Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T03:34:54.750Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Theology of Luther's Lectures on Romans

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

A. Skevington Wood
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

“A Reform manifesto”: Thus did Professor James Mackinnon characterise Luther's Commentary on Romans. This twofold collection of interlinear and marginal glosses (glossae) and continuous expositions (scholia), discovered only at the birth of the present century and first published in 1908 under the editorship of Johannes Ficker, represents the doctrinal core of the Protestant Reformation. The Wittenberg Theses only marked the practical outcome of a theological revolution which had already been announced in Luther's Lectures on Romans, delivered in the years 1515 and 1516. This declaration of theological independence merits close attention. It is indeed a work of genius “of very great span, of remarkable clarity and vigour,” as Henri Strohl affirmed. Karl Holl went even further. He regarded this as Luther's greatest achievement, along with his Galatians, and thought it still unsurpassed.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , March 1950 , pp. 1 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1950

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 1 note 1 Luther and the Reformation, Vol. I, p. 176.Google Scholar

page 1 note 2 L'Épanouissement de la Pensée Religieuse de Luther, p. 12.Google Scholar

page 1 note 3 Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kirchengeschichte, Bd. I, p. 420.Google Scholar

page 1 note 4 cf. Nygren, A., Agape and Eros, Vol. II, Pt. II, pp. 463 ff.Google Scholar; Boehmer, H., Luther and the Reformation in the Light of Modern Research, p. 80Google Scholar; Watson, P. S., Let God be God! pp. 33 ff.Google Scholar

page 1 note 5 op. cit. p. 64Google Scholar. For the phrase in Luther, , cf. Luthers WerkeGoogle Scholar, Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimar) (W.A.) Bd. X, I, p. 25.

page 2 note 1 The references in brackets are to the page in W.A. Bd. LVI, from which all quotations have been translated.

page 2 note 2 cf. Holl, K., op. cit., pp. 37f.Google Scholar, and Schmidt, F. W., Der Gottesgedanke in Luthers RömerbriefvorlesungGoogle Scholar, in Theologische Studien und Kritiken, Lutherana, III, pp. 117ff.Google Scholar

page 3 note 1 cf. Köberle, A., The Quest for Holiness, pp. 93, 253.Google Scholar

page 3 note 2 op. cit., p. 176.Google Scholar

page 3 note 3 Duns Scotus had defined these terms. Syntheresis is the “habitus principiorum qui semper est rectus”. Conscientia is the “habitus proprius conclusionis practicae”. Sent. II, dist. 39, qu. 2, 4; cf. Seeberg, R., Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, 3rd Ed., Bd. II, p. 98.Google Scholar

page 4 note 1 cf. W. A. Bd. I, pp. 32, 36, 224; Bd. IX, p. 18, for references to syntheresis in this early period.

page 4 note 2 Watson, P. S., op. cit., p. 76.Google Scholar

page 4 note 3 ibid., pp. 112 f.

page 5 note 1 Die Entstehung der lutherischen und der reformierten Kirchenlehre, p. 34.Google Scholar

page 6 note 1 For this section cf. Nygren, A., op. cit., pp. 491ff.Google Scholar

page 6 note 2 ibid., p. 495.

page 7 note 1 Seeberg, R., op. cit., Bd. III, pp. 634 f.Google Scholar; Bd. IV, p. 90.

page 8 note 1 op. cit., p. 182.Google Scholar

page 10 note 1 Seeberg, R., op. cit., Bd. III, p. 645.Google Scholar

page 10 note 2 ibid., Bd. IV, p. 91.

page 11 note 1 Commentary on Galatians, ed. Middleton, E., p. 75.Google Scholar

page 11 note 2 cf. W.A., Bd. I, pp. 105, 113; Will, R., La Liberté Chrétienne, p, 70.Google Scholar

page 12 note 1 cf. Jundt, A., Le Développement de la Pensée Religieuse de Luther jusqu'en 1517. p. 174.Google Scholar

page 13 note 1 Köberle, A., op. cit., p. 82.Google Scholar

page 14 note 1 Forgiveness and Reconciliation, p. 55.Google Scholar

page 15 note 1 op. cit., Bd. IV, p. 113.

page 15 note 2 pp. 54 f. Quoted in part by Taylor, V., op. cit., p. 28.Google Scholar

page 15 note 3 op. cit., p. 190. This section closely follows Professor Mackinnon's lucid analysis.

page 16 note 1 ibid., p. 191.

page 17 note 1 op. cit., p. 71.

page 18 note 1 Homily, “Of Salvation”.Google Scholar

page 18 note 2 Luther, , Sämmtliche Werke, Erlangen, XIV, p. 151.Google Scholar