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Auf Deutsch Brutus - The Danger The Word Amen
The California Institute for Ancient Studies - Reformation History
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95 Thesen | Eternal Calendar |
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The Words of Luther before the Diet at Worms.
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After the week long disputation with Eck at Augsburg, the cardinals burned the books of Luther, which caused the monk to do the same to the decrees of the pope on December 10, 1520. But the Emperor Charles had set a Diet for January 6th, 1521 at Worms. By March 6th the emperor sent letters to Luther to appear at Worms twenty one days after receiving them accompanied by Casper Sturm, the emperor's herald. Luther, accompanied by few friends, arrived in Worms Tuesday, April 16, 1521 after two weeks of traveling.
The next day, Thursday, the herald brought Luther back to the court where he waited until 6 o'clock while the assembly consulted with themselves on grave matters. After the princes were set and Luther entered, Dr. Eck demanded again from Luther to recant his books. Dr. Martin Luther answered again modestly and with a low voice, and yet with a stoutness and Christian constancy: "Most serene emperor, illustrious princes, gracious lords. I obediently appeared at the time appointed yesterday evening, in conformity with the order given me yesterday, and by God's mercies I conjure your majesty and your August highnesses to listen graciously to the defense of a cause which I am assured is just and true. If, through ignorance, I should transgress the usages and proprieties of courts and should fail to give anyone the titles due to him or should act in some gestures or manner against courtly etiquette, I entreat you to pardon me; for I was not brought up in the palaces of kings, but in the seclusion of a cloister. I can say nothing of myself than that I have hitherto sought on earth through the simple-mindedness of my writings and teachings nothing but God's honour and the edification of believers.On Thursday, April 25th, Luther requested to be allowed to return to Wittenberg. On Friday the 26th of April at 10 o'clock Martin Luther left Worms on his journey home. However, on the way he was taken captive by friends and brought to the Wartburg Castle located just SW of the town of Eisenach at the northern end of the mountainous Thüringer Wald. He lived there disguised as a knight until 1522 and started the translation of the Bible into the German language.[200] This project he completed in 1534. A Few Details of the History of Reformation The Waldenses could trace their ancestors back to the time of the Apostle Paul. John Wycliffe, the `Morning Star of the Reformation' lived in the 14th century in England and translated the Bible into English.[300] His followers became known as the Lollards, who were vigorously persecuted and exterminated, but there were survivors. In Bohemia (Tchechoslovakia) Huss and Jerome lifted their voices against papal abuses. Having rejected, nearly extinguished the light of the Bible and made it unavailable for many the spiritual darkness was undescribable. `Aberglaube' and weird religious views abounded. When Huss found a copy of the Bible chained in a cell of a German monastery a spark was kindled and a fire lit which Rome was unable to put out. In Germany it was Dr. Martin Luther and Phillip Melanchthon who came to oppose the attitude of the papacy. For a long time they were regarded as still being part of the Middle Ages also referred to as the `Dark Ages'. Their time and the centuries before them were called `dark' because spiritual darkness prevailed like a very deep chasm which these reformers could not bridge all the way except for a getting a little light to shine and check the darkness. Before that the wholistic Hebrew concept of God, man and universe had God at its very center. The early Christian church had God at its center. The influence of Paganism entering the church incrementally removed the old foundations of solid faith in the Almighty God. Eyes turned more and more on a poor human substitute in Rome and the local parish. These could not and did not represent God according to the biblical record. The reformers achieved to identify the man of sin. The apostasy from God's Word matured and brought on a narrow salvation by works, doing things, in Catholicism, Islam, and all religions around the world. Against this background of false religion the reformers stepped in. Their efforts merely lifted the darkness just barely. They too were still very much part of the culture of thought and suppositions rampant in their day. One of these was the concept of predestination. According to this view, God predestines some to find salvation and others to destruction. By the moving of the divine will, some are thought to some day be with God while others are fated to be evil and die. Predestination denies man a real choice in his ultimate future. Human free will has little impact in this scenario. Man sort of just dangles from a thread from heaven above safety or perdition. Preaching to others and trying to save them becomes merely a prescribed script which actives the puppet strings which moves mouths, minds and hearts. The principle of predestination is, no one can overwrite divine sovereignty. But what is the truth? At issue in the controversy between God and Satan is God's character which has been defamed and muddled by the arch deceiver. Divine goals in matters of faith were taught in the Hebrew sanctuary. The maligned character of God was corrected by Jesus. Notes & References [100] In the Bible sword frequently means a spiritual sword, not a military weapon, but rather the Word of God, the Holy Bible. In other words, families may disagree on what they believe about the Bible and implies we should become thoroughly familiar with its messages for that is the duty of every person on earth. The sword is two edged for it represents what we call today the Old and New Testament, the law and the prophets. [200] Luther used the `Tepl Bible', named from Tepl, Bohemia. This Tepl manuscript represented a translation of the Waldensian Bible into the German which was spoken before the days of the Reformation. [Comba, The Waldenses of Italy, p. 191.] Of this remarkable manuscript, Comba says: "When the manuscript of Tepl appeared, the attention of the learned was aroused by the fact that the text it presents corresponds word for word with that of the first three editions of the ancient German Bible. Then Louis Keller, an original writer, with the decided opinions of a layman and versed in the history of the sects of the Middle Ages, declared the Tepl manuscript to be Waldensian. Another writer, Hermann Haupt, who belongs to the old Catholic party, supported his opinion vigorously." [Comba, The Waldenses of Italy, p. 190.] From Comba we also learn that the Tepl manuscript has an origin different from the version adopted by the Church of Rome; that it seems to agree rather with the Latin versions anterior to Jerome, the author of the Vulgate; and that Luther followed it in his translation, which probably is the reason why the Catholic Church reproved Luther for following the Waldenses.[Comba, The Waldenses of Italy, p. 192.] Another peculiarity is its small size, which seems to single it out as one of those little books which the Waldensian evangelists carried with them hidden under their rough cloaks.[Comba, The Waldenses of Italy, p. 191, note 679.] We have, therefore, an indication of how much the Reformation under Luther as well as Luthers Bible owed to the Waldenses. Waldensian influence, both from the Waldensian Bibles and from Waldensian relationships, entered into the King James translation of 1611. Referring to the King James translators, one author speaks thus of a Waldensian Bible they used: "It is known that among modern versions they consulted was an Italian, and though no name is mentioned, there cannot be room for doubt that it was the elegant translation made with great ability from the original Scriptures by Giovanni Diodati, which had only recently (1607) appeared at Geneva." [Dr. Benjamin Warfield of Princeton University, `Collections of Opinions and Reviews,' Vol. II, p. 99.] It is therefore evident that the translators of 1611 had before them four Bibles which had come under Waldensian influence: the Diodati in Italian, the Olivetan in French, the Lutheran in German, and the Genevan in English. 
We have every reason to believe that they had access to at least six Waldensian Bibles written in the old Waldensian vernacular.Dr. Nolan, who had already acquired fame for his Greek and Latin scholarship, and researches into Egyptian chronology, and was a lecturer of note. He spent 28 years to trace back the Received Text (This is the by Moses Maimonides declared `Aaron ben Moshe ben Asher' text using the latters vowel markings in favor over others) to its apostolic origin. He was powerfully impressed to examine the history of the Waldensian Bible. He felt certain that researches in this direction would demonstrate that the Italic New Testament, or the New Testament of those primitive Christians of northern Italy whose lineal descendants the Waldenses were, would turn out to be the Received Text. He says:"The author perceived, without any labor of inquiry, that it derived its name from that diocese, which has been termed the Italick, as contradistinguished from the Roman. This is a supposition, which receives a sufficient confirmation from the fact, that the principal copies of that version have been preserved in that diocese, the metropolitan church of which was situated in Milan. The circumstance is at present mentioned, as the author thence formed a hope, that some remains of the primitive Italick version might be found in the early translations made by the Waldenses, who were the lineal descendants of the Italick Church; and who have asserted their independence against the usurpation of the Church of Rome, and have ever enjoyed the free use of the Scriptures. In the search to which these considerations have led the author, his fondest expectations have been fully realized. It has furnished him with abundant proof on that point to which his inquiry was chiefly directed; as it has supplied him with the unequivocal testimony of a truly apostolical branch of the primitive church, that the celebrated text of the heavenly witnesses was adopted in the version which prevailed in the Latin Church, previously to the introduction of the modern Vulgate." [Dr. Frederick Nolan (1784–1864), `Integrity of the Greek Vulgate', pp. xvii, xviii.] In 1617 Dr. William Polk published, `In Defense of the Protestant Bible', a book which compares the Protestant Bible in one column and the Jesuit Bible in the other. Examination reveals that in at least 76 places where the Jesuit Bible correlates suspiciously with the modern versions of today. Conclusion: Modern Bibles are catholic, ecumenical Bibles changing doctrines by misrepresentations of numbers of Bible texts thus destroying Bible principles relating to the divinity of Jesus Christ. Where did this Vaudois Church amid the rugged peaks of the Alps secure these uncorrupted manuscripts? In the silent watches of the night, along the lonely paths of Asia Minor where robbers and wild beasts lurked, might have been seen the noble missionaries carrying manuscripts, and verifying documents from the churches in Judea to encourage their struggling brethren under the iron heel of, first Rome's Emporers and then the Papacy. The sacrificing labors of the apostle Paul were bearing fruit. His wise plan to anchor the Gentile churches of Europe to the churches of Judea, provided the channel of communication which defeated continually and finally the bewildering pressure of the Papacy. Or, as the learned Scrivener has beautifully put it: "Wide as is the region which separates Syria from Gaul, there must have been in very early times some remote communication by which the stream of Eastern testimony, or tradition, like another Alpheus, rose up again with fresh strength to irrigate the regions of the distant West." [F.H.A. Scrivener, Introduction to the Criticism of the N. T., Vol. II, pp. 299, 300.] We have it now revealed how Constantines Hexapla Bible was successfully met. A powerful chain of churches, few in number compared with the manifold congregations of an apostate Christianity, but enriched with the eternal conviction of truth and with able scholars, stretched from Palestine to Scotland. If Rome in her own land was unable to beat down the testimony of apostolic Scriptures, how could she hope, in the Greek speaking world of the distant and hostile East, to maintain the supremacy of her Greek Bible? The Scriptures of the apostle John and his associates, the traditional text, the Textus Receptus, if you please, arose from the place of humiliation forced on it by Origens Bible in the hands of Constantine and became the Received Text of Greek Christianity. And when the Greek East for one thousand years was completely shut off from the Latin West, the noble Waldenses in northern Italy still possessed in Latin the Received Text. To Christians preserving apostolic Christianity, the world owes the Bible. It is not true, as the Roman Church claims, that she gave the Bible to the world. What she gave was an impure text, a text with thousands of verses so changed as to make way for her unscriptural doctrines. While upon those who possessed the veritable Word of God, she poured out through long centuries her stream of cruel persecution. Or, in the words of another writer: "The Waldenses were among the first of the peoples of Europe to obtain a translation of the Holy Scriptures. Hundreds of years before the Reformation, they possessed the Bible in manuscript in their native tongue. They had the truth unadulterated, and this rendered them the special objects of hatred and persecution... Here for a thousand years, witnesses for the truth maintained the ancient faith... In a most wonderful manner it (the Word of Truth) was preserved uncorrupted through all the ages of darkness." [E. G. White, Great Controversy, pp. 65, 66, 69.] The struggle against the Bible adopted by Constantine was won. But another warfare, another plan to deluge the Latin west with a corrupt Latin Bible was preparing. We hasten to see how the world was saved from Jerome and his Origenism. NOTE: The two great families of Greek Bibles are well illustrated in the work of that outstanding scholar, Erasmus. Before he gave to the Reformation the New Testament in Greek, he divided all Greek MSS. into two classes: those which over all agreed with the Received Text in key texts and those which agreed with the Vaticanus MSS. The King James from the Received Text has been the Bible of the English speaking world for 300 years. This has given the Received Text, and the Bibles translated from it into other tongues, standing and authority. At the same time, it neutralized the dangers of the Catholic manuscripts and the Bibles in other tongues translated from them. [A page of Genesis 3 in the Complutensian Polyglot Bible can be seen in BA, Sep 1986, p. 177.] |
The Lieutenant-General of the `men-at-arms' of the Empire, Ulrich von Pappenheim, was chosen by the emperor to tell Luther to appear before the Imperial Majesty in the afternoon at 4 o'clock the next day, Wednesday, to understand the reasons for him having been commanded to Worms. Luther was led through the garden of the `Knights-of-the-Rhodes' place to the `Earl Palatine's Palace' and then led by secret stairs to the place where the audience was supposed to take place. Yet many, who realized the maneuvering, violently rushed in despite being resisted in order to see Martin Luther. There he stood before the emperor, the electors, dukes, earls, and estates of the empire being advised by Ulrich von Pappenheim to remain silent until asked to speak. Then Dr. Eck began to condemn Luther's writings and asked Luther directly to revoke them. Luther said, "I humbly beseech the Imperial Majesty to grant me liberty and leisure to deliberate; so that I may satisfy the interrogation made unto me, without prejudice of the Word of God, and peril of my own soul." Upon this Dr. Eck commanded him to reappear next day at the same time.
I do not claim to be a saint, nor do I proclaim my life, but rather the doctrine of Christ. Thus I cannot revoke these books, since my revocation would mean the continuance of their tyrannical, violent and raging rule due to my compliance and hesitancy. The people of God would be treated more violently and unmercifully than ever.
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The Apostles (Original). Received Text/ Grundtext (Greek). Waldensian Bible (Italic). Erasmus (Received Text Restored). Luthers Bible, Dutch, French, Spanish, Italian, French, etc., Tyndale, (English) 1535 Rheims (English - from the Received Text). King James, 1611 Oxford Movement. (from Received Text).
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The Apostates (Corrupted Originals). Sinaiticus and Vaticanus Bible (Greek). Vulgate (Latin). Church of Romes Bible. Vaticanus (Greek). Westcott and Hort (B and Aleph). English Revised 1881. [Westcott, Brooke Foss (1825-1901) Bishop of Durham; Hort, Fenton John Anthony (1828-1892), a biblical scholar.]
Dr. Philip Schaff (B and Aleph). American Revised 1901. |
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