First and only edition, Stuttgart & Frankfurt, 1659. Bernhard Waldschmidt’s extensive seventeenth-century Protestant commentary on the biblical Book of Ruth, developed through sixty-two sermons and intended as moral and religious instruction for the Christian household. With a striking red-and-black title-page, woodcut initials and ornaments. A scarce survivor of German religious printing from the generation immediately following the Thirty Years’ War. VD17 39:128020P.
Waldschmidt (Bernhard). Ruth Moabitis, Das ist: Zwey und sechßig Predigten über die anmuthige Histori Deß Büchleins Ruth, der Moabitin. Stuttgart & Frankfurt: Johann Weyrich Rößlin & Thomas Matthias Götze, 1659. First and only edition.
A scarce seventeenth-century German Protestant exposition of the Book of Ruth, comprising sixty-two sermons devoted to the biblical narrative of Ruth the Moabite.
The striking title-page is printed in red and black, incorporating two large ornamental woodcut initials, while the text is further embellished with woodcut head- and tail-pieces and decorative initials.
Waldschmidt approaches Ruth not simply as biblical history but as a source of religious and moral instruction applicable to everyday Christian life. As the extensive title indicates, the sermons were intended for men and women, parents and children, householders and servants, presenting Ruth’s story as a model of faith, duty and Christian conduct.
Published in Stuttgart and Frankfurt in 1659, only eleven years after the conclusion of the Thirty Years’ War, the work belongs to the important tradition of German Lutheran devotional literature produced during the period of religious and social reconstruction that followed the conflict.
This is the first and only edition, recorded in the German national bibliography of seventeenth-century printing as VD17 39:128020P.
The title-page remains particularly attractive, its alternating red and black typography providing a strong example of seventeenth-century German religious printing.
The binding is considerably distressed, with substantial wear and loss to the leather, exposed structure and deterioration along the spine and joints. Internally, there is a wormhole affecting the text towards the end, occasional spotting and staining, including more pronounced staining around 3E1r, and general light browning consistent with age. Despite the compromised binding, the survival of this uncommon first and only edition remains bibliographically significant.
Author: Bernhard Waldschmidt
Title: Ruth Moabitis, Das ist: Zwey und sechßig Predigten über die anmuthige Histori Deß Büchleins Ruth, der Moabitin
Year: 1659
Edition: First and Only Edition
Publishers: Johann Weyrich Rößlin & Thomas Matthias Götze
Place: Stuttgart & Frankfurt
Language: German
Reference: VD17 39:128020P
Subject: Theology, Biblical Commentary, Book of Ruth, Seventeenth-Century Protestant Sermons
Internally generally well preserved for its age, with light overall browning, scattered spotting and staining, and a wormhole affecting text towards the end; more noticeable staining to 3E1r.
Binding heavily worn and defective, with extensive rubbing and surface loss, substantial deterioration to the spine and joints, exposed sewing/binding structure and losses at extremities. The volume nevertheless remains together.
Title-page printed in red and black and retaining a strong visual impression.
Ruth Moabitis — Sixty-Two Sermons on the Book of Ruth — First & Only Edition, 1659
£895.00
First and only edition, Stuttgart & Frankfurt, 1659. Bernhard Waldschmidt’s extensive seventeenth-century Protestant commentary on the biblical Book of Ruth, developed through sixty-two sermons and intended as moral and religious instruction for the Christian household. With a striking red-and-black title-page, woodcut initials and ornaments. A scarce survivor of German religious printing from the generation immediately following the Thirty Years’ War. VD17 39:128020P.
Waldschmidt (Bernhard). Ruth Moabitis, Das ist: Zwey und sechßig Predigten über die anmuthige Histori Deß Büchleins Ruth, der Moabitin. Stuttgart & Frankfurt: Johann Weyrich Rößlin & Thomas Matthias Götze, 1659. First and only edition.
A scarce seventeenth-century German Protestant exposition of the Book of Ruth, comprising sixty-two sermons devoted to the biblical narrative of Ruth the Moabite.
The striking title-page is printed in red and black, incorporating two large ornamental woodcut initials, while the text is further embellished with woodcut head- and tail-pieces and decorative initials.
Waldschmidt approaches Ruth not simply as biblical history but as a source of religious and moral instruction applicable to everyday Christian life. As the extensive title indicates, the sermons were intended for men and women, parents and children, householders and servants, presenting Ruth’s story as a model of faith, duty and Christian conduct.
Published in Stuttgart and Frankfurt in 1659, only eleven years after the conclusion of the Thirty Years’ War, the work belongs to the important tradition of German Lutheran devotional literature produced during the period of religious and social reconstruction that followed the conflict.
This is the first and only edition, recorded in the German national bibliography of seventeenth-century printing as VD17 39:128020P.
The title-page remains particularly attractive, its alternating red and black typography providing a strong example of seventeenth-century German religious printing.
The binding is considerably distressed, with substantial wear and loss to the leather, exposed structure and deterioration along the spine and joints. Internally, there is a wormhole affecting the text towards the end, occasional spotting and staining, including more pronounced staining around 3E1r, and general light browning consistent with age. Despite the compromised binding, the survival of this uncommon first and only edition remains bibliographically significant.
Author: Bernhard Waldschmidt
Title: Ruth Moabitis, Das ist: Zwey und sechßig Predigten über die anmuthige Histori Deß Büchleins Ruth, der Moabitin
Year: 1659
Edition: First and Only Edition
Publishers: Johann Weyrich Rößlin & Thomas Matthias Götze
Place: Stuttgart & Frankfurt
Language: German
Reference: VD17 39:128020P
Subject: Theology, Biblical Commentary, Book of Ruth, Seventeenth-Century Protestant Sermons
Internally generally well preserved for its age, with light overall browning, scattered spotting and staining, and a wormhole affecting text towards the end; more noticeable staining to 3E1r.
Binding heavily worn and defective, with extensive rubbing and surface loss, substantial deterioration to the spine and joints, exposed sewing/binding structure and losses at extremities. The volume nevertheless remains together.
Title-page printed in red and black and retaining a strong visual impression.
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The biblical Book of Ruth is one of the shortest books of the Old Testament, yet Bernhard Waldschmidt found enough within its four chapters for sixty-two individual sermons.
That tells much about the purpose of this book.
Published in 1659, Ruth Moabitis appeared in a German world still recovering from the Thirty Years’ War. Families and communities had endured decades of warfare, disease, displacement and religious conflict. Protestant ministers increasingly used familiar biblical narratives to address questions extending far beyond theology: marriage, family, obedience, work, charity and the obligations people owed one another.
Ruth offered an unusually powerful example.
A foreign widow who leaves her homeland to remain with Naomi, Ruth becomes a model of loyalty and faith. Her journey ultimately places her within the lineage of King David — and, within Christian tradition, the genealogy of Christ.
Waldschmidt transformed that compact story into an extensive programme of Christian instruction.
The title-page itself makes his intended audience unusually explicit: men and women, old and young, husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants. Ruth’s ancient story was being brought directly into the households of seventeenth-century Germany.
The physical book now bears more than three and a half centuries of history. Its worn leather, exposed binding structure and aged paper are far removed from the pristine appearance of a restored antiquarian volume, but they also make immediately apparent that this is an object which has survived from 1659.
It remains a tangible witness to the way biblical texts were preached, printed and read in early modern Protestant Europe.
The principal attraction is its combination of age, scarcity and subject.
This is not a nineteenth-century reprint of an earlier theological work, but the first and only edition printed in 1659, with bibliographical identification in VD17.
The Book of Ruth also gives the work broader appeal than many seventeenth-century collections of sermons. Ruth remains one of the most recognisable female figures of the Old Testament, and the book provides a fascinating example of how her story was interpreted for a German Protestant audience more than 350 years ago.
Its red-and-black title-page, Gothic typography and ornamental woodcut initials give the volume considerable visual character.
The condition necessarily moderates its commercial value: the binding is heavily distressed and should be described without understatement. Yet for collectors who value bibliographical rarity and historical authenticity over cosmetic perfection, this remains an appealing example of seventeenth-century German theological printing.
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