Reformation Notes News for Par tners of the Richard C. Kessler Reformation Collection Spring 2006, Number 28

Kessler Collection Update

M. Patrick Graham he Protestant Reformation of the The Kessler Collection of Pitts Tsixteenth century was the pivotal religious movement in Western culture Theology Library at Emory since the introduction of Christianity, University is the best single source and the purpose of the Richard C. Kessler Reformation Collection has been to of early Protestant Reformation document that reformation in Germany. imprints in North America. . . . The collection has set out to gather mate- rials that would give historians and theo- The collection is a treasure for all The Richard C. Kessler Reformation logians the opportunity to hear the full of us at Emory University and for Collection is a repository of rare range of voices that were raised in this and valuable documents produced dynamic period. As the Kessler Collection all of us who labor in Reformation in connection with the Protestant enters its nineteenth year, we pause to and early modern history. Reformation. The collection now take stock of its accomplishments and —John Witte Jr. contains more than 3,100 pieces call attention to what lies on the horizon. Jonas Robitscher Professor of Law, Emory written by Martin Luther, his continued on page 2 colleagues, and opponents, and printed during their lifetimes.

Supported by the vision and resources of Lutheran laypeople Richard and Martha Kessler and partners throughout the Southeast, the collection is housed in the Pitts Theology Library of Candler School of Theology. It provides a rich resource for scholars of the Reformation and for clergy and laity who seek to understand the history of the Christian faith.

For more information about the collection, contact: M. Patrick Graham Pitts Theology Library Emory University Atlanta, Georgia 30322 404.727.4165 [email protected] From volume one (1551 printing) of the Wittenberg edition of Luther’s collected works.

Pitts Theology Library • Candler School of Theology Emory University • Atlanta, Georgia 30322 The Kessler Collection has assembled, in a relatively short time, an amazing treasure of Reformation tracts and literature and has made these available to all through its unsurpassed digitization of Reformation woodcuts and its annual program of music, lectures, and publications. —Timothy J. Wengert, Ministerium of Pennsylvania Professor, Reformation History, Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia

Kessler Collection Update— Luther Rose at www.pitts.emory.edu). continued from page 1 Grants from the American Theological Library Association ($18,000), the Carpenter Foundation ($63,000), Collections Thrivent Financial for Lutherans he holdings of the collection now Foundation ($25,000), and several indi- Texceeds 3,100 items, a mark approxi- viduals have underwritten the costs of mated by only two other libraries in this program. At last count, an average of North America (Harvard University almost five hundred visitors logged onto and the Folger Shakespeare Library); the DIA each day, and a search of the no American library approaches the Internet turned up about 4,000 links to Kessler Collection’s 900+ publications the archive. In addition to many individ- by Luther himself. It is typically the case uals, churches, and other organizations that about half of the materials acquired using the images for non-commercial each year are not held by any other North purposes, the following publishers have American library; and in another quarter purchased images for their publications: of the cases, only one other library has From Hortulus Animae, Abingdon Press, Ashgate Publishing, a copy. In a few instances, the Kessler Wittenberg, 1550. Augsburg Fortress Press, Cambridge Collection copy is the only one known to University Press, Concordia Publishing exist. These materials are currently valued House, Georgetown University in excess of $4,000,000. Details about Educational Outreach Press, Lectionary Homiletics, Palgrave the strengths of the collection have been he Kessler Collection has sponsored Macmillan, and Paternoster Press. gathered by Armin Siedlecki in his article Teighteen concert and lecture pro- on page three. The collection has been grams that have brought internationally Facilities growing by more than fifty pieces each renowned scholars and musicians to he Candler School of Theology has year, and it should not be long until the the Emory campus to explore histori- Tplanned to begin construction on a thousandth publication by Martin Luther cal aspects of the German Reformation new facility for the Pitts Theology Library is acquired. and attest its ongoing influence on the in 2008. This structure will support the contemporary world. This program has Kessler Collection and the rest of special Research matured into the annual Reformation collections in several important ways. ost of those who use the Kessler Day at Emory series, which attracted . It will provide secure, high-density MCollection come from local edu- more than six hundred to the 2005 con- shelving with a dry-agent, fire protec- cational institutions—Emory, Atlanta cert. In addition, each year library staff tion system for all special collections University, Columbia Theological make presentations of Kessler Collection materials. Seminary, Georgia State University, materials to a dozen or more groups— . There will be a separate special col- and others. It is increasingly the case, numbering three hundred to four hun- lections reading room for researchers, though, that researchers come from dred persons in all—that come from civic as well as assignable research carrels outside Atlanta. Indeed, the recent meet- groups, churches, colleges and seminaries, for longer-term projects. ing of the Sixteenth Century Society and even elementary schools. In addition, . A separate exhibit room with state- Conference in Atlanta brought the col- the collection has produced and distrib- of-the-art display cases and an adja- lection to the attention of many addi- uted gratis thousands of bookmarks, note cent lecture hall will accommodate tional Reformation scholars. The Kessler cards, and posters during this time. larger exhibits and more visitors than Collection also has stimulated the publi- the current facility supports. cation of a four-volume bibliography that Digital Resources . A scanning lab will be part of the examines in detail the first 1,400 items in inally, the collection provided the library’s technology operation; it will the collection, a photographic reproduc- Finitial impulse for the creation of permit a sustained effort to make the tion of the Magdeburg Enchiridion of the Digital Image Archive (DIA), a riches of the Kessler Collection avail- 1536 with notes, a collection of essays on resource of about 13,000 woodcuts and able to the world. RN Melanchthon and the commentary, and engravings, made available at no charge several pamphlets on Reformation topics. for teaching and research via the Pitts M. Patrick Graham is Librarian and Margaret Theology Library homepage (click on the A. Pitts Professor of Theological Bibliography.

2 Reformation Notes Reform and the Press

Armin Siedlecki in the Church and was the most prolific he cultural impact of the invention author in the sixteenth century. Other Standing Committee for the Tand spread of the Internet in the late influential figures in the Reformation Kessler Reformation Collection twentieth century has been compared to movement were Melanchthon, Policy direction for the Reformation Collection is provided by a standing that of the invention of the printing press Bugenhagen, Brenz, Flacius Illyricus,  committee composed of representatives in the fifteenth century. It is undoubtedly and Karlstadt, although there was often of Emory University and the local and true that the Reformation, as it unfolded a good deal of debate among these theo- national Lutheran community. across Europe in the sixteenth century, logians as to what shape the reformation Mr. Richard C. Kessler, Chair would have been unthinkable without should take. Mr. Roy T. Wise, Secretary Dr. Timothy Albrecht the new technology. Yet, despite the obvi- Ms. Mary Lou Greenwood Boice ous advantages, Luther himself—as well Opponents of Luther Dr. M. Patrick Graham as many of his fellow reformers—was rasmus of Rotterdam was the leading Dean Russell E. Richey Bishop Ronald B. Warren often critical of this then-relatively recent Ehumanist theologian of the sixteenth  invention, claiming that it led to the pro- century, and though he was initially  Emeriti Members Dr. James R. Crumley liferation of useless and sometimes harm- sympathetic to Luther’s cause, he came  Dr. Channing R. Jeschke ful books. However, the rapid spread of to oppose the reformer later in debates The Reverend R. Kevin LaGree printed material also led to an enormous Bishop Harold C. Skillrud Dr. James L. Waits expansion in educational possibilities. According to scholar R. A. Houston, “The Kessler Holdings of Scholars Advisory Committee duchy of Württemberg had 89 schools in Eight Catholic Authors Dr. Kurt K. Hendel 1520 compared with more than 400 by Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago Desiderius Erasmus 74 Dr. Scott H. Hendrix 1600.”1 At the beginning of the sixteenth Johannes Cochlaeus 39 Princeton Theological Seminary century, fifty years after Gutenberg, Dr. Robin A. Leaver Johann Eck 44 Westminster Choir College, Rider University a fairly dense network of presses had Georg Witzel 30 Dr. Martin Treu spread throughout much of Western Pope Leo X 22 Director of the Lutherhalle-Wittenberg Europe, with printing houses in about Dr. Timothy J. Wengert Hieronymus Emser 16 Lutheran Theological Seminary sixty German cities. The beginning of the Thomas Murner 3 in Philadelphia Reformation in 1517 also coincides with Johann Tetzel 1 a virtual explosion of printing. Much of Patrons of the Kessler this increase is represented by the pub- Reformation Collection lication of pamphlets, or Flugschriften, about the freedom of the human will and Emory University Mr. and Mrs. Richard C. Kessler through which many reformers and their the idea of justification. Johann Eck was The Lutheran Brotherhood opponents carried out public debates in one of Luther’s fiercer opponents, debat- often sharply formulated attacks. Shorter ing Luther at a public disputation—initi- Partners of the Kessler works like such pamphlets or sermons ated by Karlstadt in 1518 at Leipzig—and Reformation Collection also were frequently reprinted by differ- encouraging Pope Leo X to excommuni- Mr. and Mrs. Neil M. Anderson Mr. and Mrs. Erwin G. Baumer ent printers in different cities, sometimes cate Luther in 1520. Johann Cochlaeus Judge Dorothy T. Beasley numerous times within the same year. participated in the Diet of Worms in Ms. Ida G. Boers 1521 and later composed a strongly Mr. and Mrs. Russell W. Crick Dr. and Mrs. Raymond E. Davis Jr. Reformation Figures polemical biography of Luther. Pope Leo Mr. and Mrs. William H. Gaik artin Luther initiated the German X, the first of the Medici popes, assumed Dr. and Mrs. Channing R. Jeschke Mr. and Mrs. Callie W. Kessler MReformation in 1517 with the pub- his office in 1513. He warned Luther in  Mr. and Mrs. Carl F. Lettow Jr. lication of ninety-five theses about errors a 1520 bull to withdraw forty-one of the Mr. and Mrs. John C. McCune reformer’s ninety-five theses The Memorial Fund of St. Johns  Evangelical Lutheran Church, Bloomington, or face excommunication. Illinois, and Bishop and Mrs. Harold C. Kessler Holdings of Fifteen Major Reformers Luther publicly burnt his Skillrud Martin Luther 934 Johannes Brenz 21 Dr. and Mrs. Steve Morgan copy of the bull along with Mr. and Mrs. Jean A. Mori Philipp Melanchthon 189 Andreas Osiander 18 several books on canon law, Munich American Reassurance Matthias Flacius Veit Dietrich 17 and Leo made good on his Dr. and Mrs. Frank L. Perry Jr. Illyricus 49 Mr. and Mrs. Larry W. Raudebaugh Wenzeslaus Linck 13 threat. RN Mrs. Velda Handrich Skagen Andreas Bodenstein von Dr. Reiner Smolinski Karlstadt 46 Jakob Andreae 12 1 Mr. Clair E. Strommen Johann Bugenhagen 33 Hans Sachs 9 R. A. Houston, “Literacy,” Oxford Mr. and Mrs. Frank Easterlin Wise Encyclopedia of the Reformation,  Mr. and Mrs. Roy Thomas Wise Urbanus Rhegius 30 Justus Jonas 6 vol. 2 (Oxford: Oxford University Mr. and Mrs. Rudolph L. Yobs Georg Major 28 Kaspar Cruciger 5 Press, 1996) 429.

Spring 2006 3 “Reformation ‘places’ for observation and study used to be Wittenberg and Geneva, Cambridge and Rome, New Haven and St. Louis—but not Atlanta. Now Atlanta is very much ‘on the map,’ a place of pilgrimage for scholars, lovers of the art and music of the Reformation, admirers of historic books, thanks to the Kessler Collection.”—Martin E. Marty, Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, The University of Chicago

Save the Date Key Holdings of the Kessler Collection • The September Testament • The first printing of the “Luther and the Poor” (1522): The first edition of first edition of Melanchthon’s Nineteenth-Annual Reformation Day at Emory Luther’s German translation Loci Communes (1521), the of the New Testament first Protestant systematic October 24, 2006 theology • The first and second edi- tions of Erasmus’s Greek • Two Latin and one 10:30 a.m. Registration and reception German printings of Exsurge New Testament Domine (1520), the papal 11:00 a.m. Chapel, Robert M. Franklin Jr., preacher • 1520 printings of Luther’s bull threatening Luther with three landmark pamphlets excommunication Noon Luncheon and lecture, James Curran, (The Address to the German The first edition of the dean of the Rollins School of Public Health, Nobility, The Babylonian • Emory University Canons and Decrees (1564) Captivity, and The Freedom of the Council of Trent—the of the Christian Man) Catholic Church‘s response 1:45 p.m. Organ lecture recital, Timothy Albrecht • The first edition of Luther’s to the Protestants 2:30 p.m. Hosted break Large Catechism (1529) and • Twelve Lutheran church a 1545 printing of his Small orders from various parts Catechism 3:00 p.m. Lecture and discussion, Carter Lindberg of Germany

• The first official German Seven early Lutheran 8:00 p.m. Kessler Reformation Concert, with Timothy and Latin editions of the Augs- • Albrecht, Eric Nelson, Emory Concert Choir, hymnals, including the burg Confession (1530), the Achtliederbuch of 1524, and the New Trinity Baroque Orchestra chief dogmatic statement of the first Lutheran hymnal the Lutheran movement, and Melanchthon’s 1540 revision of All events are offered free of charge. this document (the “Variata”)

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