During the busy times of Lent and Easter, 1522, Luther had again
undertaken duty among the Wittenberg congregation, and immediately
after Easter he visited Borna, Altenburg, Zwickau, and Eilenburg,
where the people were longing to hear his preaching, and where he
exerted himself to have an evangelical preacher appointed. His eyes
indeed were chiefly fixed on Zwickau, where he was resolved to
counteract finally by his words the consequences of the recent
infatuation. According to a report, made by a state official, 25,000
people assembled to hear Luther, who preached from a balcony of the
town-hall to the multitude gathered below. At Borna he preached
immediately before a visitation held there by the Bishop of
Merseburg, and again on the day after it. During the following
autumn he also preached several times at Weimar, whither he had been
invited by John, the brother of the Elector Frederick; and likewise
before the congregation at Erfurt, to whom during the summer he had
addressed an instructive exhortation in writing on the subject of
the innovations.
Even at Wittenberg his literary labours, as we have seen from his
letter to Kronberg, were still mainly devoted to the Bible. In
concert with Melancthon, and with the assistance of other friends,
he set about a revision of his translation of the New Testament. He
sent the first sheets when printed to Spalatin, on May 10, as a
'foretaste of our new Bible.' With the aid of three presses the
printing progressed so rapidly, that already in September the work
was ready for publication. September 21, dedicated to St. Matthew,
is distinguished as the birthday of the German New Testament. In
December already a second edition was called for, though the price
of the book, a florin and a half, was a high one at that time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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