Rudi Fischer on 'Wine, Women and Song', by Rudolf Fischer

Ed: Rudolf Fischer from Budapest has responded to the post Martin Luther's sword and scabbard ( Friday, November 27. 2009);-

More power to the elbow of the Rev. Johnston (a). I hope he won't be offended by the drinking metaphor.

Attending a vicarage garden party while on home leave, the author of TeachYourself NT Greek
was asked by a Margaret Rutherford type: - And what do you do in India?

- I teach N(ew) T(estament) Greek at a theological college.

- Whatever for? English was good enough for Our Lord, isn't it good enough for Indians?

For me, Luther is good enough as the author of Wein, Weib und Gesang (b).

Perhaps he was quoting, but he would not have been quoting someone who lived centuries later. Luther's Tischgespräche (c) have been published, but only a small fraction of what was said.

When Luther said Wer nicht liebt ....Weib... you can take it from me he meant his wife, and not the wenches whom youth between sixteen and three and twenty got with child. Luther often expressed himself roughly e.g. when the devil plagues you, lower your strides, turn your bare buttocks on him, and fart in his face.

Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott (d)

Editor's Notes

(a) i.e. in defending the importance of the study of Greek and Hebrew

(b) the source for the English expression "Wine, Women and Song"

(c) Luther's "Table Talk"

(c) the title of Luther's most famous hymn, "A mighty fortress is our God"

Comment

Luther MIGHT have been the originator of the phrase, but it seems that there is no proof.

In Northern Ireland we once had a newspaper columnist (now dead) who wrote a weekly political column. More than once he won the award as "Irish Columnist of the Year". He interlarded his text with many quotations taken from a wide variety of sources. Yet, if you examined each more carefully, you found that he often had distorted the origanal, often misattributed it, sometimes getting it completely the wrong way round. I'd suggest that this is what happens if you don't take a very firm grip on where a quotation comes from, when and by whom.