The Sermon on the Mount (sermons) and the Magnificat

The two works presented in this volume are probably the most significant and influential commentaries to come from Luther's lifelong preoccupation with the Synoptics. Separated by a decade, they indicate two of the several methods Luther followed in expounding Scripture; for the Commentary on the Magnificat was a devotional tract composed for a particular individual, and the Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount was based upon a series of sermons delivered in Wittenberg. Thus neither of them came from his lecture hall, which was the source of so many of his other commentaries. - p. xvii.