PhilVaz:
I would if I wanted to take the time. But Thurian is the source of those two Luther quotes you said didn’t exist. All I have is Thurian to go by right now, someday I may try to track down the original Luther sources (WEIMAR, etc). I do not believe for a second Thurian is making these quotes up, and they are very good Luther quotes.
I just want to put them online, with the proper references, what I have from Thurian. Fr. Mateo’s booklet only cited Thurian in part.
Phil, I said the
one quote (as you had cited it) did not exist. In that, I am %100 accurate. You yourself admitted that Catholic Answers “messed up”. Yet, they only did so because Fr. Mateo did so as well! Why did Fr. Mateo mess up? Because he did sloppy research, or more probably, he didn’t do any of his own Luther research. Mateo simply quoted Thurian. Then, I informed you I had the quote (or something very like it), along with a complete context. I never suggested for a moment that Max Thurian made up quotes. I have his material, along with many other secondary sources on Luther’s Mariology.
PhilVaz:
My site is a Catholic apologetics site after all, I’m not writing a doctoral dissertation on Luther, or even a Masters.
I’m not asking you to write a doctoral dissertation. I’m just really hoping that you will break from the tradition of Catholics citing Luther from secondary sources in many instances, when the texts are actually easily available. Volume 55 of Luther’s Work’s is an index. The topic of “Mary” appears in that index. You could easily write a paper in which you could read Luther in context and cite him correctly (and be able to defend your work). I have done this, and it didn’t take all that long.
A few years back a fairly-well-known-layman-Catholic-apologist utilized a quote from Luther which he pulled from the historian Will Durant. Durant had somewhat botched the quote (or at least cited it in a less than correct way), and since the fairly-well-known-layman-Catholic-apologist didn’t work from a context, he perpetuated some poor research. What was the response of the fairly-well-known-layman-Catholic-apologist when confronted with this?
Here it is:
“…the mistake was not mine at all, but, in fact, that of Will Durant, the noted historian and author of the well-known multi-volume Story of Civilization (from which I got my quote). As far as I can tell (though it is speculative), it turned on the fact that he was citing a German version of Luther’s writings, which differed from the English version of that particular excerpt. I take it as uncontroversial that I, as a non-academic lay apologist, can cite a professional historian . . . and trust that he has checked out the primary sources, and so forth. Since Durant made this egregious mistake… this only goes to show that either the German version of Luther’s words was different (in which case it wouldn’t be a “mistake” at all, but a case of differing versions) or that professional historians make mistakes in citation (which I already knew, as they are human beings like the rest of us).”
Now, I utilize secondary sources, but I try, as much as possible to read who I quote in context when I’m putting up papers on the internet. Perhaps your standards are different than mine. I would rather read Newman or Porvaznik in their own words and cite them from their own contexts. For Luther, you don’t need to learn German or find access to Weimar. There are a tremendous amount of his writings available in English.
I’m hopeful you’ll follow my advice. I have stated publicly that there is a wealth of Roman Catholic authors whose opinions and research are worthy of a close look on Luther. Where Catholic scholarship has shined, Protestants would do well to appreciate their efforts, despite our disagreements. Simply because you’re a layman (like myself) doesn’t mean you can’t be part of this group.
Regards,
James Swan
- maybe the quotation is from someone less eminent, and fathered on Luther instead. ##