Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
This volume brings together two important contemporary accounts of the life of Martin Luther in a confrontation that had been postponed for more than four hundred and fifty years. The first of these is written after Luther’s death, when it was rumoured that demons had seized the Reformer on his deathbed and dragged him off to Hell. In response to these rumours, Luther’s friend and colleague, Philip Melanchthon wrote and published a brief encomium of the Reformer in 1548. A completely new translation of this text appears in this book.
It was in response to Melanchthon’s work that Johannes Cochlaeus completed and published his own monumental life of Luther in 1549, which is translated and made available in English for the first time in this volume. Such is the detail and importance of Cochlaeus’s life of Luther that for an eyewitness account of the Reformation – and the beginnings of the Catholic Counter-Reformation – there is simply no other historical document to compare.
An electronic edition of this book is freely available under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.
These two translations will prove to be very valuable additions to the collection of primary accounts of German Reformation history in the English world. The works offer unique, detailed, engaging accounts of the events surrounding Luther's reform movement; the translations are eloquent; and the introductions to both lives provide a very helpful framework for understanding the primary texts."
By placing accurate new translations of these two "lives of Luther" side by side, Vandiver and her colleagues have allowed two very different perceptions of the significance of Luther to compete head to head. The result is as entertaining as it is informative, and a powerful reminder of the need to ensure that secondary works about the Reformation are never displaced by the primary sources.
Introduction
1. Philip Melanchthon and the historical Luther
2. Philip Melanchthon's history of the life and acts of Dr. Martin Luther
3. Johannes Cochlaeus - an introduction to his life and work
4. The deeds and writings of Dr. Martin Luther from the year of the Lord 1517 to the year 1546 related chronologically to all posterity by Johannes Cochlaeus
Index