persona tantum efficere potuisset. But he had not done amiss if he
had taken one or two learned men to his translation besides himself,
for then the Holy Ghost would more powerfully have been discerned,
according to Christ's saying, "Where two or three be gathered
together in my name, there will I be in the midst of them." And,
indeed, said Luther, translators or interpreters ought not to be
alone, for good and apt words do not always fall to one single man.
And so long as the Bible was in the Church of the Gentiles, it was
never yet in such perfection, that it could have been read so
exactly and significantly without stop, as we have prepared the same
here at Wittemberg, and, God be praised, have translated it out of
Hebrew into the High German tongue.


Of the Differences between the Bible and other Books.

The Holy Scripture, or the Bible, said Luther, is full of divine
gifts and virtues. The books of the Heathen taught nothing of
Faith, Hope, and Love; nay, they knew nothing at all of the same;
their books aimed only at that which was present, at that which,
with natural wit and understanding, a human creature was able to
comprehend and take hold of; but to trust in God and hope in the
Lord, nothing was written thereof in their books. In the Psalms and
in Job we may see and find how those two books do treat and handle
of Faith, of Hope, of Patience, and Prayer.

To be short, the Holy Scripture, said Luther, is the best and
highest book of God, full of comfort in all manner of trials and
temptations; for it teacheth of Faith, Hope, and Love far otherwise
than by human reason and understanding can be comprehended. And in