Luther on James
This James, Luther wrote, was probably some good, pious man who seized upon something said by some of the disciples of the Apostles and set it down in writing. Or, he suggested, perhaps the book was from his preaching as taken down from as yet another. Luther’s condescension is clear. The book may be three generations removed from Christ, and it was third rate. Here he had fallen into the historical critical mode used by Erasmus whereby Scripture was subject to dissection by the tools being sharpened by Humanism, helped along by James’s demand that “faith without works is dead.” Richard Marius- Belknap Harvard 1999 - Martin Luther- page 356
Luther replaced obedience with the cult of personality, Luther’s personality. Luther, himself, was now The Authority on Scripture, an authority separated from and beyond everything that came before him. That included the Church founded by Jesus Christ that he made vows of obedience to and an entire 1500 years of history.
Blogged with Flock
