Preface to Reprint Edition

The title page identifies the translators of this volume. The worth of their labor is attested by the appearance of this reprint in response to requests from seminary professors and students some sixty years after the last previous editions.

The title page also indicates the nature of the original work. It is not a dogmatic text so much as it is a compilation of theological statements drawn from the writings of fourteen prominent Lutheran theologians who lived during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These quotations are employed to support and clarify the Christian faith after the pattern of presentation developed in the early Lutheran tradition.

In their own preface the translators point out that, “The aim of the compiler was of a purely historical character . . . not to afford a summary of absolutely final definitions of Lutheran Theology, but to exhibit the teaching that had been current up to the time of Rationalism.” Notwithstanding the present emphasis on “back to Luther,” the great systematizers who followed him will remain important. A frank recognition of their limitations does not weaken respect for their contribution. It is this respect, and the fact that so small a part of the voluminous writings of these theologians is available in English, which underlies the decision to reissue this volume.

An element of grateful commemoration also upholds the publication of this work. The English edition of Hay and Jacob’s translation of Schmid’s The Doctrinal Theology of the Lutheran Church, in 1875, ranks with the translation of The Book of Concord, and Charles Porterfield Krauth’s The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology, as a significant contribution to the restoration of true Lutheranism in America.

While a reprint does not permit it, the desirability of revision is recognized. Both the author and translators have reckoned with this need. From the Preface to the Third and Fourth Editions we quote, “The second edition of this translation published in 1889, aimed at a faithful reproduction of the Fifth Edition of the original, the last published in the life of its author, together with such additions from the same authorities from which Dr. Schmid had compiled, as would render the work more serviceable to American students. In the present edition, we have followed in general the same plan, but have taken the liberty of dispensing with a few of the quotations from the old theologians, which no one will miss, as, e.g., the long discussion on demoniacal possession. Dr. Schmid’s own statements are unchanged and unabbreviated; but his compilations have been edited and enriched. A similar attempt was made in Germany about five years ago, by Professor Dr. Franck, of Erlangen, Dr. Schmid’s son-in-law.”

Finally, a report that Professor Ratchow of the University of Münster is planning a German revision of Schmid points to the general recognition of the enduring worth of the work.

THOMAS P. SOLEM
Luther Theological Seminary
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

January 1961