martin luther died on the 18th of
February, 1546, and the first publication of his “Table
Talk”—Tischreden—by his friend, Johann
Goldschmid (Aurifaber), was in 1566, in a substantial
folio. The talk of Luther was arranged, according to its
topics, into eighty chapters, each with a minute index of
contents. The whole work in a complete octavo edition,
published at Stuttgart and Leipzig in 1836, occupies 1,390
closely printed pages, equivalent to 2,780 pages, or full
fourteen volumes, of this Library.
The nearest approach to a complete and ungarbled translation
into English was that of Captain Henry Bell, made in the reign of
Charles the First, under the circumstances set forth by himself;
but even that was not complete. Other English versions have
subjected Luther’s opinions to serious manipulation,
nothing being added, but anything being taken away that did not
chance to agree with the editor’s digestion. Even the
folio of Captain Bell’s translation, from which these
Selections have been printed, has been prepared for reprint by
some preceding editor, whose pen has been busy in revision of the
passages he did mean to reprint. In these Selections every
paragraph stands unabridged, exactly as it was translated by
Captain Bell; and there has been no other purpose governing the
choice of matter than a resolve to make it as true a presentment
as possible of Luther’s mind and character. At least
one other volume of Selections from the Table-Talk of Martin
Luther will be given in this Library.
Johann Goldschmid, the Aurifaber, and thereby true worker in
gold, who first gave Luther’s Table-Talk to the world, was
born in 1519. He was a disciple of Luther, thirty-six years
younger than his master. Luther was born at Eisleben in
1483, and his father, a poor miner, presently settled at
Mansfeld, the town in which Goldschmid afterwards was born.
Johann Goldschmid was sent by Count Albrecht of Mansfeld, in
1537, to the University of Wittenberg, where Luther had been
made, in 1508, Professor of Philosophy, and where, on the 31st of
October, 1517, he had nailed his ninety-five propositions against
indulgences to the church door at the castle. Luther had
completed his translation of the Bible three years before Johann
Goldschmid went to Wittenberg. In 1540 Goldschmid was
recalled from the University to act as tutor to Count
Albrecht’s children. In 1544 Goldschmid was army
chaplain with the troops from Mansfeld in the French war; but in
1545 he was sent back to Wittenberg for special study of
theology. It was then that he attached himself to Luther as
his famulus and house-companion during the closing months
of Luther’s life, began already to collect from surrounding
friends passages of his vigorous “Table Talk,” and
remained with Luther till the last, having been present at his
death in Eisleben in 1546. He then proceeded steadily with
the collection of Luther’s sayings and opinions expressed
among his friends. He was army chaplain among the soldiers
of Johann Friedrich, of Saxony; he spent half a year also in a
Saxon prison. He became, in 1551, court preacher at Weimar;
but in 1562 was deprived of his office, and then devoted himself
to the forming of an Eisleben edition of those works of Luther,
which had not already been collected. In 1566 he was called
to a pastorate at Erfurt, where he had many more troubles before
his death. Aurifaber died on the 18th of November,
1575.
H. M.
