Page:Works of Martin Luther, with introductions and notes, Volume 1.djvu/122

108 The many Scripture quotations, all naturally from the Latin Vulgate, and most of them freely quoted from memory, and sometimes "targumed" and woven into the texture of the treatise, are rendered by us, unless the sense should thereby be affected, in the words of the Authorised Version. Important or interesting variations are indicated in the foot-notes.

5. The Tessaradecas deserves to be more widely known and used. Its value is more than merely that of an historical document, representing a transition stage in Luther's reformatory views. It gives us, besides this, a deep insight into the living piety of the man, his great heart so full of the peace of God that passeth all understanding. When we remember that this little work was composed in the midst of a very "tempest" of other writings, chiefly polemical (e. g., the savage onslaughts on Emser), it will appear akin to the little book of Ruth, lying so peacefully between the war-like books of Judges and First Samuel. At the Leipzig Disputation, earlier in the same year, Luther was seen to hold a bouquet of flowers in his hand, and to smell of it when the battle waxed hot. The Tessaradecas is such a bunch of flowers. Its chief glory, however, that of a devotional classic, has been somewhat dimmed by Luther himself, who with the carelessness of genius refused to revise his outworn views in it; and yet, despite its relics of mediævalism, particularly by reason of its firm evangelical foundation, its scriptural warp and woof, its fervent piety, and its fresh and original treatment, it is not less entitled to a high place in the devotional and ascetic literature of the Church than the much better known. In this sense it is herewith offered anew to the English reader, with the hope that "the diligent reading and contemplation of these 'images' may minister some slight comfort."

6. Literature.—(1) The literary and historical introductions to the Tessaradecas in the Weimar, Erlangen, and Berlin editions. (2), . 5th ed., 1903, vol. I, pp. 280, 281. (3), , 1883. (4) On the fourteen Defenders see articles in Wetzer und Welte and the Catholic Encyclopædia, and especially the article  , by , in PRE3, where also see further literature.