The Beginnings of Luther's Hermeneutics*

by G E R H A R D E B E L I N G

The Christological Basis of Luther's Understanding of the Spirit

I HA VE ONLY BEEN able to indicate hastily the richness of the

relationships in Luther's thoughts. Of course his thought, es-
pecially with respect to his concept of God, demands more precise
interpretation. For our question concerning the proper understand-
ing of the dualism in Luther, however, it will have become very
clear that we cannot stop at the antithesis between creation and
redemption, but rather that the entire problem is concentrated in
christology. For Christ is simultaneously God and man, dead and
alive, mortal and immortal. Certainly, says Luther, "Nearly every
contradiction is here reconciled in Christ."139 That is the marvel,
that here the antitheses—which are otherwise opposed only dual-
istically, and which, in the tension between shadow and truth, only
stand in relation to each other as if they were divided—are simul-
taneously united in a paradox. But does that mean that their an-
tithetical nature is taken from them? Now it must be shown how,
in Christ, the antitheses are united. Precisely there, where God is
most present,140 namely as the incarnate God, he is hidden. W h y
is he hidden? Because he is Spirit and the Spirit is invisible? Cer-
tainly also as the naked God he is the hidden and incomprehensible
God, who dwells in a light where no one can approach.141 But then,
in what is his hiddenness as the God clothed in flesh distinguished
from his hiddenness as the naked God? Precisely in that here God
makes himself hidden, he before whom all is naked and manifest,
while before men all things are hidden.142 As the Spiritus Separatus
God can certainly not be so hidden as he is hidden under the A bs-
conso Carnis.143 The hiddenness of the incarnate God is thus not the
pure hiddenness of the spiritual, invisible, and interior God, but
rather the hiddenness under the form of its contrary.144 Precisely
because God becomes visible in Christ, in the way in which the

*Here we publish part two of the three-part serialization of Ebeling's investigation of the
beginnings of Luther's hermeneutics. Part three will appear in our winter 1993 issue.

315
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world itself is visible, he appears to the world as the opposite of

what it expects from God. We fail to understand Luther's thoughts
if we interpret them as ontological assertions. Certainly Luther can
so formulate it that it sounds as if he wanted to characterize two
spheres of beings with regard to their knowability in and for them-
selves, when he says, "Man is manifest, but God is invisible";145 or
"Flesh is manifest but spirit is secret."146 The distinction that Luther
is attempting to make is between two different, and indeed opposed
and mutually exclusive, possibilities of knowledge and understand-
ing. His distinction, however, is drawn, not between two different
objects of knowledge, as it had previously been expressed, but rather
between two different subjects of knowledge. Man is manifest,
which means that the knowing and judging of a man is oriented
to how things appear to him, as they are placed at his disposal.
God, however, is invisible, which means that God's knowing and
judging is independent of how things appear in the world-system,
as they are at our disposal within the world. That man is manifest,
therefore, not only signifies that he can be seen, but also that he
sees only what is in front of his eyes. That God is invisible not only
signifies that he cannot be seen, but also that he sees into what is
hidden. Hence it is impossible to say of anything that it is knowable
in itself or invisible in itself. Rather, everything is necessarily si-
multaneously knowable and hidden, yet in different aspects, and
indeed, such that one aspect conditions the other. For one cannot
simultaneously appear to the world and to God but must be hidden
to one or the other.147 "What is hidden before God is clear before
the world, and vice versa."148 Thus, two judgments stand opposed,
the judgment of God and the judgment of men. What men elect,
God condemns; and what men condemn, God elects. And this judg-
ment of God is shown to us in the cross of Christ.149 The oneness
of God and man in Christ means, therefore, that God allows it to
happen that his judgment and the judgment of men coincide at this
one point and thereby become evident in their disunity. Therefore
God is not hidden in Christ in the usual sense, but is hidden instead
under the contrary. For only through this oneness of weakness
before the world and strength before God, of foolishness before
the world and wisdom before God, can God be most present to
men and destroy the deceit of another oneness, namely the oneness
of justice before the world and justice before God, of the glory of
the flesh and the glory of the Spirit.150 Herein the soteriological
 THE B E G I N N I N G S OF L U T H E R ' S H E R M E N E U T I C S 317

meaning of the cross of Christ comes to light: it saves the spirit by

condemning the flesh.151 And now the concept of the spiritual re-
ceives its clarity. The spiritual is everything, insofar as it is under-
stood before God, which is to say, in light of the cross of Christ,
in light of God's revelation, hidden under its contrary. Salvation is
spiritual, insofar as it is understood, not as a certainty of being-in-
the-world and as the bestowal of temporal goods, but rather as a
being-crucified-with-Christ, in order to have life in the midst of
death. The believer is spiritual insofar as he understands himself as
hidden in God and therefore affirms his being-hidden before the
world, in order to be hidden in this hiddenness under its contrary.
The church is spiritual insofar as it is understood as hidden in this
life, because she places her trust not in earthly means of power, but
knows, rather, that she must be persecuted and that the most dan-
gerous persecution is not to be persecuted but rather to live in
security. But likewise, even sin is spiritual insofar as it is seen before
God in his proper justice, in pious self-assertion in the face of God,
in the flight away from being justified by God toward self-justifi-
cation. Thus the spiritual is not a special realm of being, a sphere
of pure spirituality, inwardness, and invisibility. To understand the
hidden in that way is not to understand it at all spiritually, but
rather carnally. Instead, the spiritual is a category of understanding.
Whoever exists spiritually exists in the visible realm, but he exists
in it not as manifest but rather as hidden. Something certainly can
be seen, namely its contrary, but it is not spiritual living as such.
To live in the Spirit, therefore, is nothing else than to live in faith.
For Spirit and faith are one and the same.152

Luther's Hermeneutical Understanding of the

Antithesis of Spirit and Letter

It is overwhelming to see in the first Lectures On The Psalms how

this concept of the Spirit, which is christologically oriented and
yet related to human existence, operates as a disruptive force which
causes the entire structure of traditional theological thinking to
totter. We cannot at this point pursue any further the questions of
justification and ecclesiology in which this process shows itself with
special clarity. Instead, we shall proceed in the direction of our
main problem and ask: What is the meaning of what we have thus
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far achieved in respect to hermeneutics? Here, indeed, all the threads

come together. For the dualism of the first Lectures On The Psalms,
which makes itself known to us as a dualism of two ways of un-
derstanding, or more precisely, of understanding existence, is cer-
tainly not an insight achieved by speculation, but rather discloses
itself here only from the knowledge of Christ. But how do we
obtain knowledge of Christ? Certainly through the Scripture! But
how is Scripture to be understood? If the dualism of understanding
proves to be so radical, then it must certainly become acute here
too, and precisely here, because here the source of understanding
itself likewise penetrates into the dualism of mutually exclusive
possibilities of understanding.
That for Luther the hermeneutical problem in the first Lectures
On The Psalms moves right to the center, thus hangs on the fact
that for him the Word alone opens access to Christ. It is striking
how seldom Luther mentions the sacraments. That is not accidental.
By the method of allegory he could have expounded a full-length
doctrine of the sacraments. That he did not do so is a clear sign of
how, at the beginning of his hermeneutical development, the sac-
raments lay very much at the periphery of his thinking. It could
be demonstrated that this negative fact is a symptom of his new
theological approach. For the central position, which he accords to
the Word, is affected by his fundamental theological idea of rev-
elation in hiddenness. "Quia adeo abscondita est gloria regni christi et
potentia, ut nisi per verbum predicationis auditui manifestetur, nonpossit
agnosci, cum in conspectu oculorum maxime contrarium appareat. . . ,"153
Therefore, it is not correct to argue that for Luther the Word moves
to the center, because for him revelation was identical with a doc-
trine, and therefore the proclamation of the doctrine mediates the
gift of grace itself, just as the sacraments mediate grace itself. It
was not Luther's view that the Word stands in opposition to the
Catholic sacraments, becoming itself a sacrament by analogy to the
traditional understanding of sacraments.154 Yet if we get to the bot-
tom of the matter, the antithesis becomes all the more radical. "In
this life, we do not possess the thing itself but testimonies of things, for
faith is not the thing, but an argument of things not apparent."155 With
this, the entire Catholic sacramental system is already tacitly turned
upside down. Luther did not quite say: The Word does not mediate
the thing itself, but the sacraments mediate it. Had Luther spoken
in this way about the sacraments, how very much he would have
 THE BEGINNINGS OF LUTHER'S HERMENEUTICS 319

bestowed upon them the pathos of his theological thinking! But

what Luther said about the Word, that it is only testimonies, "not
. . . an exhibition of present things but only testimonies of future
things,"156 tolerates no correction through the sacraments, which
would have elevated them above the Word, so that they were the
exhibition of present things. For: "All our good exists only in Word
and Promise."1571 would not maintain that Luther had consciously
formulated these thoughts in contrast to the prevailing doctrine of
the sacraments. But viewed objectively, they stand in the sharpest
antithesis to it. In his boldly executed interpretation of the concept
of testimony, this observation stands out starkly: "Nothing but
words . . . not the things themselves, but the signs of things."158
Certainly one might immediately think of a reference to the ad-
oration of the host, when he says: "Heavenly things cannot be
shown like things present but can only be proclaimed by the
Word."159 But no weight should be given to this. What is decisive,
as Luther formulates it positively, is where then the things remain:
"Because things not apparent are hidden in words through faith, the one
who has the words has all things through faith, even if hidden."160 Faith,
therefore, corresponds to the Word, just as grace corresponds to the
sacraments as the sacramental efficacy. But while sacramental grace
is the thing, faith is not the thing itself, but rather the substance
of future things. Now he who has the Word through faith certainly
does not have nothing; but neither does he merely have some specific
consequence of grace; rather, he simply has everything! If we con-
sider how firmly the Catholic doctrine of the sacraments is anchored
in christology, we can say that Luther did not understand the pres-
ence of Christ sacramentally,161 but rather eschatologically. The
sense in which this was so shall become clear only later; for now
it is enough to allude to the eschatological tension in his expressions:
"Not in actuality but in hope; not in sight but in faith; not the
exhibition of present things but the testimonies of future things."
We could ask: Was the sacrament not the most appropriate object
to which Luther could have applied his thought on hiddenness
under a contrary? I am familiar with only one passage in the Dictata
where he does that: "the Sacrament of the Eucharist where He is
most completely concealed."162 But there, too, in his characteristic
way, he turns back again to the incarnation. That deepens the in-
sight into why for Luther everything is concentrated on the Word.
Not in the sacrament as it was understood by the Scholastics, but
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rather only in the Word in its correlation to faith does the rec-
ognition come that the hiddenness under a contrary is not an ob-
jective condition but rather hints at the clamping-together of
christology and existential understanding. And therefore the con-
nection between Word and faith signifies that the relationship to
Christ has something to do with the problem of understanding:
That Christ is Lord we have only by hearing in faith."163 "It is the
nature of the Word to be heard."164
So here the whole dualism is further broken open. What kind
of Word is it then? And what kind of hearing is it? Is it an external
Word, proclaimed vocally and heard by the ear? Or is it an internal
and invisible Word, spoken directly in the heart and heard interi-
orly?165 If it simply happens to us, then it is certainly a human word
and of the letter. For only when it happens in us is it God's Word
and of the Spirit.166 Upon this hangs the question of the "efficacious
Word." For "the Word of God has motive power above all
things," 167 and is thus not only a "teaching power" but also a "mo-
tivating power."168 The antithesis between the external Word as
letter and the internal Word as spirit sometimes seems for Luther
to be stretched right to the breaking point. Yet the tension is not
broken. It does not come to the point of rendering God's speaking
interiorly over against the letter of Scripture. "God uses our words
. . . as tools with which He Himself writes living words in our
hearts."169 Luther has nothing to do with the psychological problem
of how, in general, a word which has been perceived with the senses,
read, or heard can penetrate into the heart. In a formal sense, each
word is able to beget living letters in the heart, "since nothing
could be received into a living subject unless it were living."170 In
this formal sense, the spirit is certainly always hidden in the letters.
The question, rather, is how, through the literal Word, the Spirit
of God can write such living letters into the heart, letters which
are enlivened by God. Here the idea of hiddenness under a contrary
holds good. In fact: "the spirit is concealed in the letter."171 But,
in this theological sense, the spirit is not concealed in every letter,
but only in the Holy Scripture, because Scripture is the testimony
of Christ. But then the Scripture is not the Word of God in the
sense of an objective report. Rather, we can now formulate it suit-
ably as follows: the Word of God is hidden in Scripture. But if the
Word of God is encountered in this way through the Holy Scrip-
ture, then it is obviously determined by the understanding of Scrip-
 T H E B E G I N N I N G S OF L U T H E R ' S H E R M E N E U T I C S 321

ture whether it becomes letter or spirit for a person. And then it

is obviously the duty of exegesis to disclose the spirit in the letter,
to interpret Scripture not literally but rather spiritually. But does
this not confuse the matter? Is it not so that in the one instance it
is a matter of an existential understanding in which the Word of
God encounters me and so the letter becomes the spirit, while in
the other instance the question of exegetical method arises, which
is at the disposal of men? How these two relate to each other, the
understanding in faith (or the non-understanding in faithlessness)
and the method of scriptural exposition, brings the hermeneutical
problem to a crisis.
If we trace the antithesis of spirit and letter to the utter limits
to which Luther takes it, right up to the point where this distinction
meshes with the question of scriptural exposition, the lines threaten
to become inextricably entangled. The concepts of spirit and letter,
along with their parallel concepts, mean for Luther, as we have
made clear, two mutually exclusive ways of understanding exist-
ence, namely, existence before God or before the world. What it
means to exist before God (i.e., spiritually) in the hiddenness under
a contrary, is revealed on the Cross and stated through the gospel
as the Word of the Cross to the world. Whoever takes offense at
the Word of the Cross falls all the more into living carnally. To
him the Word of the Cross becomes condemnation.172 On the other
hand, the Word of the Cross awakens faith in anyone who bows
before that Word; that is, his existence comes to be one of living
spiritually under the gospel, which is now an acquittal, revealed to
the spiritual but hidden from the carnal.174 That it comes to the
one as well as to the other, namely, that the gospel is understood
either as folly or as the wisdom of God (which means that the one
stands aloof from the gospel in faithlessness, and from thenceforth
understands himself out of that which is at his own disposal and
seeks his own righteousness; while the other opens himself to the
gospel in faith, understands himself out of that which is not at his
own disposal, and thus allows Christ to be his righteousness; that
to the one the gospel thus becomes a killing letter while to the
other it becomes the life-giving spirit), does not lie in the power
of the one who expounds Scripture.175 So to this extent, the dis-
tinction of spirit and letter has nothing to do with scriptural ex-
position. It is surely something different that the exposition of
Scripture must be oriented toward the knowledge of these two
322 LUTHERAN QUARTERLY

possibilities, of this Either/Or, which is to say, of the meaning of

the Cross of Christ. To this extent the distinction of spirit and letter
is indeed the diacritical mark which properly orients scriptural ex-
position. To the extent that scriptural exposition is not so oriented,
such that the Word of the Cross is not illuminated but darkened,
it becomes difficult, if not utterly impossible, for the gospel to
pronounce judgment one way or the other. Or stated more properly,
it reinforces the tendency to remain undisturbed in carnal living;
it suggests that one adapts Scripture to this carnal understanding of
existence and thus places Scripture in the service of his own righ-
teousness. Conversely: to the extent that scriptural exposition is
oriented according to this distinction between spirit and letter, and
thereby becomes the interpretation of the Word of the Cross, it
expounds the genuinely decisional character of the gospel and serves
(in a way which is entirely beyond the control of the expositor
himself) to arouse either resolute unbelief or faith. There are thus,
in fact, both relevant and irrelevant kinds of scriptural exposition.
And in this sense we seem to be justified in characterizing the
relevant sort (i. e., scriptural exposition which is oriented according
to the distinction between spirit and letter) as spiritual, and the
irrelevant sort (i. e., scriptural exposition which obliterates this dis-
tinction) as literal or, alternatively, as carnal. But this is providing
that we allow the sense of the words "spiritual" and "literal" (or
"carnal") to be strongly oriented to the Either/Or of these two
understandings of existence which are separated by the Cross of
Christ. Yet we must be careful about the use of these characteri-
zations. For they are simply inseparable from other pressing ques-
tions which adhere to them. That becomes clear in Luther's
scintillating use of language in the first Lectures On The Psalms. It
is certainly quite instructive to recognize how the problems are
interlinked for Luther, without his yet arriving at a conceptuali-
zation which clarifies the problems' connections and guarantees
against a false coalescing. This state of affairs compels us to measure
the infinite fullness of his links of reasoning and formulations
against his manifest intentions. From this I derive the right to dis-
tinguish in the way that has already been expounded: Sometimes
the spiritual and the literal are characterizations of two possibilities
of understanding human existence. At other times they become
characterizations of two ways of scriptural exposition, the one ree-
 T H E B E G I N N I N G S OF L U T H E R ' S H E R M E N E U T I C S 323

ognizing the possibility of these two mutually exclusive under-

standings of human existence, the other allowing this knowledge
to go by the board. But now two distinct problems appear.

The Relationship of Faith and Understanding

The first problem is as follows: Can only the person who exists
spiritually know about the possibility of these two mutually exclu-
sive understandings of existence? Moreover, can only one who is
himself a believer expound the Scripture rightly? The Dictata offer
rich material for these questions, material which seems to be attuned
to a single keynote: Only one who is illumined by the Holy Spirit,
only the believer, can understand and expound the Scripture. Yet
we would make this matter too easy if we felt content with this
information and thereby allowed all further hermeneutical reflec-
tions to be truncated. That Luther so interrelates faith and under-
standing characterizes the existential thrust of his theological
thought. It is not an inability to draw distinctions, but rather the
power of integration, which impels him not to place theological
assertions next to each other as separate objects of thought nor to
bring them into a Scholastic system, but rather to lay hold of what
is objectively separated where it all comes together at a single point
and is no longer an object but rather an event, namely in human
existence. And, indeed, in human existence understood as one or
the other of these two ways. And this self-understanding of hu-
manity stands, in turn, in an indissoluble correlation to the under-
standing of that which encounters humanity. Luther's assertions
about humanity are chiefly governed by categories of understanding
like sapere (sense), sentire (feeling), cognoscere (knowledge), intelligere
(intelligence), and so forth. But then, if all theological assertions
are understood in their existential thrust, it is a self-evident con-
sequence that the anthropological categories in Luther's theological
vocabulary (like caro [flesh], spiritus [spirit], mens [mind], cor [heart],
anima [soul], conscientia [conscience], affectus [affect or emotion], vol-
untas [will], intellectus [intellect or understanding], etc.) play a large
role. And therefore, because the theological assertions are set in
connection with human existence, the anthropological categories
obtain a peculiar ambivalence. For example, the question of what
the term spiritus means in any given case does not resolve itself into
324 LUTHERAN QUARTERLY

a simple alternative between the spirit of humanity and the Spirit

of God. Certainly there are passages where Luther uses spiritus uni-
vocally as an anthropological category: "Two things are in a person,
spirit and flesh."176 And conversely, there are obviously passages
where God's Spirit alone is meant. But in the overwhelming ma-
jority of cases, spiritus is the human spirit of man as enlightened by
the Spirit of God, that is to say, the self-understanding of humanity
as it is oriented to God, human existence before God understood
as such. For: "We all . . . are poor before God, but we do not all
acknowledge the fact."177 This becomes especially clear in the use
of the concept intellectus and its derivatives. We encounter seemingly
contradictory assertions. Usually Luther sets intellectus in the sharp-
est antithesis to sensus, intelligible things to perceptible things, and
thus understanding becomes a correlative concept to faith or spirit.
On the other hand, Luther can say: "Faith does not enlighten the
understanding; indeed, it blinds it,"178 and "faith does not require
understanding."179 Luther is well aware of the ambivalence of the
concept of intellect, and indeed, of all concepts, depending on the
understanding of existence on which they are based.180 This am-
bivalence is also found in Scripture: "Scripture . . . when it speaks of
things as they are before God, and when [it does so] as they are before
humans." 181 Herein is the reason that in the vocabulary of Scripture,
intellectus means a being-determined-by, and not, as in philosophy,
simply a potency. Thus, in its proper biblical sense, intellectus is not
something obtained through philosophy or nature, but only
through theology and grace, namely the knowledge of the meaning
of Christ; more clearly still, it is "the wisdom of the Cross of
Christ."182 But now because faith is a self-understanding which
arises from the encounter with the Word of Scripture, so it is un-
derstandable why faith is so tightly bound up with understanding,
and why the spiritual understanding plays so large a role in Luther's
claims as to how one may arrive at an understanding of Scripture.
This has not the slightest thing to do with intellectualism. For
wherever the misunderstanding of faith as a purely intellectual act
suggests itself, Luther plays off emotion against intellect in the
sharpest terms,183 to express the fact that faith affects one's whole
existence, and particularly one's will. The bold use of anthropol-
ogical categories thus does not spring from the fact that Luther
somehow wanted to stress the autonomy of humanity over against
God. On the contrary, it was his only objective to see humanity
 THE B E G I N N I N G S OF L U T H E R ' S H E R M E N E U T I C S 325

entirely before God, and even to refer all assertions about God to
human existence before God. That is why the expressions in Scrip-
ture such as conspectu dei, coram deo, apud deum, and ante deum are so
abundant.184 Self-understanding before God and knowledge of God
are one and the same. For self-understanding before God is precisely
the opposite ofthat self-observation by which God's and humanity's
relatedness to one another is torn apart in such a way that one
considers only oneself and God considers only himself. To be "in
conspectu dei" certainly means simultaneously that God sees and
humanity is seen, and that humanity sees and God is seen. The
"sight of God" is simultaneously to be understood actively and
passively. "Because [God] sees us; so he makes himself seen by us."185
If we keep in view this kind of theological thinking in Luther, we
will be able to rightly evaluate his many assertions about the right
disposition for understanding Scripture, the necessity of faith, the
spiritual understanding, the conformity of affect, humility, and so
forth. Although echoes of the heritage of mysticism resonate here
(one thinks of such expressions as "rapture" and "ecstasy"), Luther
inserts them in such a fashion as to accentuate the existential thrust
of all theological statements. It would cast everything into a false
light if we made of this something obvious and at one's disposal,
so that the person who reads or interprets Scripture observes, himself
as to his possession of the Spirit, his own humility, how he is affected
and thus attempts to prove himself before others. "Even if the effi-
cacious word of the gospel stands with the empassioned soul, it nevertheless
does not [stand] from the empassioned soul."186 If one tries to make this
existential understanding into a method of exegesis, he has not
understood what the terms "existential" and "before God" mean,
nor that being-spiritual is a being-hidden under a contrary. Here
the hermeneutical circle comes into play, which even Luther knows:
"How are we able to become illumined, unless we become blind? And how
will we become blind, unless we are illumined?"187 Whoever attempts
to understand and expound Scripture should take into account all
that Luther says about the relationship of faith and understanding.
But he should not commit the folly of basing the method of his
exegesis upon some alleged unity of faith and understanding which
he presumes to have found in himself. For we have God's Word
only in actu..188 But human existence is a constant being-underway,
and as movement, is but an "incomplete act, always partly acquired and
partly to be acquired, always in between contraries and consisting from one
326 LUTHERAN QUARTERLY

end and to another. "189 Human existence is "an advance from act to
act" and therefore also "from understanding to understanding, from
faith to faith."190 And this process is nothing other than a perpetual
beginning.191 What was previously spirit for someone is now letter
for him.192 Thus, the trinitarian dogma was spirit to the fourth
century, while to us it is now letter.193 For the acquired understand-
ing is always letter in view of the acquiring understanding.194 The
step on which one finds oneself is always letter in light of that
which lies before him.195 This readiness to leave what lies behind
as letter and to stretch oneself out after the spirit;196 to observe
oneself not as the one who illuminates but as the one who is to be
illuminated;197 to know that "every passage in Scripture is to be
infinitely investigated {infinite intelligentie)198—all this means to take
Scripture seriously as a testimony, namely, as a "Testimonia eorum,
que nondum intellexisti."199 The knowledge of this dialectic of un-
derstanding is "the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of
wisdom."200 Therefore let no one appeal to Luther in support of
the idea that scriptural exegesis is "spiritual" only if the exegete
himself is in possession of the Spirit. For one can speak of a "spiritual
exposition" only in cases where the exposition is oriented by the
distinction between spirit and letter.

The Relationship of the Old and New Testaments

The other problem which interlocks with the distinction of spir-

itual and literal scriptural exegesis and causes nearly unavoidable
confusion among these concepts is the question of the unity of
Scripture. We have established that scriptural exegesis must be ori-
ented by the Cross of Christ, and that means by the distinction of
spirit and letter in the sense of two mutually exclusive understand-
ings of human existence, if the exegesis wants to be relevant. Yet
is this not begging the question? Is there not something being
imported into the individual scriptural passage which in itself it
does not contain; and if so, is it then still exegesis? Do we not
violate the text if we proceed from the assumption that Scripture
has one and the same perspective in all its parts, namely the Cross
of Christ? It may be a correct and perhaps necessary thesis, brought
in from systematic theology, when Luther says: "All the words of
God are one, simple, consistent, and true, because they all point
 THE BEGINNINGS OF LUTHER'S HERMENEUTICS 327

toward the same thing, however many there are."201 And indeed:
"In Christ all words are one Word, and outside of Christ they are
many and vain."202 It is evidently quite otherwise if we approach
the Scripture and try to prove the accuracy of this thesis exegetically.
The issue which traditionally made the unity of Scripture problem-
atic and generated the greatest difficulties for Christian exegesis
naturally gave impetus to intensive exegetical efforts in Luther's
exposition of the Psalms as well, namely, the relationship of the
Old and New Testaments. For in the Old Testament, Jews and
Christians struggle against each other, like Esau and Jacob in the
womb of Rebecca.203 If it is said that one must first have the New
Testament in order to understand the Old,204 then it would surely
be conceded to Jewish exegesis that the Old Testament, taken for
itself, leads to this exegesis. But is it not the single correct her-
meneutical standpoint to expound the Old Testament purely from
its own contents? How can one justify it hermeneutically to proceed
otherwise in order to prove that Jewish exegesis is a mistaken in-
terpretation? Luther even goes so far as to say: "If the Old Testament
could be expounded by human sense without the New Testament,
I would say that the New Testament then is given for nothing."205
This means that the New Testament is the exposition of the Old
Testament; therein its meaning expends itself. Thus, according to
this perspective, which in itself is entirely traditional, the Old and
New Testaments relate to each other like text and exposition. This
means not only that single passages of the Old Testament find their
exposition in the New, but also that the Old Testament as a whole
is text and the New Testament as a whole is exposition. And the
general problem, how text and exposition relate to each other,
wherein they are one and wherein they are distinct, is thus the same
as the problem of the unity and the differentiation of the Old and
the New Testaments. Thus, not only does the hermeneutical prob-
lem arise for the person who approaches the exposition of the Holy
Scripture, but that problem is inherent in Scripture itself. And in-
deed, the two-part canon of Scripture, with Old and New Testa-
ments, with text and exposition, not only poses the hermeneutical
problem thus, but actually claims according to this understanding
to offer the solution to the hermeneutical problem. In the way in
which the New Testament is the exposition of the Old, the au-
thoritative paradigm is given for a general method of approaching
the exposition of a text. This thought, that the Holy Scripture is,
328 LUTHERAN QUARTERLY

so to speak, a textbook of hermeneutics, through the very fact that

the Old and New Testaments stand side by side, appears a peculiar
construction. Certainly, in the history of scriptural exposition this
at least is confirmed, insofar as the Holy Scripture was taken de
facto as a textbook of hermeneutics, but only in the superficial sense
that people saw obliging paradigmatic examples of exegesis in the
quotation and exposition of Old Testament passages in the New.
Luther, too, in his first Lectures On The Psalms, took every available
opportunity to refer to the exposition which is to be found in the
New Testament of certain passages from the Psalms.206 But this
conception of Scripture as a textbook of hermeneutics was also valid
in the much deeper sense that one employs the categories by which
he grasps the relationship between the Old and New Testaments
as the controlling hermeneutical categories. Let me connect this
with something said earlier. Already in the New Testament itself,
this relationship of the Old and New was seen according to two
different schemes. The one was that of prophecy and fulfillment.
It has its widest manifestation in the antithesis between figure (or
shadow) and truth. For not only are the direct prophecies (real or
imagined) grasped, but also the indirect correspondences between
the Old and New Testaments (i.e., the allegorical structure of the
Old and New Testaments), that is, that the Old Testament, under-
stood as the prophecy of the New Testament, means something
other than what the words say directly. The other scheme is that
of letter and spirit, and primarily signifies the antithesis of law and
gospel. Just as the prophecy/fulfillment scheme is based on the idea
of the positive relationship of the Old and New Testaments, though
with a faint antithetical undertone, so the original letter/spirit
scheme is based on the very idea of antithesis, and in any case
certainly with a definite synthetic undertone. Now, to the extent
that the main stress was laid upon the positive relationship of the
Old and New Testaments, the prophecy/fulfillment scheme had to
gain the hermeneutical ascendancy, and the letter/spirit scheme
was almost absorbed. That was the case in the ancient church and
the Middle Ages, so that letter and spirit were understood as her-
meneutical categories on the basis of the figure/fulfillment scheme,
but so understood in the sense that "literal" meant literal-historical
exposition and "spiritual" meant allegorical exposition. From a def-
inite interpretation of the relationship of Old and New Testaments
thus arose a definite hermeneutical theory, namely, that the New
 T H E B E G I N N I N G S OF L U T H E R ' S H E R M E N E U T I C S 329

Testament was the allegorical interpretation of the Old. And one

saw a mystery therein, which endowed the Old Testament with a
special halo. We saw that concerning this, Augustine had recog-
nized the original sense of letter and spirit, but had not been able
to make it hermeneutically fruitful.
Well, how did Luther deal with this problematic situation? He
worked out the antithesis of the Old and New Testaments much
more rigorously than was done in traditional exegesis, and indeed,
he did so with the concepts of letter/spirit as the characteristics of
two mutually exclusive understandings of human existence. What
we recognized as the core of the great dualism in the first Lectures
On The Psalms, Luther thus saw to be present in the Scripture itself.
The relationship of the Old and New Testaments is that of an-
tithesis, and indeed, between these two mutually exclusive under-
standings of human existence. The people of the Old Testament
and the people of the New Testament relate to each other as flesh
and spirit. The one is due to the birth of the flesh in wrath, the
other to the birth of the spirit in grace.207 Under the Old Testament,
one turned one's face toward earthly things and turned one's back
on Christ.208 While the gospel teaches only spiritual matters, the
law adapts itself to carnality.209 While the gospel reveals hidden
spiritual sins, the law only worries about the sins which go against
the justice of the flesh.210 And so the antitheses go on. Under the
law man understands himself only before men.211 It mediates only
a worldly sanctity,212 a righteousness of the letter,213 a visible jus-
tice.214 One fulfills the law only under compulsion,215 in servile
fear.216 And so, too, only temporal matters are promised.217 The Old
Testament was concerned only with earthly and not spiritual
salvation218 and therefore with a salvation which was granted to the
good and the evil indiscriminately219 and was not at the same time
judgment. 220 The Mosaic law writes dead letters in the heart,
namely, a literal salvation and glory.221 Therefore it is the killing
letter.222 Luther uses the sharpest words: "The mandates of Moses
are hateful."223 "In the Law of Moses is neither good word nor
good work."224 Indeed, Moses is merely equated with all the rest
of the lawgivers,225 his law with human laws in general.226 Therefore
it is also transient227 and confined to a definite people.228
But we also find very strong evidence in Luther of the other
scheme, namely that the Old Testament is seen as the figure and
shadow of the New Testament. Accordingly, he made rich use of
330 LUTHERAN QUARTERLY

Old Testament allegorization. The traditional understandings of

"literal" and "spiritual," according to which literal simply means
pertaining to letters and words, and spiritual means allegorical, slip
in everywhere. I forego quoting examples of this familiar fact.
Rather, all stress must now be laid on the observation that Luther,
though constrained by the tradition, made a decisive start in break-
ing the chains of the customary hermeneutic. Already it is notice-
able that he accentuates more strongly the negative ring to the
concepts of shadow and figure. That the law is the shadow of truth
and not the truth itself is not a statement which would eliminate
or temper its other characteristic as the killing letter. On the con-
trary, both are identical: as the shadow of truth (i.e., as vanity), the
law is the killing letter.229 The "shadow" is obviously not the mys-
terious twilight from which the right to extract an allegorical mean-
ing may be derived; rather, Luther understands this to be real
night.230 We thus realize how, in contrast to the exegetical tradition,
the rightly understood distinction of letter and spirit draws to itself
the figure/fulfillment scheme and gives it a new sense. We can
recognize this also from the fact that the concept of "spiritual,"
even where it apparently still means "allegorical," nevertheless al-
ready takes on the genuine sense which results from the theology
of the Cross. The "spiritual" (meaning: allegorical) interpretation
is controlled by a "spiritual" exposition, which is spiritual because
it understands how to distinguish between letter and spirit in the
sense of law and gospel.
When Luther says that with spiritual eyes one should see in the
Mosaic law the law of faith lying hidden and closed, then he ob-
viously has in mind the current familiar thought of allegorical hid-
denness. And yet, simultaneously connected with this is the entirely
different thought which orients the removal of the veil and the
bringing-to-light of the unveiled toward the distinction of law and
gospel.231 As Luther increasingly brings to center stage the con-
nection between the figure/fulfillment scheme and the distinction
between the two mutually exclusive understandings of human ex-
istence, he gradually dispels the impression that this scheme pertains
to a mystery which is to be revealed allegorically: "Every law and
human justice is a shadow and figure of that true justice which is
in the spirit before God, and without which it is necessarily hy-
pocrisy." 232 And therefore, as Luther saw the Old Testament ever
more strongly in the light of the Cross, all the more are we impelled
 THE BEGINNINGS OF LUTHER'S HERMENEUTICS 331

to suppose that the thought of hiddenness under a contrary comes

into conflict with the thought of allegorical hiddenness, and ulti-
mately even leads to its removal. But in order really to recognize
this, we must still bore one level deeper. The figure/fulfillment
scheme in the ordinary sense understands the distinction of Old
and New Testament as a gradation. There is something present in
the Old Testament which therefore entitles the lines of connection
with the New Testament to be drawn out. This thought is also
found in Luther. "The Law was the beginning of the Gospel, which
perfects the Law."233 And then the allegorical exposition appears as
a legitimate means of making this process visible, as the suitable
method by which to treat the Old Testament so that it therefore
becomes the New Testament. "The law may not be spiritual except
through a transmutation and an exposition offigures."234But Luther
is quite aware that a real transformation of the Old Testament into
the New is not a matter of exegetical method, but rather takes place
through Christ. "Out of the letters of the law, indeed, out of an
informed lump, the Lord shapes and makes the law [into] Spirit:
he reduces the letter into Spirit."235 And therefore the transfor-
mation of the Old Testament into the New takes place not just by
an allegorical reinterpretation but rather by a conversion into some-
thing completely opposite. "Everything which was in glory in terms
of the law, he changed into disgrace. "23e Indeed, all this was a figure
of internal and spiritual things. But precisely because it was, it had
to yield before, and become polluted and profaned by, the coming
of what it had signified. Indeed, Luther extends this thought even
further: "Even if today all things which are beautiful, elegant, strong,
and good in the world mostly aptly signify spiritual things, nevertheless,
it will happen that they must be spit out, and their opposites chosen. "237
Here it becomes clear that the lines from the Old Testament to the
New Testament stretch over the Cross and therefore proceed from
it—to put it picturesquely—crosswise. Thus, Christ makes the law
into the gospel. The way from the Old Testament to the New leads
"through the killing and death, literally, of both shadows and figures."238
The destruction of the body of Christ at his death on the Cross,
the destruction of the synagogue, and the destruction of the carnal
man are all one event which spring up from the same root.239 But
radicality of this destruction is not changed by Luther's addition:
"Nothing, however, is destroyed, but truly is changed into some-
thing better."240 For this change into something better takes place
332 L U T H E R A N QUARTERLY

through the death of the old. Thus is the agreement of the Old
and New Testaments to be understood: "the Old and the New Law
come together, just as the old man is slain and the new man is
revived. . . . And so they come together amicably."241
And what is it that is conducive to the correct exposition of the
Old Testament? Luther says repeatedly: "The spiritually understood
Law is identical with the Gospel."242 Now does that mean that the
Old Testament allegorically interpreted is identical with the gospel?
Obviously not! It means, rather, that the law, understood as the
killing letter, is one with the gospel; and conversely, that the "lit-
erally-understood law"243 is the same understanding of the law which
finds the law to be sufficient and does not recognize it as the killing
letter. So, are there then two possible ways to understand the old
law? Indeed so! Yet these two possibilities of understanding are not
divided in such a way that, besides the literal sense, the letter still
also has an allegorical sense, but rather in such a way that man can
understand his relationship to one and the same law in two quite
different ways. It is one and the same state of affairs, namely, the
old law as the killing letter, in which two understandings of human
existence part company. The one does not understand himself to
be killed by the law. But precisely then the law is, in fact, the
killing letter. The other does understand himself to be killed by
the law. But precisely then the killing letter points the way to the
life-giving spirit. That the old law is the promise of the new law
is thus not based on the fact that besides being of the killing letter,
it is something different from it. Instead, its character as the killing
letter is its promissory character. For "the Old Law understood
spiritually is nothing but the crucifixion of the flesh."244 Luther
tries to make this clear with a very graphic picture. The statement
in Psalm 103:2 (104:2), "You stretch heaven out like a tent," Luther
interprets allegorically of the old law. It divides between the waters
above the firmament and below the firmament, namely between
spirit and letter. The Jews, who stand under the law and therefore
only have its inferior parts, only see its concave side. Conversely,
Christians, who stand above the law and therefore have its superior
parts, recognize its convex side.245 Both possibilities of understand-
ing the law therefore do not fall apart like its literal and allegorical
meaning, but rather presuppose the identity of the letter which,
described pictorially, is therefore convex on one side precisely be-
cause it is concave on the other, and is therefore promise precisely
 THE B E G I N N I N G S OF L U T H E R ' S H E R M E N E U T I C S 333

because it is the killing letter. One might immediately veil this state
of affairs with allegorical meaning. The insight into the distinction
of letter and spirit in the sense of law and gospel thus has her-
meneutical consequences. It compels us to abandon the allegorical
interpretation of the Old Testament.
But are we not making a gross mistake? Must we not sharply
distinguish between law and Old Testament? As much as Luther
does this later, in the first Lectures On The Psalms the concepts are
still enmeshed for him. Old and New Testaments stand against
each other as old law and new law. And yet, in these very lectures,
the way is paved for the later distinction between law and the Old
Testament in consequence of his correct differentiation between
spirit and letter. Luther recognizes that already in the time of the
Old Testament itself, both understandings of human existence were
struggling with each other. The Pharisaic understanding of the law
opposed the prophetic.246 The former took the law only as letter;
that is, their understanding of human existence was defined by the
law as something perfect. They had their justification in the law.
The latter, on the contrary, had both the spirit and the letter at
once; that is, their understanding of human existence was defined
by the law as something imperfect, and therefore as passing away.
They did not attempt to achieve justification through the law, but
rather prayed for it, "as the letter retreats, the Spirit advances; the
veil is removed, the face appears; Christ comes and Moses leaves."247
So they had not the naked letter, but rather a letter which was
hiding the things of the spirit.248 And yet Luther made a distinction:
they did not have a revealed faith, but rather only a simple literal
faith;249 that is, they did have the Spirit in simple hiddenness, yet
still not in hiddenness under a contrary.250 Furthermore, Luther
begins to understand that the time of the law and the time of grace
are not simply chronologically successive,251 that even the gospel
can become for someone an "impossible law."252 For "until now
the one who is under sin is also under the law."253 This yields a
deep insight into the relationship of the Old and New Testaments
and into the necessity of both Testaments for the church. Psalm
103:10 (104:10) says this: "You cause fountains to spring forth in
the valleys, that water may flow between the mountains." Luther
interprets this pictorially: The two mountains which form a deep
valley are the Old and New Testaments. The mountains are dif-
ferent: the one is a mere hill in comparison to the other. The peak
334 LUTHERAN QUARTERLY

of the Old Testament is the glory of the world; the peak of the
New Testament is the glory of heaven. And yet these two come
together in the bottom of the same valley, in one root of truth. In
this valley the church finds itself in this life: "In this life one lives
in between two mountains namely, between the corresponding old
and new law."254 Therefore the church is reminded that its existence
is a pilgrimage, an existence between the times, that is, between
the time of the law and the time of grace. For just as the people
of the Old Testament were shadows of the future people, so too,
the present church is the shadow of the future church.255 For "shad-
ows" do not signify something static, but rather movement and
even destruction.256 As the way of the Old Testament leads to the
New, so the way of the church also leads toward its fulfillment
only over the Cross of Christ.
Has something therefore changed with respect to Old Testament
exposition? Indeed, in the first Lectures On The Psalms, Luther be-
lieves it is necessary to emphasize the prophetic character of the
Old Testament by means of allegorization. And even if he, along
with Faber Stapulensis, understands the prophetic meaning of the
Psalms christologically as the literal sense, this still does not over-
come allegory in principle; on the contrary, it is the alleged legi-
timation for it. But amid this christological interpretation, which
is so strongly oriented by the Cross, the hermeneutical change
breaks in. For if the decisive connection of the Old and New Tes-
taments lies in the Cross of Christ, such that precisely there a
revolutionary change in one's understanding of human existence
takes place, and precisely there the law is brought to light as law,
then one can confidently, and of necessity, expound the Old Tes-
tament literally and keep free from all allegorical whitewashing, so
that the Old is really seen to be the Old; and we must leave it only
to the literal understanding to determine to what extent a new
understanding of human existence already announces itself in the
Old Testament which has an inkling that the law is the killing
letter. Thus, Luther's struggle with the relationship of spirit and
letter in the first Lectures On The Psalms had already laid the ground
for the hermeneutical change which first became visible in 1516,
and even then, not with all its practical consequences.
 T H E B E G I N N I N G S OF L U T H E R ' S H E R M E N E U T I C S 335

NOTES

2 2 f
139. 55:2.1, 73.13-15 (3:5 - 5 ·)·
140. 55:1.1, 86.7 (3:93.12).
141. 3:i24.3off.
142. 3:4ii.8f.
143. 4:83.i6ff.
144. 4:449.35^
145· y-302.ig{.
146. 3:203.22f.
: 8 2 f
*47- 3 35 - 9 -
148. 3:112.25.
149. 3:463.15fr.
150. CF. 4:82.14fr.
151. 3:166.22.
0
152. 3:150.16fr. and 27η .
1 26
ΐ53· 4Η5°·39-4:45 · ·
ΐ54· Certainly it is correct that in the Reformation the Word of God takes the place
which in the Roman Church is taken by the sacraments. Luther himself can later designate
the effect of the word as sacramental in order to demonstrate the viewpoint of the efficacy
of the Word. But it must not be overlooked that the difference from the Catholic conception
lies already in the understanding of the nature of sacramental efficacy.
*55· 3 : 2 79·3°-3 2 ·
156. 4:310.29Í. E. Iserloh (see above n. 31) 78 in his critique of my explanation objects:
"But does in the sacraments an exhibition of the present things take place?" I cannot enter
here into the history of Catholic sacramental terminology. But that the term "exhibit"
occurs exactly in the context of the doctrine of the eucharist and a justification of the adoration
of the Host and of the Corpus Christi Procession can be attested by mag Tri. Sess. XIII can.
8 (it is not important that this text is of a later date than the passages in Luther under
discussion). It speaks explicitly of Christ as exhibited in the eucharist (Denz. 1658 [890]).
In can. 6 it says—compare this with my remark below at n. 159—: If someone should say
that in the holy sacrament of the eucharist Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, is not to
be adored also in the external cult of worship, and is not to be venerated with an appropriate
festive celebrity, and is not to be carried around in the processions according to the praise-
worthy and universal rite and custom of the Holy Church, or not publicly to be presented
to the people so that he should be adored, and that those who adore him are idolaters: let
him be condemned. (Denz. 1656 [888]). Unfortunately Iserloh does not discuss my con-
trasting of the statements of Luther with the piety and theology of the sacraments which
stand behind the text quoted. But in my opinion, it cannot be set aside with the rhetorical
question, "But does in the sacraments an exhibition of the present things take place?"
157. 4:272.i6f.
158. 4:376.13^
159. 4:272.17^
160. 4:376.15^
161. Here it must be emphasized, in harmony with n. 154, that it is not in contradiction
with this when Luther following Augustinian terminology, calls Christ a sacrament.
162. 3:124.37^
163. 4:8.341"·
164. 4:9.i8f.
165. Compare on this question especially 3:255.336°.
166. 4:9.286°.
336 LUTHERAN QUARTERLY

167. 4:3 2 I -35 f -

168. 4:284.32^
169. 3:256.10^ A B r a n d e n b u r g (see above n. 31) 146, in his reference to t h e scholion on
Ps. 44, misses t h e fact that L u t h e r exactly also in this passage does n o t surrender t h e necessary
connection b e t w e e n letter or t h e outwardly proclaimed w o r d and spirit or t h e living words
in t h e heart. T h i s is so despite t h e theological critique against being satisfied w i t h t h e m e r e
letter. T o characterize Luther's conception as "distrust of t h e biblical l e t t e r " distorts t h e
matter completely.
17°· 3 : 4 5 6 - 2 3 f -
171. 3:256.28.
172. C F . 3:266.33^ and 4:354.32^
173. Cf. 4:115.4.
J
74· 4:3974ο 1 "·
χ
75· 3 : 2 55-4iff.
176. 4:109.i3f.
χ
77· 3 : 393-3 2 f -
17 8 · 4 : 3 5 6 - 2 3 f -
τ
Ί9· 4:356·Ι4·
i 8 o . 3:400.16fr.
181. 4:490.if.
182. 3:176.36°., 507.36η 0 .; 4:324.16°.
183. 4:356.106°.
184. 3 : 479·7~9
185. 4 : ι Ι Ι · 3 ^ ~ 1 1 2 · ^ ·
ι 8 6 . 4:233-4^· Κ-· Schwarz (see above η . 6) 184 η . 33 o » correctly has directed attention t o
the fact that L u t h e r uses t h e t e r m "passio" only in t h e negative qualification of t h e sinful
passions and that in t h e context in w h i c h t h e above quotation is cited t h e t e r m "anima
passionata" is interpreted erroneously in t h e good sense. A l t h o u g h t h e understanding is to
be corrected in such a way that t h e r e is here n o allusion to t h e spiritual passions in Gerson's
linguistic usage, one must consider t h e following: L u t h e r contrasts in t h e entire context,
b e g i n n i n g at 230.8, t h e virtue of G o d w h i c h as such is spiritual and t h e virtue of h u m a n s
w h i c h as such is carnal (especially 231.116°.) so t h a t even a religiosity w h i c h is autonomous
toward G o d w o u l d be carnal and not be derived from Z i o n (this is in t h e interpretation of
Ps. 109 [uo]:2i) but from t h e confusion, i.e., from Babylon, w h i c h comes about t h r o u g h t h e
passions of w r a t h and others (233.3^).
187. 4:84.29^
188. 4:283.26.
189. 4:362.36-38.
190. 4 : 3 Ι 9 · 8 ^
I 9 1 · 4:35°·Ι5"> 246.38^; 4:342.iif.
192. 4:3 I 9-3 f f -
*93· 4 · · 3 6 5 · Ι Ι - Ι 3 ·
194· 4:39°· 2 4^·
ΐ95· 4 : 3 2 Ι · 2 6 ί · 4:345-33^· 4:3I9-Ioff-
196. 4 : 3 2 0 - 3 f f -
e
197. 4:320.146 .
198. 4:3i8.4of., 365.27^
199. 4:319.34-320.1.
200. 4:246.386°.
201. 3 : 3 5 6 - 3 5 f -
202. 4:439.2of.
20
3 · 3:323-36ff-
 THE BEGINNINGS OF LUTHER'S HERMENEUTICS

2
°4- 3 : 373-3 of -
205. 55:1.1, 6.26f. (3-.12.29f.).
206. 55:1.1,100.116°. (3:99.236°.). 3:119.356, 224.25., 245.29., 43 2 - I 5 f f -> 435- 2 7 f ·» 4 4 °
560.46°., 564.76; 4:141.i6f., 167.366, 433.4if., 468.226, 4 6 9 . 2 9 6 , 492.26°., 507.216°.
20
7 · 3:59o·1-12·
208. 3:608.36
209. 55:2.1, 115.96°. (3:97.186°.).
210. 4:1.246°., 51.31.
211. 3:116.56
212. 3:286.3.
213. 3:285.22.
214· 3 : 455- 2 9 f -
215· 4:233.226
216. 4:69.256
217. 3:561.66°.
218. 3 : 3 3 6 - 3 3 f · ' 4:164.186°.
219· 3 : 34i-i3 f f -
220. 4:245.236°.
221. 3:456.14-16.
222. 4:285.39.
223. 4:286.27.
224. 3:257.146
225. 4:2.286
226. 4:1.246°.
227. 4:237-216
228. 4:323.216°.
229. 3:164.22-26.
23°· 3 : 2 4 3 - 3 8 ·
231. 4:3°5- I 9 f f -
232. 3:129.206
233· 3 : 6 o 5 · 2 1 ·
234· 4 : ΐ 3 5 · Ι 4 ·
2
3 5 · 4:97-35 f -
236· 4:45· 2 ·
2
37· 4:454-6.
238. 4··47·3 2 ^
2
3 9 · 4 : 4 7 - 2 l f f · ' 49-24ff.
240. 4:47·39·
241. 4:176.28-30 (emphasis mine).
242. 55:1.1, 92.196 (3:96.266).
2
4 3 - 5 5 : i I > 9 2 - I 7 f - (3:96-25).
244. 4:174.176
245. 4:174.296°.
246. 55:1.1, 92.2ofF. (3:96.276 e .).
247. 4:310.386
248. 4:251.4.
249. 4:251.16°.
250. C F . 3:547.366°.
251. 4:51.31fF.
252· VAS1·22^·
338 L U T H E R A N QUARTERLY

253. 4:61.13.
254. 4:179.306°., 180.66
255. 3:608.286
256. 3:638.166°.
 ^ s
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