Was Calvin a pure Presuppositionalist? With all this practical concern with the “progress” of his students and of the churches, Calvin was a conscientious historical critic. His comments did not degenerate into the undisciplined exhortation which often goes with “practical preaching.” He neither practiced nor encouraged irresponsibility toward “the genuine sense” of Scripture. The students were to know what the author of a given text meant by what he said, and any “spiritual” meaning other than one derived from the author’s intention was at once misleading and unedifying. Calvin said bluntly of Ezek. 17:1–2, “The prophet’s discourse cannot be understood without a knowledge of the history [behind it].” Calvin’s concern with history will be dealt with later. Here we point it out as an essential part of his work as a lecturer, contributive rather than irrelevant to the hearing of God’s Word. Calvin’s refusal to be diverted from his main purpose is clear also in his use of classical and early Christian literature. The list of classical references is a long one. Cicero appears most often (sixteen times in the Pentateuch Harmony alone); but there are quotations from all the better-known Latin authors (Horace, Juvenal, Seneca, Terence, Cato, Quintilian, Virgil, Plautus, Suetonius, Tacitus, Livy, Pliny), and from the Greek authors (Homer, Euripides, Xenophon, Ovid, Aristophanes, Epicurus, Plutarch, and Aesop). He quotes Plato and Aristotle with respect. He admires Plato’s wisdom and piety, but objects to the “angelology” of Platonism (2 Peter 1:4, Col. 2:18, etc.). He quotes Aristotle on the distinction between anger and hatred (from “The Second Book on Rhetoric”), and refers with approval to his saying that the tongue should be an image of the understanding (Gal. 5:19, 1 Cor. 14:11). In the field of law, he speaks of Portius’ law, Flavian law, the laws of Sempronius, and Valerius’ law (Acts 16:35, 22:25, 1 Tim. 1:10). Herodotus, Pliny, Gellius, Homer all contributed a discussion of the giant Og in Deut. 3:4. It is not always possible to tell whether Calvin is depending on his own memory of a quoted passage, or on a collection of quotations such as the Adagies of Erasmus. Calvin was admired by his friends and feared by his enemies as a most learned man. But he never makes a display of his erudition and it seldom interferes with a forthright presentation of the meaning he saw it and with his communication with his hearers and readers. The same holds for his use of ancient Christian literature. Hundreds of references in the Commentaries, quotations, approving and disapproving discussions make it obvious that Calvin had an extensive and masterly knowledge of Augustine, Jerome, and Chrysostom. He obviously learned a great deal from all three, and depended upon the latter two, as well as on Josephus, for his knowledge of Biblical times and places. But his knowledge is not limited to these giants. He makes apt reference, with frequent quotations, to Tertullian and Cyprian; to Irenaeus and Origen; to Cyril of Jerusalem, Epiphanius, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Hilary, Lactantius, and Ambrose of Milan; to Eusebius and Socrates, the historians; to Pope Leo I, Gregory the Great, and Bernard of Clairvaux. But again, the fathers are consulted for the help they may provide for understanding Scripture; they do not interfere with his exposition of it. Calvin was grateful to contemporary commentators like Melanchthon, Bucer, Bullinger, and others (on Romans19). But the use he makes of their works keeps a consistent pattern. No references are given to exhibit his own learning. However, his comments show that he had read and pondered over the works of his contemporaries. Ecolampadius, he says, interprets rightly and prudently, but one needs leisure to read his work (Dan. 9:25). He quotes approvingly and supports by his own argument Luther’s designation of Ps. 132:14 as “the bloody promise,” but he disagrees with Luther on Dan. 8:22–23; “Luther indulging his own thoughts too freely refers this to the masks of Antichrist.” He gives high praise to Bucer in the Preface to Psalms, but he says of him elsewhere (Preface to Romans) that he is too prolix for busy men to read, and too profound to be understood by the simple, and that because of the incredible fecundity of his mind, he does not know where to stop. Calvin declares (and truly) that he does not expend words refuting contrary opinions unless he knows the faithful are troubled by them. Most of his arguments therefore are with the “papists” and the Anabaptists. There are uncomplimentary references to “the doctors of the Sorbonne.” Jewish commentators are usually treated as a group and dismissed as blind to the relation between the Old Testament and Christ. He uses their judgment frequently on details, especially the meaning or derivation of words. Kimchi he mentions by name and calls him “the most correct interpreter among the rabbis” (Ps. 112:5). It is ironical that Calvin in spite of his frequent references to “the blindness of the Jews” was himself attacked, especially by the theological faculty of Wittenberg, as “a Judaizer.” A pamphlet against his method of interpreting Scripture, which was published in 1593, bore the horrendous title “Calvin Judaizing, that is, the Jewish Glosses and Corruptions by which John Calvin did not Fear to Corrupt the most Luminous Passages of Sacred Scriptures and its witness to the Glorious Trinity, the Deity of Christ and of the Holy Spirit, including the Predictions of the Prophets on the Coming of the Messiah, His Birth, Passion, Resurrection, and Sitting at the Right Hand of God, in a Detestable Fashion. A Refutation of the Corruptions is Added.” The reason for such attacks was of course Calvin’s insistence on attending to the “genuine sense” of Scripture.23 He despised the allegorical method of interpreting Scripture which had provided Christians with their favorite means of twisting the Bible into a religious book of their own liking. In insisting upon the original meaning of a text, he deprived the orthodox, even among Protestants, of many of their traditional proof texts. He even undermined the traditional doctrine of Biblical authority. But he taught the Protestant ministry how to read their Bible, and to understand it as the Word of God to the churches — which is the utmost a commentator can do. Source: ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom.iv.html
Posted on: Fri, 31 May 2013 00:57:36 +0000
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