Yes, Luther did mutilate the written Word of God. And, that he did so, is not a myth.
The Catholic Church, through her Popes and Councils, gathered together the separate books that Christians venerated which existed in different parts of the world; sifted the false from the genuine; decisively and finally drew up a list or catalogue of inspired and apostolic writings into which no other book should ever be admitted, and declared that these and these only, were the Sacred Scriptures of the New Testament. The Councils of Hippo and Carthage in the fourth century, under the influence of St. Augustine (at the latter of which two Legatees were present from the Pope) settled and closed the ‘Canon’ of Holy Scripture, along with the Popes Innocent I in 405, and Gelasius, in 494, both of whom issued lists of Sacred Scripture identical with that fixed by the Councils. From that date all through the centuries this was the Christian’s Bible. The Church never admitted any other, and at the Council of Florence in the fifteenth century, and the Council of Trent in the sixteenth, she fulminated anathemas against all who should deny or dispute this collection of books as the inspired word of God.
Therefore, for protestantism to step in 1500 years later and pretend that the Scriptures needed revising, and that they alone know the true meaning of it, is an absurd claim. Only those who are ignorant of the true history of the Sacred Scriptures, their origin and authorship and preservation, could give ear to protestantism’s claims. Protestants cast out some book from the collection, took what remained, and elevated these into a new ‘Canon’, or volume of Sacred Scripture, such as had never been seen or heard of before, from the first to the sixteenth century, in any Church, either in Heaven above or on earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth!
Open a Protestant Bible, and you will find there are seven books fewer than there are in the Catholic Bible, and seven fewer than there were in every collection and catalogue of Holy Scripture from the fourth to the sixteenth century. The missing books are Tobias, Baruch, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, I Machabees, II Machabees, together with seven chapters of the Book of Esther and 66 verses of the 3rd chapter of Daniel (Daniel iii., 24-90, Douai version). These were deliberately removed, and the Bible bound up without them. In regard to the New Testament it required all the powers of resistance on the part of the more conservative Reformers to stop Luther from flinging out the Epistle of St. James as unworthy to remain within Holy Scripture. According to Luther, this was ‘an Epistle of straw’. In the same way, and almost to the same degree, he dishonoured the Epistle of St. Jude and the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the beautiful Apocalypse of St. John, declaring they were not on the same footing as the rest of the books, and did not contain the same amount of Gospel (i.e., his Gospel).
The presumptuous way in which Luther, among others, poured contempt, and doubt upon some of the inspired writings which had been acknowledged, cherished, and venerated for 1500 years would be scarcely credible were it not that we have his very own words in cold print, which cannot lie. They may be read in his Biography, or be seen quoted in such books as Dr. Westcott’s The Bible in The Church. And why did he impugn mentioned books? Because they did not suit his new doctrines and opinions. He had arrived at the **principle of private judgment **i.e picking and choosing what to believe. Whenever any book, such as the Book of Machabees, taught a doctrine that contradcited his new doctrines, or was repugnant to his individual taste, for example, that ‘it is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from sins’ (2 Mach. xii., 46), well, so much the worse for the book; ‘throw it overboard’, was his sentence, and overboard it went. And it was the same with passages and texts in those books which Luther allowed to remain, and pronounced to be worthy to find a place within the boards of the new Reformed Bible. In short, he not only cast out whole books, but he mutilated some that were left. For example, not pleased with St Paul’s doctrine, ‘we are justified by faith’, and fearing lest good works (a Popish superstition) might creep in, he added the word ‘only’ after St Paul’s words, making the sentence run: ‘We are justified by Faith only’, and so it reads in Lutheran Bibles to this day. What is surprising, is the audacity of the man that could coolly change by a stroke of the pen a fundamental doctrine of the Apostle of God, St. Paul, who wrote, as all admitted, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. But this was the outcome of the Protestant doctrine of, individual judgment: no authority outside of oneself. However ignorant, however stupid, however unlettered, you may, indeed you are bound to cut and carve out a Bible and a Religion for yourself. No Pope, no Council, no Church shall enlighten you or dictate or hand down the doctrines of Christ. And the result we have seen in the corruption of God’s Holy Word.
The so-called reformers seem to have ignored the terrible threats in Galatians 1:8-9:
*But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema. *
and Apoc. xxii., 19.
And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city and from these things that are written in this book.
by The Right Rev. HENRY G. GRAHAM, Author of “Hindrances to Conversion,”
