Commentary on Genesis, Vol. 1: Luther on the Creation. Martin Luther
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church works, and heartily inclined to do them. May our beloved God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ grant that it may be helpful to many pious Christians! Herewith I commend your highness and the benevolent Christians of the worthy nobility to the care and protection of Almighty God.
Dated Magdeburg, St. Michael, A.D. 1557.
PREFACE OF DR. JOHN GEORGE WALCH
Among the illustrious gifts of grace with which God endowed our beloved and blessed Dr. Martin Luther, as the chosen agent for the reformation of the Church, one of the greatest was that he did not only love the divine Word from his heart and held it indeed, dearer than thousands of gold and silver; but also that he possessed a deep insight into and was mighty in explaining the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Both were united in a high degree in him by the wisdom and goodness of God. He was indeed a great lover of the divine Word and found in it his greatest pleasure, when he studied it to be established in his faith by learning from it the way he should walk. In the many and various trials he had to experience he could draw from it the one consolation, of which he gave many proofs and at the same time left behind him a testimony that can not be gainsaid, which confirms that for which he is in this respect honored. For his love and high appreciation of the sacred Scriptures he makes apparent upon every occasion. From the beginning of his academic career to its close he lectured constantly and untiringly on the Scriptures and sought to make his hearers acquainted with them. He founded his teachings on them and was therefore firm and unmovable in the same. He used them against his opponents as the sword of the spirit, put them to flight and refuted all their errors, so that they could not do anything against him, especially the Papists. He praised the Scriptures most highly and admonished all to read them and pray to God for true light if they desired the true knowledge and wished to further their salvation. As great as was his love to the divine Books so well was he experienced in them and God gave him great talents to understand and explain them. He did not hang to the outward shell nor did he seek to apply in his expositions an extensive human knowledge; but he came to the right foundation and the true and real purpose of the Spirit of God, whether he had before him the legal or the evangelical Word, and knew a clear and impressive way to give the true meaning and will of God in the respective passages, especially concerning the universal sinful and deep ruin of mankind, the grace and merciful love of God, Christ the kernel of all the holy Scriptures, righteousness by faith, the active and working character of faith, as also other points of life and doctrine, which he did not do the least in the historical parts of the Scriptures.
Such gifts Luther received from God because he was chosen as the agent of the Reformation, and they were by all means necessary to that end. For by means of the Scriptures the light penetrated the darkness covering the world, and revealed the abominations of the papacy. Hence he translated the Scriptures into German from the original texts. He placed the Bible in the hands of the people. Then in his sermons, academic lectures and everywhere he diligently explained in many excellent expositions the divine Books, where he showed how one is to understand the Word of God and apply it fruitfully to his edification.
These expository and exegetical writings of the sainted Luther are written with a talent especially adapted for the work, and they have also at all times brought special blessings, although we deny not that some are to be preferred to others. And among Luther's very best writings all agree, and rightly so, is his Commentary on Genesis, a short historical account of which I will now give.
Luther began this work at Wittenberg in his lectures to the university students in 1536, and ended it after ten years of labor, Nov. 17, 1545, only a few months before his death. So John Mathesius reports in his "Sermons on the Life of Luther," and then adds, Luther because of worry left Wittenberg for a time to visit the Prince of Anhalt, at Merseburg, and wrote, "Upon his return home, he finished his Genesis, Nov. 17, 1545, on which he had labored ten years." Ludwig von Seckendorf's "History of Lutheranism" is the authority that he began this work in 1536, while in the margin of the Latin edition is printed that he entered upon the exposition of the twenty-second chapter, Oct. 27, 1539.
In the meantime the wisdom of God directed that this glorious treasure should not lie buried, but should be brought to light for the quickening of many souls, and issued periodically in parts. The beginning was made while Luther was still living, and the first part, the Creation and the Flood, appeared in 1545, containing his lectures on the first eleven chapters of Genesis, edited by Veit Dietrich, who heard Luther deliver the lectures while a student at Wittenberg, to which he wrote a dedication, and Luther added a short but precious "Address to the Christian Reader" [both of which we print in full]. Luther died in 1546, and Veit Dietrich in 1549, but Jerome Besoldus, pastor at Nuremberg, continued the work and issued the three other parts or volumes at Nuremberg. The second volume, The History of Abraham, with a preface by Michael Roting, professor at Nuremberg, from the twelfth chapter to verse 10 of the twenty-fifth chapter, was published in 1550. The third volume, to the thirty-sixth chapter, appeared in 1552, with a preface by Philip Melanchthon, and the fourth volume to the end of Genesis, in 1554, prefaced by Besoldus himself. Jerome Baumgartner, a councilman of Nuremberg, and a great lover of Luther's writings, appointed Besoldus to this work upon the death of Veit Dietrich, Melanchthon and Rorary approving. Jerome Besoldus studied at Wittenberg, heard these lectures from Luther's mouth, and diligently wrote a large part of them as they were delivered. He stayed in the home of Luther and ate at his table. He made use, also, of what Dietrich, Cruciger, Rorary and Stoltz had written from Luther's mouth. He says when Veit Dietrich died while preparing the second volume, the enemies of the Gospel sought to prevent its publication, and there was little hope that it should appear in print complete. But God graciously heard the prayers of the godly in these dark and distressing days, who longed for the last and best writings of their beloved Luther, when Councilman Baumgartner resolved that at least what Veit Dietrich had prepared for the second volume should appear, and the result was the work complete was printed.
This commentary was delivered to the students in Latin and first published in that language. But soon arrangements were perfected to issue it in German. Basil Faber, who died while rector in Erfurt, a celebrated educator, translated the first two volumes, whose dedication we give in full; and John Guden, senior pastor at Brunswick, translated volumes three and four, and his dedication was to the same person and written on Epiphany of the same year, 1557, a little before Faber's dedication.
Other editions of the commentary, both in Latin and German, followed, and then it was incorporated in the editions of the complete works of Luther; in the Wittenberg edition, in Latin and German, and in the Altenburg and the Leipsic collections in German, and all subsequent editions.
That Luther himself did not make much of this work is a proof of his humility and that he ascribed nothing to himself, but all to the grace of God. Nevertheless the commentary is worthy of all the praise it has received. In the Formula of Concord our forefathers referred to it as a "Commentarius praeclarus," or an excellent commentary and the Leipsic and Wittenberg theologians in their final report and explanation, especially against Flacius, mention "The Augsburg Confession," the Postils, and other sermons of Luther which are full of the precious teachings and strong consolation of the Holy Ghost, and all his other books on doctrine, especially those written after the Diet of Augsburg, in 1530, among the best of which are his explanations of certain Prophets and the Psalms, the Epistle to the Galatians; and in this select list is classified the "Commentary on Genesis." They designate it as a "rich exposition, with which he closed his calling, his ministerial office and his life in a blessed way. Because of this we justly esteem it highly. For in the same commentary he gave full and free expression to his last convictions and confession on most of the articles of the Christian faith and bequeathed them to the world."
In like manner have other divines of our Church judged of this commentary and held that we should esteem it highly and that it proves Luther was truly a great expounder of the Scriptures. (Basil Faber's dedication is quoted at length here, also Veit Dietrich at other places, but we refer the reader to their documents, which we give in full.)
John Guden says: "Luther has left us in this Commentary a rich treasury as a legacy, and what a valuable treasure it is, they will truly learn, who diligently read it. As a summary, one finds here the true kernel of the doctrine our God has revealed to us through Dr.