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Luther, Martin, 1483-1546

"An Open Letter on Translating"

We, too, are going
to be proud and brag with these blockheads; and just as St. Paul
brags against his madly raving saints, I will brag over these
asses of mine! They are doctors? Me too. They are scholars? I
am as well. They are philosophers? And I. They are
dialecticians? I am too. They are lecturers? So am I. They
write books? So do I.
I will go even further with my bragging: I can exegete the psalms
and the prophets, and they cannot. I can translate, and they
cannot. I can read Holy Scriptures, and they cannot. I can pray,
they cannot. Coming down to their level, I can do their
dialectics and philosophy better than all of them put together.
Plus I know that not one of them understands Aristotle. If, in
fact, any one of them can correctly understand one part or chapter
of Aristotle, I will eat my hat! No, I am not overdoing it for I
have been educated in and have practiced their science since my
childhood. I recognize how broad and deep it is. They, too, know
that everything they can do, I can do. Yet they handle me like a
stranger in their discipline, these incurable fellows, as if I had
just arrived this morning and had never seen or heard what they
know and teach. How they do so brilliantly parade around with
their science, teaching me what I grew beyond twenty years ago!
To all their shouting and screaming I join the harlot in singing:
"I have known for seven years that horseshoe nails are iron.


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