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Summary: Tract on the history of Divine Revelation, tracing the teachers of the church from the Creation to the author's own time, by Georg Major, a student of Luther and Melanchthon, and professor at Wittenberg from 1536, with a few brief interruptions, until his death.

Summary: Early edition of Erasmus' treatise on free human will and its limits.

Summary: Melanchthon wrote three versions of his book on dialectic, considering only the third to be truly successful. This is a printing from 1534 of the second (1528) version.

Summary: German translation by Wenzeslaus Linck of Epistola contra Judaeorum, thought to be written in Arabic by Samuel of Marocco, an apostate Jew at the beginning of the 11th century and translated into Latin by the Spanish Dominican Alphonsus Bonihominis in the 14th century and widely disseminated. Bonihominis is likely the real author of the work.

Summary: The Book of Judith was probably written between 175 and 125 B.C. and is part of the literature known as the Apocrypha, composed between the Old and New Testament eras. The Catholic Church accepted the Apocrypha as canonical while Luther did not. The story is of the pious widow Judith who beheads the enemy general Holofernes after he has become drunk. It is reminiscent of Jael's killing of Sisera in Judges 4. This is apparently the only separate printing of this translation, issued the same year as the complete German Bible.

Summary: Response by Mathias Flacius Illyricus, among the strictest of the Lutheran theologians of his time, to the views of the early Reformer of Nürnberg, Andreas Osiander, on Justification. Osiander emphasized the believer's being made righteous, as opposed to being declared righteous through Christ. Flacius reports on the title page that he had shared his views on this issue privately in writing with friends, but that they had been published without his permission and in a form unacceptable to him. This edition represents the official response by Flacius.

Summary: A 1553 printing of the Württemberg Confession, commissioned by Duke Christoph, drafted by Johannes Brenz in 1551 and signed by other Swabian theologians to be presented at the council of Trent in 1552.

Summary: Lecture delivered to the faculty and students of the University of Wittenberg on "the perils of these times" by Kaspar Peucer, Philipp Melanchthon's son-in-law. The perils to which he refers are the military threat of the Turks to the east, and the plague.

Summary: Compilation by Johann Wigand of arguments made by the Reformer Paul Eber in support of the real presence of Christ in the eucharist.

Summary: Summary-style Lutheran catechism by Sebald Heyden, a humanist scholar and educator in Nuremberg. He was well known as a poet and composer of hymns and his book "De arte candendi" (On the art of singing) had a significant impact on the study and teaching of music.

Summary: Rhegius was a Reformer, active throughout Germany promoting Lutheran unity in the Holy Roman Empire. In 1530 at the Diet of Augsburg he was befriended by Ernest I, Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg, under whose patronage he returned to Brunswick where he wrote the present work for Ernest's son, Francis Otto (1530-1559). Like many 16th c. catechisms, Rhegius' is in the form of a dialogue, in this instance between the teacher and the pupil (paedagogus et discipulus).

Summary: Johannes Brenz had written the first Protestant catechism in 1527, two years before Luther issued his large and small catechisms. This is a 1552 printing of the work.

Summary: Catechism by David Chytraeus, a student of Philipp Melanchthon's.

Summary: Satirical song about the office of the Pope, composed anonymously in response to the execution of Jan Hus in 1415 and published by Matthias Flacius to underscore his opposition to the Catholic Church in all matters following the Interim of Augsburg in 1548.

Summary: Joachim Westphal was a gnesio-Lutheran theologian and Superintendent in Hamburg. A major opponent of the Interims of Augsburg and Leipzig, he argued that Catholic liturgical practices were not adiaphora (morally indifferent acts that were either required nor prohibited), but needed to be rejected completely.

Summary: A short tract by Erasmus on the composition of letters.

Summary: Johannes Brenz's commentary on the book of Joshua, first published in 1549.

Summray: Andreas Fabricius was a Lutheran pastor and educator. This short tract is a discussion of biblical law and a defense of the doctrine of justification by faith.

Summary: Short tract by Andreas Osiander in defense of his view of justification.

Summary: This is the second printing of Luther's Lenten Postils separate from other sermon collections. Kohl of Regensburg had issued the first printing the previous year. Of interest is the large initial on page a3a.

Summary: Luther certainly had his problems with printers, as this edition of his "Winter Postil" testifies. Michael Lotter issued this new edition without Luther's approval. The editors took great labors, but found no favor in Wittenberg, and this edition was never reprinted.