translations have been
made are the Latin and the German,--the Latin of the German
Universities, the German of the people, and both distinctively
Luther's. In the Latin there is added to the imperfection of the
form, when measured by classical standards, the difficulty of
expressing in an old language the new thoughts of the
Reformation. German was regarded even by Gibbon, two hundred and
fifty years later, as a barbarous idiom. Luther, especially in
his earlier writings, struggled to give form to a language and to
express the highest thoughts in it. Where Luther thus struggled
with two languages, it is evident that they have no easy task who
attempt to reproduce the two in a third.

Modern Germans find it convenient to read Luther's German in a
modernized text, sometimes rather hastily and uncritically
constructed, and altogether unsafe as a basis for translation.
Where the Germans have had to modify, a translator meets double
difficulties. It may be puzzling for him to know Luther's exact
meaning; it is even more puzzling to find the exact English
equivalent.

In order to overcome these difficulties, in part at least, and
present a translation both accurate and readable, the present
group of translators have not simply distributed the work among
themselves, but have together revised each translation as it was
made. The original translator, at a meeting of the group, has
submitted his work to the rest for criticism and correction,
amounting at times to retranslation. No doubtful point, whether
in sense or in sound, has been passed by unchallenged.

Even with such care, the translation is not perfect. In places a
variant reading is possible, a variant interpretation plausible.
We can only claim that an honest effort has been made to be both
accurate and clear, and submit the result of our labors to a fair
and scholarly criticism. Critics can hardly be more severe than
we have been to one another. If they find errors, it may be that
we have seen them, and preferred the seeming error to the
suggested correction; if not, we can accept criticism from others
as gracefully as from each other.

The sources from which our translations have been made are the
best texts available in each case. In general, these are found in
the _Weimar Edition (D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische
Gesammtausgabe._ Weimar. Hermann Bohlaus Nachfolger, 1883 ff.),
so far as this is completed. A more complete and fairly
satisfactory edition is t