In 2 Kings, chap. 5, there is another story told of the Syrian captain Naaman, who came to be healed of his leprosy by the prophet Elijah.  With his splendid suite the great statesman drove up in grand style to the prophet’s cottage.  He expected that the holy man would come out to meet him, and very deferentially engage to do the great lord’s bidding.  The prophet did not even come out of his hut, but sent Naaman word to go and wash seven times in Jordan and he would be cleansed.  Now Naaman flew into a rage, because the prophet had, in the first place, not even deigned to speak to him, and, secondly, had ordered a ridiculously commonplace cure for him.  He stormed that he would do no such thing as wash in that old Jordan River.  He had better waters at home.  Let the prophet keep his old Jordan for such as he was.  And he rode off in great dudgeon.  Rome is the leprous gentleman, and Luther is the man of God who told her how to become clean.  The only difference is this:  Naaman listened to wise counsel, and finally did what he had been told to do, and was cleansed.  Rome disdains to this day to listen to the ill-bred son of a peasant, the theological upstart Luther, and remains as filthy as she has been.

10.  Luther’s “Discovery” of the Bible.

Since Luther’s study of the Bible has been referred to several times in these pages, it is time that the righteousness of a certain indignation be examined which Catholic writers display.  They pretend to be scandalized by the tale that in Luther’s time the Bible was such a rare book that it was practically unknown.  With the air of outraged innocence some of them rise to protest against the stupid myth that Luther “discovered” the Bible.  They claim that their Church had been so eager to spread the Bible, and had published editions of the Bible in such rapid succession, that in Luther’s age Christian Europe was full of Bibles.  Moreover, that age, they tell us, was an age of intense Bible-study.  Not only the theologians, but also the laymen, not only the wealthy and highly educated, but also the common people, had unhindered access to the Bible.  The historical data for Rome’s alleged zeal in behalf of the Bible these Catholic writers gather largely from Protestant authors.  For greater effect they propose to buttress, with the fruits of the laborious research of Protestants, their charge that Luther’s ignorance of the Bible was self-inflicted and really inexcusable.

What are the facts in the case?  The whole account which we possess of Luther’s “discovery” of the Bible is contained in Luther’s Table Talk. (22, 897.) This is a book which Luther did not personally compose nor edit.  It is a collection of sayings which his guests noted down while at meat with Luther, or afterwards from memory.  From a casual remark during a meal Mathesius obtained the information which he published in his biography of Luther, viz., that, when twenty-two years old, Luther one day had found the Bible in a library at Erfurt.