition of Erasmus) he used for the first time in 1516 in connection with Romans IX. Meissinger further attempts a list of Luther's first library.

The whole question of Luther's theological development is taken up by Dieckhoff, J. Picker, W. Braun, A. W. Hunzinger, H. Hermelink, Scheel, Kawerau, J. v. Walter, A. V. Mueller; besides these investigations certain passages in Loofs's History of Dogma, Boehmer's "Luther in the light of recent research," and O. Ritschl's History of Protestant Dogma must be compared.47 Unhappily we cannot enter into details at this time. It is apparent, however, that there were four main factors that played the influential part in Luther's theological development during these years: Occam's school of theology of which Luther was an adherent, his reading of Augustine, his study of Paul, and the German mysticism. Hermelink in 1912 includes everything that has been accomplished during the last years, when he writes in his History of Reformation (Krueger, Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte, second volume, p. 63), as follows: "We must begin in all likelihood with the Occam school of theology, with which Luther first became acquainted. He will always have this school to thank for the strong accentuation of the will in the idea of God, for the beginning of his understanding of faith as building upon positive facts of revelation and mistrusting reason. The moral undertone in the way of salvation, as the School of Occam taught it, aided in multiplying his inner restlessness. The tension between reason and faith, self and the will of God is intensified, and, for the time being