Victor R. Claveau, MJ
2 Macc. 12:43-46 provides the primary scriptural foundation for the Catholic belief in purgatory.[1] There was no legitimate defense for Luther to remove the Second Book of Maccabees alone, so he simply excluded the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament, as the Jews of old had done fourteen centuries before, albeit, for entirely different reasons.
He wrote: “I am so great an enemy to the second book of the Maccabees, and to Esther, that I wish they had not come to us at all, for they have too many heathen unnaturalities.”[2]
In Luther’s German edition of the Bible, published in 1534, the deuterocanonical books are grouped together at the end of the Old Testament under the title: “Apocrypha,” adding that they are “books not to be regarded as equal to Holy Writ, but which are useful and good to read.”[3] In simple terms: Because these books, which had been accepted by Jesus Christ, his Apostles and His Church for fifteen centuries did not support his personal theology, Luther removed them.
Luther also rejected from the canon the Letters of Hebrews, James, Jude and the Book of Revelation from his Bible. These books he placed at the end of his translation. He accepted or rejected New Testament books, according to whether or not he found what he considered the “Gospel” in them.
He wrote: “The first three (gospels) speak of the works of Our Lord rather than of his oral teachings: that of St. John is the only sympathetic, the only true Gospel and should be undoubtedly preferred to the others. In a like manner the Epistles of St. Peter and St. Paul are superior to the first three Gospels.”
Neither did the Epistle to the Hebrews suit Luther. “It need not surprise one to find here bits of wood, hay and straw,” he wrote.
Luther denounced the Epistle of St. James as “an epistle of straw. … I do not hold to it to be his writing, and I cannot place it among the capital books.” He did this because it proclaimed the necessity of good works contrary to his heresy. He wrote of the Apocalypse, “There are many things objectionable in this book. To my mind it bears upon it no marks of an apostolic or prophetic character.”[4]
Jedin explains:
“With the touchstone of whether the books of Scripture “enhance Christ or not,” everyone is in the last analysis left to his own personal judgment. When Luther referred both the fanatics and the orthodox who appealed to Scripture against him to its true meaning, then, ultimately, the reformer’s personal experience of Christ decided the meaning of Scripture.”[5]
[1] See also: Matthew 5:25f; 12:32; Luke 12:58f; 1 Cor. 3:15; 1 Peter 3:18-20; 1 John 5:16; Rev. 5:3. 13.
[2] Hazlitt, The Table Talk of Martin Luther, p. 11.
[3] Grisar, Luther, Vol. 5, 521f.
[4] O’Hare, Facts about Luther, p. 203.
[5] Jedin, History of the Church, Vol. 5, p.97.