Stephan (Luther in den Wandlungen seiner Kirche, 1907).
Finally there still remains to call attention to complete representations of Luther's theology and to such publications as have made Luther's historical position the object of their research. Jul. Koestlin, Theo. Harnack and lately Gottschick have represented Luther's theology in our period, whereas W. Walther and R. Eger have attended especially to his ethics. With these are to be compared text-books of History of Dogma, by A. Harnack, Loofs, and Seeberg, and especially the ones by Tschackert and O. Ritschl.105
The assertion that Luther did not usher in the new era, but really belonged to the Middle Ages, was made by Troeltsch, W. Koehler endeavoring to support it. But Brieger, Loofs, Kattenbusch, Boehmer, and others have energetically opposed it.106 Troeltsch would hardly have arrived at this conclusion if he had not started with the problem "Jesus or Paul" in the sense of the modern school, and if he had not been firmly convinced from the very outset that there is no such thing as absolute truth and authority. Certainly, if you do not recognize an absolute truth and authority, then you must necessarily relegate Luther to the Middle Ages, where the belief in authority was the Alpha and Omega. But if you are convinced of this, and if, having an open mind for all present-day problems, you still see with gladness and thankfulness in the word of God the highest authority for your religious life, then you will see in Luther the herald of the new age, an age unshackled from human authority — the papacy and science overstepping its rightful boundaries alike, but nevertheless an age whose conscience recognizes itself as bound by the authority of the Divine Word, and entirely bound.
