Johann Goldschmid, the Aurifaber, and thereby true worker in gold,
who first gave Luther's Table-Talk to the world, was born in 1519.
He was a disciple of Luther, thirty-six years younger than his
master. Luther was born at Eisleben in 1483, and his father, a poor
miner, presently settled at Mansfeld, the town in which Goldschmid
afterwards was born. Johann Goldschmid was sent by Count Albrecht
of Mansfeld, in 1537, to the University of Wittenberg, where Luther
had been made, in 1508, Professor of Philosophy, and where, on the
31st of October, 1517, he had nailed his ninety-five propositions
against indulgences to the church door at the castle. Luther had
completed his translation of the Bible three years before Johann
Goldschmid went to Wittenberg. In 1540 Goldschmid was recalled from
the University to act as tutor to Count Albrecht's children. In
1544 Goldschmid was army chaplain with the troops from Mansfeld in
the French war; but in 1545 he was sent back to Wittenberg for
special study of theology. It was then that he attached himself to
Luther as his famulus and house-companion during the closing months
of Luther's life, began already to collect from surrounding friends
passages of his vigorous "Table Talk," and remained with Luther till
the last, having been present at his death in Eisleben in 1546. He
then proceeded steadily with the collection of Luther's sayings and
opinions expressed among his friends. He was army chaplain among
the soldiers of Johann Friedrich, of Saxony; he spent half a year
also in a Saxon prison. He became, in 1551, court preacher at
Weimar; but in 1562 was deprived of his office, and then devoted
himself to the forming of an Eisleben edition of those works of
Luther, which had not already been collected. In 1566 he was called
to a pastorate at Erfurt, where he had many more troubles before his
death. Aurifaber died on the 18th of November, 1575.
H. M.