from those of
the other groups. 3. They adduce quite a number of Bible-verses, and
repeat some already quoted, _e.g._, 1 Tim. 2, 1, Rom. 13, 1. The German
Book of Concord omitted these passages, while the Latin Concordia of
1580 and 1584 embodied them. Albrecht writes: "The Table of Duties is an
original part of the Catechism, bearing a true Lutheran stamp. But it
was old material worked over, as is the case almost throughout the Small
Catechism." "The oft-repeated assertion, however, that the Table of
Duties was borrowed from the catechism of the Waldensians or Bohemian
Brethren, is not correct. For this Table is not found in the Catechism
of the Brethren of 1522, with which Luther was acquainted, but first in
Gyrick's Catechism of 1554, in which Lutheran material is embodied also
in other places." (W. 30, 1, 645.)

The confession books of the Middle Ages, however, which classified sins
according to the social estates, and especially John Gerson's tract (_De
Modo Vivendi Omnium Fidelium_ reprinted at Wittenberg 1513), which
treated of the offices of all sorts of lay-people in every station of
life, may have prompted Luther to draw up this Table. But, says
Albrecht, "it certainly grew under his hand into something new and
characteristic. The old material is thoroughly shortened, sifted,
supplemented, newly arranged, recast. While Gerson's tract throughout
bears the stamp of the Middle Ages, Luther's Table of Duties, with its
appeal to the Scriptures alone, its knowledge of what is a 'holy
estate,' its teaching that, as divine ordinances, civil government and
the household (when embraced by the common order of Christian love) are
equally as holy as the priesthood, reveals the characteristic marks of
the Reformer's new ideal of life, which, rooting in his faith, and
opposed to the hierarchy and monkery of the Middle Ages, as well as to
the fanaticism of the Anabaptists, became of far-reaching importance for
the entire moral thought of the succeeding centuries." (647.)

Grimm's Lexicon defines "Haustafel" as "_der Abschnitt des Katechismus,
der ueber die Pflichten des Hausstandes handelt,_ that section of the
Catechism which treats of the duties of the household." This verbal
definition, suggested by the term, is too narrow, since Luther's
"Haustafel" is designed "for various holy orders and estates,"
magistrates and pastors included. Still, the term is not on this account
inappropriate. Table (_Tafel, tabula_) signifies