DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.56869#0017
XI
THE
MELANCTHON MANUSCRIPTS.
It has been already mentioned in the general advertise-
ment to the present Catalogue, that the following Collection of
Books comprises a considerable number which have either
been the property, or, at least, have passed through the hands,
of the celebrated Reformer Melancthon, and have been
enriched by copious annotations from his pen.
Whatever degree of interest, in a literary or historical point
of view, may be attached to this circumstance, the compilers
of this volume, who have prepared the collection for sale, and
who were the first to make the discovery of this feature in its
contents, have thought it incumbent upon them to support,
by the best testimony they can adduce, the position which they
have ventured to take up on the subject. For at the same
time that they feel confident in their own minds of the correct-
ness of the views they have taken, they would not presume to
dictate a ready concurrence in their opinions by the public,
without advancing some more solid arguments beyond mere
declarations in their support. But here also they feel that
their task is not a very light nor a very simple one.
Nearly three centuries have elapsed since the period in which
Melancthon lived, during: which time the writings now
proposed to be identified as his, have remained in total and
probably uninterrupted obscurity. Under such circumstances
it can hardly be expected that much direct testimony could
be procured with respect to them ; and in the absence of that,
the compilers have been obliged to have recourse to the more
tedious, but not always less satisfactory, method of circum-
THE
MELANCTHON MANUSCRIPTS.
It has been already mentioned in the general advertise-
ment to the present Catalogue, that the following Collection of
Books comprises a considerable number which have either
been the property, or, at least, have passed through the hands,
of the celebrated Reformer Melancthon, and have been
enriched by copious annotations from his pen.
Whatever degree of interest, in a literary or historical point
of view, may be attached to this circumstance, the compilers
of this volume, who have prepared the collection for sale, and
who were the first to make the discovery of this feature in its
contents, have thought it incumbent upon them to support,
by the best testimony they can adduce, the position which they
have ventured to take up on the subject. For at the same
time that they feel confident in their own minds of the correct-
ness of the views they have taken, they would not presume to
dictate a ready concurrence in their opinions by the public,
without advancing some more solid arguments beyond mere
declarations in their support. But here also they feel that
their task is not a very light nor a very simple one.
Nearly three centuries have elapsed since the period in which
Melancthon lived, during: which time the writings now
proposed to be identified as his, have remained in total and
probably uninterrupted obscurity. Under such circumstances
it can hardly be expected that much direct testimony could
be procured with respect to them ; and in the absence of that,
the compilers have been obliged to have recourse to the more
tedious, but not always less satisfactory, method of circum-