8 PREFACE
many points, nor can the dispute be reckoned, as it often is, as an alignment between tradition on the one side and ration- alism on the other, for an examination of the argtmients on both sides shows that each appealed chiefly to the same sort of Biblical argimient. Luther's view of the Real Presence was conditioned very largely by the n q ^stical character of his religion, while the Swiss Reformers approached the problem from a more positive, empirical and legalistic standpoint. Thus the controversy really focused a more ftmdamental dif- ference between two types of Protestantism. Like all civil wars. It became bitter, and immediately after the futile attempt at agreement at Marburg in 1529, the Lutherans were ready to make common cause with the Catholics to crush their fellow- Protestants.
Within the Lutheran Church itself these letters show an active work of organization and edification. In the transla- tion of the Bible, in hymns and Catechisms and in many other works, as well as by arrangements for church discipline and for education, Luther successfully labored to build deep and strong the foundations of his Church. By his repudiation of monastic vows he took his last and not least important step away from medievalism.
Lastly, as is natural, the course of Luther's private life figures largely in this correspondence. Both his inward life, with its struggles, temptations and growth, and his outward circumstances, including his marriage, the birth of his first children and his various illnesses, are vividly portrayed.
The labor of this edition is no longer in the hands of one man. More than half of the present volume is the work of the Rev. Professor Charles M. Jacobs, already well known as a translator of Luther. In selecting for this period we have had to take a much smaller proportion of the available letters. The scale we have adopted has been narrower at the same time that the material becomes vastly larger. For this period there are extant 1150 letters in Luther's correspondence, about an equal number in those of Melanchthon and Erasmus, not to mention a score of other personages whose letters have been published in stout volumes. It is probable that more
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