mous nature of man. Here for once he falls into an exegesis that is puerile. "And I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thess. v., 23) is his favourite text. And he does not hesitate to argue from this that the spirit is in different case from the body and soul since the fall, because the apostle says here "the whole spirit," but does not say "the whole soul" or "the whole body," for what has once fallen and been broken to pieces is no longer whole! It was not Hübmaier's fault but his misfortune that he was not a Greek scholar,[1] yet a glance at the Vulgate from which he generally quoted should have been quite sufficient to show the untenableness of such exegesis: uit integer spiritus vester et anima et corpus sine querela in adventu Domini nostri Jesu Christi servetur—this, equally with the Greek, should be rendered, "may your spirit and soul and body be preserved whole, without blame, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."
This is a bad beginning, and what follows is not
- ↑ It is claimed in his behalf that he knew both Greek and Hebrew, but it is certain that he made little or no use of the original texts.
