1553 CASPAR HUBERINUS. Martin Luther Friend Exposition of the Book of Sirach in Vellum.

A scarce Reformation era commentary on the apocryphal book of Sirach by Caspar Huberinus, often considered the architect of the German Reformation. It is especially rare even as a literary production since almost all of the Reformers sided with the traditional Jewish Old Testament Canon, over and against that of the Roman Catholic Church, viewing it as a beneficial, but not inspired writing. With the Reformer's sola scriptura, any devotional or exegetical focus on non-biblical books was rather unusual.  The Commentary's author, Caspar Huberinus [1500-1553], was an important Reformation era theologian, hymnist, and activist in the movement.  As with Luther, he had been monk, but fled the monastery in 1522, he enrolled at Wittenberg. There he became friends with Martin Luther. He early on began publishing treatises, largely at Wittenberg because of his opposition to Zwingli. One of them even carries a preface by Martin Luther himself. He worked mostly as a "reporter" of the reformation,