And if the devil ever had material interests at stake in attacking a particular person, he made no mistake in assailing this isolated monk, Martin Luther, in his moments of brooding and depression.  Lastly, Luther’s physical condition at the Wartburg must be taken into consideration.  Trained to frugal habits in the cloister and habituated to fasts and mortification of the flesh, Luther found the new mode of living which he was compelled to adopt uncongenial.  He was the guest of a prince and was treated like a nobleman.  The rich and abundant food that was served him was a disastrous diet for him, even though he did not yield overmuch to his appetite.  He complains in his letters to friends during the Wartburg period about his physical distress, chiefly constipation, to which he was constitutionally prone.

But after all these elements have been noted, it must be stated that the reports about diabolical visitations to which Luther was subject at the Wartburg are overdrawn for a purpose by Catholics.  Luther’s references to this matter in his letters written at the time suggest only spiritual conflicts, but no physical contact with the devil.  Reminiscences of his first exile which he relates at a much later period to the guests at his table are also exaggerated.  These soul-battles, far from unfitting him for the work of translating the Bible, were rather a fine training-school through which God put His humble servant, and helped him to understand the sacred text over which he sat poring in deep meditation.

Lastly, Catholic critics have pronounced Luther intellectually disqualified for translating the Bible.  His Greek scholarship, they say, was poor.  He had barely begun to study that language.  It stands to reason that his translation must be very faulty.  They also emphasize the rapidity with which Luther worked.  The translation of the entire New Testament was completed between December 8, 1521, and September 22 the following year. (It will be remembered that Luther had returned to Wittenberg in the first days of March, 1522, and all through the spring and summer of that year was busily engaged, with the aid of friends, on his German New Testament.) Finally, Catholics, in their efforts to belittle Luther’s works, have claimed that he plagiarized a German translation already in existence, the so-called Codex Teplensis.

It seems a mere waste of time to answer these criticisms.  They remind one of a scene in the life of Columbus:  the learned Catholic divines of Salamanca had to their own satisfaction routed the bold navigator with their arguments that he could not possibly start out by his proposed route.  No doubt, some of them contended that he never made his famous voyage even after his return.  What profit can there be in arguing the impossibility of a thing when the reality confronts you?  Luther’s translation is before the world; everybody who knows Greek can compare it with the original text.  The Teplensian translation,