Translating Luther: The Transformation of 'A Commentarie of M. Doctor Luther Martin upon the Epistle of S. Paul to the Galathians' Across Time, Space, and Culture
The Elizabethan translators and printers of Martin Luther’s Latin commentary on the New Testament Book of Galatians understood translation to be an act of transforming cultural contexts as much as it is one of transforming language. Although Luther’s name is nearly synonymous with the Reformation today, his influence in England during the English Reformation was very different than his influence in the countries of Western Europe, which had first gone through the Reformation that Luther is generally credited with introducing. The English Reformation was later to begin and slower to progress than in Western Europe, and as a result, religious authorities, and by extension, printers and publishers who needed licensing by those authorities, were particularly concerned about presenting Luther and his ideas in a favourable and inoffensive light to a common English audience relatively unfamiliar with Luther and new religious ideals brought by the Reformation. Paratextual elements found in this work, such as the Bishop of London’s Note “To the Reader” and John Foxe’s introduction beginning “To all afflicted consciences…” highlight the efforts to gloss over Luther’s more controversial stances, reassuring an English lay audience of his doctrinal alignment with the English Church.
The Original Latin Edition:
Luther’s Commentary on Galatians was first printed in Wittenberg in 1535, but was actually neither written nor printed by Luther, but by his friend George Rorer. The content of this first Latin edition of Luther’s Commentary on Galatians came from Rorer’s detailed notes on Luther’s lectures on Galatians, given at the University of Wittenberg in 1531. Luther did, however, contribute a Preface to this work, in which he refers to Rorer and two other friends, who also had a hand in producing this work, as his ‘brethren.’
Above: Title Page and Preface of Luther's 1538 Latin edition of his Commentary on Galatians.
The Journey to a Translated English edition:
Although Luther's Commentary on Galatians was popular enough in Germany to merit both a second edition in 1538 and a German translation soon after, it was much longer before it was translated into English and distributed in England—nearly forty years, in fact. There were a multitude of factors that influenced this: besides King Henry’s enmity towards Luther and what Catholics considered ‘Lutheran heresy,’ Luther was also not a well-known figure among the English lay population. His works were sometimes read in scholarly circles, but even then the state-imposed ban severely limited access to Luther's works in England. Both the fact that England was still a Catholic state, the still-high illiteracy rates, and the state-imposed bans on any and all Lutheran works during much of King Henry’s reign meant that it took years before Lutheran works began to be recognizable and sought-after by a common English population, allowing the translated Commentary on Galatians to find a market and audience.
The Elizabethan translators of the first English edition of Luther’s commentary worked from the second Latin edition, published in 1538. Most, if not all, subsequent English editions of this work, of which there are many, are based off of this first translation. If the text of the Latin edition and the text of any English translation is compared, however, it is to be noted that large portions of the original Latin text are missing from the translated content. Perhaps the Elizabethan translators were working from a defective copy, but that alone cannot account for the omission of any references Luther makes to sacramental theology within his Commentary. Afraid of alienating an audience likely only recently converted to Protestantism under Queen Elizabeth’s rule (following Queen Mary’s Catholic Counter-Reformation), the translators were clearly eager to avoid any controversy over a topic only recently still referred to as ‘Lutheran heresy.’
Above: The Bishop of London's Note "To the Reader" and the anonymous note "To all afflicted consciences..." introducing the translated English edition of Luther's Commentary on Galatians.
Translating Luther for a Different Reformation
Evidently, the first translation submitted by the printers to the Bishop of London for approval was rejected, hence the need for “better framing” mentioned in the Bishop’s Note. Besides the further changes presumably made to the translation of the text itself, there is considerable prefatory material added: while the 1938 Latin edition goes from the title page straight to Luther’s preface, the 1616 English edition contains an additional two introductions, one written by the Bishop of London, and scholars have concluded that the anonymous writer of the second introduction is very likely John Foxe (a well-known English historian, who also produced several other translations of Luther’s works). Both the Bishop’s Note and the unsigned note “To all afflicted consciences…” introduce the work with obvious motives in mind. The Bishop of London, Edwin Sandys, commends the book to the reader, focusing in particular on the author's trustworthiness, as Luther would have been a ambiguous and controversial character to the average English lay reader. Both Sandys and the likely author of the unsigned note, John Foxe, goes on at length to reassure the reader of Luther's sound doctrine, at least insofar as salvation by Christ alone is concerned. Foxe does, later on, briefly discuss Luther's sacramental theology, but ends by stating, "“I wyll not say this author in all points to stand up right and absolutely, as in the sacraments, but what humane wryter hath there ever bene but some defaute he hath left behynd hym…In every thyng the best is to be taken."
This attitude of "the best is to be taken" can describe the general attitude by religious authorities towards Luther during the English Reformation of Elizabethan times. A Commentarie of M. Doctor Luther Martin Upon the Epistle of S. Paul to the Galathians contained several key ideas to the Reformation found to be important to disseminate and consolidate in England, although the shaky transition period between Catholicism and Protestantism necessitated that printers, and the clergy that oversaw them, were very careful in how to present and frame Luther in his translated works.
Primary Sources:
Luther, Martin. A Commentarie of M. Doctor Martin Luther upon the epistle of S. Paul to the Galathians. London, 1616.
Luther, Martin. In Epistolam S. Pauli ad Galatas commentarius. Wittenberg, 1538.
Secondary Sources:
Evenden, Elizabeth, Thomas S. Freeman. Religion and the Book in Early Modern England: The Making of John Foxe's 'Book of Martyrs'. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Fudge, J. D. Commerce and Print in the Early Reformation. Brill, 2007.
Hultgren, Arland J. “Luther on Galatians.” Word and World 20, no. 3 (2000). 232-238.