Printing is "God's highest and extremest act of grace, whereby the business of the Gospel is driven forward; it is the last flame before the extinction of the world."

Martin Luther, WA-Tisch 1, no. 1038, p. 523:

"Omnes artes et disciplinae nunc sunt in summo fastigio, quanquam simul etiam sint despectissimae, nec mirum, cum Christus ipse, summum videlicet donum, in mundo summe contemptus sit.  Typographia postremum est donum et idem maximum, per eam enim Deus toti terrarum orbi voluit negotium verae religionis in fine mundi innotescere ac in omnes linguas transfundi.  Ultima sane flamma mundi inextinguibilis."

My (the Perisho) translation:

"All [of the] arts and sciences are now at [(in)] the[ir] highest peak, though they be held also, and at the same time, in the highest contempt, and not surprisingly, since Christ himself, obviously the highest gift [(summum . . . donum)], is in the world [(mundo)] despised in the highest degree.  The [art of] printing [(Typographia)] is the last/latest/lowest/worst gift and at the same time the greatest [(postremum . . . donum et . . . maximum)], for by it God has willed that at [(in)] the end of the world [(mundi)] the business/matter/cause (in the sense of lawsuit) of (the) true religion become known throughout [(in)] the whole earth [(toti terrarum orbi, the whole circle of the world)] and be poured out in all tongues/languages.  Indeed [(sane)], th[is] last (devouring) flame/torch/destruction of the world [is] inextinguishable | Th[is] last healthy/wholesome [(sane)] (devouring) flame/torch/destruction of the world [is] inextinguishable."

Other translations:

Werner H. Kelber, "The history of the closure of biblical texts," Oral tradition 25, no. 1 (2010):  132-133 (115-140):  "Typography is the final and at the same time the greatest gift, for through it God wanted to make known to the whole earth the mandate of the true religion at the end of the world and to pour it out in all languages. It surely is the last, inextinguishable flame of the world."

J. F. Gilmont, The Reformation and the Book (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), 1:  "Printing is God’s ultimate and greatest gift.  Indeed through printing God wants the whole world, to the ends of the earth, to know the roots of true religion and wants to transmit it in every language.  Printing is the last flicker of the flame that glows before the end of this world."

What Luther says:  an anthology, ed. Ewald M. Plass (Saint Louis:  Concordia Publishing House, 1959), no. 332 (vol. 1, p. 109):  "Printing is the last and also the greatest gift of God.  By it He wanted to have the cause of the true religion become known and spread in all languages at the end of the world in all the countries of the earth."

Most-closely-related Tischreden:

Martin Luther, WA-Tisch 2, no. 2772a, p. 649 = Cord. 983-984:

     Mirum est nunc partier omnes artes rediisse in lucem et simul omnes egregie contemni, velut chalcographia summum et postremem donum Dei, per quod er die sache treibt; at quam est illa despecta etiam his, qui ei praesunt!

     Es ist die letzte flamme fur dem auſʒleschen [(auslöschen in Grimm)] in der welt.  Sie ist am ende, wie Jerusalem geschahe; quando optimum Christum cum sanctissima sua praedicatione contemnebant, peribat.  Doch ligt nicht daran, quia omnes sancti, qui dormiunt, (ut est in Apocalipsi (14:12 f.)) hunc diem expectant.

My (the Perisho) translation:

     [It] is extraordinary [that] now at the same time all [of the] arts have come back/returned to light [(come to light?)] and simultaneously that [they] are all uncommonly despised, just as/for example printing [(chalcographia)] [is] the highest and latest/worst gift of God, through which [gift] he stirs thing[s] up; yet how [(quam)] it is looked down upon by even those who are taking the lead in it! 

     It [(Es)] is the last flame in the world before [(fur)] the extinguishment.  It [(Sie)] is, in the end, as happened [in] Jerusalem; when they had contemned/despised the most worthy Christ [along] with his most holy preaching, he lost his life.  And yet [it] did not last/[matter?], because all of the saints who sleep (as in Revelation [14:12 f.?]) await that day.

Martin Luther, WA-Tisch 2, no. 2772b, p. 650:

Omnes artes iam perfectissime et lucidissime prodierunt et sunt etiam proh dolor despectissimae.  Ita mundus ipsi Christi fecit, quem despectissimum habuit.  Chalcographia est summum et postremum donum, durch welche Gott die sache treibet.  Es ist die letzte flamme vor dem ausleschen [(auslöschen in Grimm)] der welt; sie ist Gott lob am ende.  Sancti patres dormientes (ut Apocalypsis dicit) desiderant hunc diem.

My (the Perisho) translation:

All of the arts have now come forth/advanced most perfectly and brilliantly and are also—O the sorrow[!]—held in the highest contempt.  So the world did to Christ himself, whom it held in the highest contempt.  Printing [(Chalcographia)] is the highest and latest gift, by which God stirs thing[s] up.  It [(Es)] is the last flame before [(vor)] the extinguishment of the world; these are [(sie ist)], praise God, the end times.  The holy fathers, asleep [in the Lord] (as Apocalypse [11:12 f.?] says), desire this day.

"I cast my anchor"

"In the midst of this storm I cast my anchor towards the throne of God, the anchor that is the lively hope in my heart."

     St. Bʼao Tịnh Paul Lê (1793-1857), letter to the students (alumni) of the seminary in Ke-Vinh, Vietnam, dated 1843, as trans. in the Liturgy of the hours (i.e. Universalis) for 24 November, from Missions étrangères de Paris, Le clergé Tonkinois et ses prêtres martyrs (Paris: Missions-étrangères, 1925), 80-83 (try again later for a digitization).

"'You do not hasten faster than the Most High, for your haste is for yourself, but the Highest hastens on behalf of many.'"

Uriel leading John the Baptist,
Index of Medieval Art

"Non festina spiritu super Altissimum; tu enim festinas propter temet ipsum spiritum, nam Excelsus pro multis."

     The [arch]angel Uriel at 2 Esdras 4:34 RSV, Charlesworth (i.e. Metzger), & Stone (in Hermeneia).  The former, or RSV, draws, for "yourself," upon the Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic, and Armenian versions, not the Latin (i.e. IV Esr 4:34 Vulgate).  For the editions relied upon by Metzger, see The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. Charlesworth, vol. 1 (1983), pp. 518-519.  And for a helpful "Table of titles given to books associated with Ezra (and Nehemiah) in selected versions," see p. 516.  Outside the Bible, ed. Feldman, Kugel, & Schiffman, vol. 2 (2013), p. 1615 (Hogan):

'Do not be in a greater hurry than the Most High.  You, indeed, are in a hurry for yourself, but the Highest is in a hurry on behalf of many.'

 

"If we are to understand American Christianity we need to take our stand within the movement so that its objects may come into view"

      "Every movement, like every person, needs to be understood before it can be criticized.  And no movement can be understood until its presuppositions, the fundamental faith upon which it rests, have been at least provisionally adopted.  The presuppositions may not be our own; we may find good reason for rejecting them in favor of others; but we cannot understand without occupying a standpoint, and there is no greater barrier to understanding than the assumption that the standpoint which we happen to occupy is a universal one, while that of the object of our criticism is relative."

     H. Richard Niebuhr, The kingdom of God in America (Middletown, CT:  Wesleyan University Press, 1988 [1937]), 12-13.  Yet if "we cannot understand without occupying a standpoint," there is no true standpoint that isn't a standpoint, and in that sense a conviction about the truth of a matter.  I.e. sheer perspectivalism won't do, and, indeed, would issue, in the end, to the very reductionism that Niebuhr is assailing here.  For, as he himself says, "the instrumental value of faith for society is dependent upon faith's conviction that it has more than instrumental value" (12).

"the shadow of lost knowledge"

"A certain amount of knowledge you can indeed with average faculties acquire so as to retain; nor need you regret the hours you spent on much that is forgotten, for the shadow of lost knowledge at least protects you from many illusions.
     "But you go to a great school, not for knowledge so much as for arts and habits; for the habit of attention, for the art of expression, for the art of assuming at a moment’s notice a new intellectual posture, for the art of entering quickly into another person’s thoughts, for the habit of submitting to censure and refutation, for the art of indicating assent or dissent in graduated terms, for the habit of regarding minute points of accuracy, for the art of working out what is possible in a given time, for taste, for discrimination, for mental courage and mental soberness."

     William Johnson Cory, Eton reform II (London:  Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1861), 6-7.  I was put onto this by Joseph Epstein, "How to re-read," The lamp:  a Catholic journal of literature, science, the fine arts, etc. no. 19 (Christ the King 2023):  41 (where the author, but not the source, is given, and which I have corrected against the original).