In 2008, under the patronage of UNESCO, the whole cultural world marked the 500th anniversary of the birth of the father of the Slovene book and literature, of the Slovene literary language, and so also of the Slovene nation and its present independent state. Christians in Slovenia, however, remember Primož Trubar above all for what this simple yet richly gifted Slovene herald of the true gospel did for his people and many others in the spiritual and eternal sense.
It is true that without Trubar there would probably be no independent and in many ways flourishing Slovene state – but that would not be the greatest misfortune for the people born and living in these lands. It is true that without Trubar there would probably be no common Slovene literary language and its rich literature – but that, too, would not be the greatest misfortune for the people between the Alps and the Adriatic. It would be a misfortune beyond comparison, however, if Slovenes had never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ and his apostles, the only guide to entering the eternal kingdom of heaven, which is the final meaning and goal of human life. Jesus’ words, “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” (Mark 8:36), can be applied to Slovenes too: what good is it to a Slovene to become aware of his nation, to shape a common literary language and a rich literature in it, to found his own state and enjoy among other, larger nations the reputation of an enterprising and successful people in a beautiful country – if he and his fellow countrymen forget their only true goal in life, which is in eternity with God, and lose their eternal life, their salvation?
It is good to be a citizen of Slovenia, but that citizenship is limited and temporary. The goal of all people on earth, Slovenes included, is higher by a whole eternity: to become a citizen of God’s kingdom! The way a person gains the right to enter God’s kingdom and become its citizen for all eternity was shown to us by Primož Trubar when he first translated all four Gospels into Slovene, so that between the simple Slovene and his God there was no other mediator than Jesus Christ. Thanks to Trubar, God also spoke in Slovene, so that no one could make excuses.
Trubar is great – great even in European and world terms – in everything he did for his own people and for other peoples, to whom he preached in their language and for whom he printed books in their language and script. Yet through Trubar the greatness of God is also revealed, far above all human greatness and power. As the writer of the letter to the Hebrews says at the very beginning: “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways …” The first among Slovene prophets is surely Primož Trubar.
As in the days of Trubar and the Turkish raids, the Slovene nation today faces raids of a modern kind: contempt for the state and its laws, rudeness and insolence in relationships, children who do not respect parents, teachers and superiors, people taking the law into their own hands, growing addiction to alcohol and drugs, terrible statistics of abortion and suicide, the breakdown of families and divorce seen as a normal part of life, growing delinquency and crime, violence and perversion. These are just some examples of personal and social decline. Both the state and individuals are almost helpless against these raids.
Trubar’s greatness came from a change in his own life. He shaped history only because he personally met the Bible and Jesus. Trubar first recognised that he had sinned against God, as the Bible says: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). He also recognised that God is just and must punish the sinner. Only an unjust judge would overlook sin. But God is completely just and will judge everyone, and “commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice …” (Acts 17:30–31). The wages of sin are eternal separation from God and eternal suffering: “For the wages of sin is death …” (Romans 6:23). The Bible also says: “No one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law” (Romans 3:20) – that is, a person cannot buy himself free from his sin with good deeds, money or anything else. So man is a sinner in the hands of a just God, without hope of pardon.
But God loves people and does not want them to suffer forever. How then can God satisfy both his justice and his love? The only way God found was to send his Son. By his death on the cross Jesus paid for the sins of everyone who wants to be reconciled with God. “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:19). And again the Bible says: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). This is a gift that cannot be paid for. It can only be accepted or refused. Trubar accepted this gift and changed the world.
So with his life and work Trubar spoke to Slovenes as the apostle Paul had spoken centuries before: “We implore you on Christ’s behalf: be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20). The English writer Robert Bolt wrote the play A Man for All Seasons about Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England, lawyer, philosopher and writer, whom King Henry VIII had imprisoned and beheaded because he opposed the king’s dissolute life. The play was a great success on stage in 1960, and in 1966 Fred Zinnemann made it into a very successful film. Slovenes too have a man for all seasons: Primož Trubar. His head was not taken from him, but his homeland was – and, to this day, a fair and complete judgement of him.
Stations of his life
- born in Rašica near Velike Lašče to Miha, a carpenter and miller and a subject of the counts of Turjak, and to his mother Jera;
- schooling in Rijeka, Salzburg, Trieste with Bonomo, and Vienna; Bonomo introduces him to the works of the Swiss reformers and Erasmus of Rotterdam;
- Bonomo ordains Trubar priest; he serves in Loka near Zidani Most, in Laško, in Celje and as a canon in Ljubljana;
- Bishop Textor of Ljubljana drives Trubar out and confiscates his property; Trubar flees to Germany and in 1550 publishes his first books, the Abecedarium and the Catechism;
- in Germany he soon becomes preacher in Rothenburg ob der Tauber; in 1549 Barbara Sitar from Kranj joins him; they marry and have several children;
- pastor in Kempten in Bavaria;
- Trubar introduces the Latin alphabet and so opens the way for Slovene into the wider European world;
- the estates of Carniola call him back to Ljubljana as preacher; he has to leave again; in Urach he runs Ungnad’s press and founds a Bible institute for books in Slovene, Croatian and Serbian;
- superintendent in Ljubljana, where he publishes the Slovene Church Order;
- flees to Germany again, to Lauffen and Derendingen, where he stays;
- returns to Ljubljana in secret and meets the captured Turkish commander Usraim Bey to learn about Islam and the Qur’an; an attempt to meet other captured Turks in Ribnica fails;
- dies in Derendingen, where he is buried.
Trubar’s work
Trubar published 22 books in Slovene and two in German. His most important Slovene books are:
- The Catechism and the Abecedarium (1550/51) – the beginning of evangelism among the Slovenes and at the same time the beginning of Slovene literature and the literary language. The two booklets (Catechismus in der windischen Sprach and Abecedarium) were still printed in German Gothic type, and only in the next edition in Latin letters; they were published in Tübingen. Trubar signed himself Philopatridus Illyricus (an Illyrian patriot).
- The first part of the New Testament (1557; the 2nd and 3rd parts in 1560 and 1577) – the first Slovene translation from the Bible, followed in 1584 by Dalmatin’s translation of the whole Bible. It contains the Gospels and Acts, with a preface on the teachings of Luther’s explanation of the faith, a calendar and a postil (explanations of the Gospels for Sundays and feast days).
- The Church Order (1564) – the foundation of an independent Protestant church among the Slovenes. It also calls for Slovene schools and the right to use the Slovene language. Because this book – in its way also a founding document of Slovene statehood – intruded on the privileges of the ruling prince, he banned it and had Trubar banished.
- He also prepared hymnbooks with his own and adapted Christian songs, making him the first Slovene singer-songwriter. He wrote ten prefaces in German to books by other authors.
Collected and written by Vinko Ošlak