Schaff Calvin as Commentator

7/30/2019 Schaff Calvin as Commentator

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IV. Calvin as a Commentator by Philip Schaff

The Presbyterian and Reformed Review Vol. 3 No. 11 (1892)

lV.CALVI N AS A COMMENTATOR.

CALV I N W M an exegetical geniua of the first order. Hi s COIn-ml)utaries are unsurpassed for original ity , depth, peZ'8pi(luity,soundness, and permanent value. T he Reformation periodfruitful beyond any other in translations and expositions or theScripture. I f Lutber was the king of translators, Ca lvin WM theking of commentators. Poole, in the l ' reface to his SYJlop.i" apolo.gizes for 1I0t referring more frequently to Calviu, because othershad so largely borrowed from him that to quote them was qu otinghim. Reuss, the chief editor of his works alld himself an eminentBiblical &:holar, says that Calviu W M "beyond all question thegreatestexcgete of the sixteenth centu.ry." Arobdeacou Farrar Iiterally echoes thi! judgment. Diestel, the oo.,t historian of O ld Teatament exegesis, calls him "the creator of genuine exegesis." Fewex egetical works u t l ~ v e their generation; thoae of Calvin are notlikely to be superseded, any more than Chry908tom's Homiliu forpatristic eloquence, or Bengel'8 Ol1


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O.1LV1N A8.1 OQJlHENT.11QU. 463l!(lhoill!Jlic. The Commentaries on the PMlms and the Epistles ofPaul are rcgarded 118 his best. He \l"a8 iu profound sympathy withDavid and Paul, and read iD their history his own spiritual biog.raphy. He calls the PSlilms


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464 Tll l I PRflSBYTERIA,N AND RllFORJlED REVIl>W.fathers. He 3ppJied private judgment to the interpretation withthe utmost freedom, and j\ldged the c.anonicity and a\lthority of the!!everal books of the Bible by a dogmatic and s\lbjective rule-hisfavorite doctrine of solifidi an justification; and u he could not findit in Jamcs, he irreverently called that epistle" an epistle of straw ."He anticipated modern eritioism, but his critioism proceeded fromf3ith in Christ and God's Word, and not from skept.icism. I1is bestbook is a trsoslstion, snd next to it, hi8little catechism for children.Zwingli studied the Greek at GlsNs and Finsiedelo, th t hemight be able" to draw 1he teaahing of Christ from the fountain ."He Jeamed Hebrew after he was oalled to ZUrich. He also st\ldiedthe fathers, and, like Erumus, took more to Jerome than toAugustine. His expositions of Scripture are clear, easy and natural,but somewha t artifici al. 'l' he other SwiS'l Reformel'l! and exegctes-


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OA.LVllY AS A (JOJIJlENT.A1'OR. 4.65during his I'Qjourn at Barel, and he ind ustriously con tinued thestudy of both. Be was at homo in cla$ieal antiquity j his firstbook was a Commenta.ry on Seneca De Olem


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466 H lE PRKSBYTRl.:1N AND REI


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OA L VJN AS A COHMEN TA TOR.not depend upon the nu mber of dicta probantia. Re could see noproof of the doctrine of the T rinity in the plural Ewhim, nor in theth ree angel visitonl of Abraham (G en. xviii . 2), nor in the Trisagion{Ps. vi. 3), nor of the divinity of the Holy Spirit in Ps. xxxiii. 6.5. Re prepared the way for a proper historical underl!tanding ofprophecy. H e fully believed ill the Messiallia propheaies, whichare the ver y soul of the faith aDd hope of Is rael; bu t he first per ooivcd that they had a primary bearing aDd praatiaal appliaat iou to.their owo t imes, aud nn ul terior fulflllmeut in Chriat., thus serviug apresent a8 well 1\8 a future use. He thua expJained Psalms i i, viii, xvi,xltii, xl, xl v, lx vii i, ax:, 1\8 typiaal and indi rectly M 011 the-other hand, he made eltoessive use of'typology, especially in hi$sermons, and sa w not only in David hu t in every king of J erUB9.lema "figllre of Christ." I n his ellplanation of t he protevangelium(Gen . iiL Ui) he corrootly underl!tands the "seed of the woman,"oollootively of the human race, in iU! pe rpetual eonfiiat with Sa(ao,whioh will elllminate ultimately ill the victory of Christ, the Headof the tl106 . He widens the !lense of the formula" tha t it migbt befulfilled" (i .. " ''1p. . I ~ ) , ao l l I! to express !IOmetimes simply an analogyor correspondence be tween aD Old Testament and a New Testament-cveut. The prophecy (Hos. xi . 1) quoted by Mat thew 9.8 roferringto the return of the Christ ehild from Egypt, must, accordingly,"not be teIItricted to Chnst," but i8 "s\tillfully adapted to the preeentoccasion." I n like manner, l 'aul, in Rom. x . 6, givea only an embelliBhment and adaptation of a word of Mooes to th e a9.86 in hand .6. He had t he profoundest reverence for the Scriptures, 9.8 oontaining the Word of the living God and 1\8 tbe only infallible and.sufficient rule of faith aDd duty j bu t he W9.l! not 8w ayed by a par.ti eular theory of inspiration. I t i8 true, he never would haveapproved tbe IInguarded judgments of Luther on J ames, Jude,Hebrews and the Apocalypae j bu t he had 00 hesitauey in admit.ting incidentalerrora whieb do not touch the vi\.(J.ls of faith. Herem"r h on Matt. xxvii. 9, " How the name of Jeremiah erept in,I coofcaa I know not., 1Ior am 1 l ~ r i o t l 8 1 y troubW about if. Tha tthe nam(l of Jeremiah b9.l! been pu t for Zoohariah hy an er ror, tbefact itl!eli shows, because there ia no such atBtemeut in Jeremiah."Concerning the diacrepanaiea between the speech of Stepben, inAets vii, and the' account of Genesis, he 8UggesU! t hat Stephen orLuke drew upon aneient traditions rather th an upon MOI!68, andmade " a mistake in the oame of A braha m."H e Wall far from the ped a.ntry of the Puri$U! in the seventeenthcentury, who asserted the cl88.'lical purity of the New Tea tamentGreek on t he ground that the Holy Spirit could not be guilty ofa ny 8OIooism or barbarism, or the slightest vlolatiol1 of grllmmar;


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468 THE PRESBY7ERLlN AND REFORMED REVIEW.not remembering that the apo!!tles and evangeliSts carried the heav.enly trOBl:!UTe of truth in earthen ve.-ls, that the power and graceof God might become more manifest, IInd that Paul himself confe&


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CALYIN AS A OOMMENTATOR. 469Spirit. I t is neCllssary, therefore, that the same Spirit, who spakeby the mouths of the prophets, should penetrate into our hearts toconvince us that they faithfully delivered the oracles which wcredivinely intrusted to them. . .. ut it be considered then as anundeuiable truth that they who have been inwardly taught by theSpirit feel an entireaoquiescenCll in the Scripture, and that it is Btllf-authenticated, carrying with it it s own ev idence, and ought not tobe made the subjoot of demonstrations and argumenta from reru;on;bu t it obtains the eredit which it descrl'cswith us by the testimonyof the Spirit. For though it commands our reverence by ita internalmajcsty, it never eerioWlly affects us till it is confirmed by the Spiritin our beartl!. T herefore, being illuminated by H im, we now believethe divine original of the Scri pture, not from onr own judgment orthlLt of others, bu t we.esteem the certainty that we have reooivoo i tfrom God'a own mouth, by the ministry of men, to be 8uperior toth at of any humau judgment, and equal to that of an intuitive per.ception of God Ilimaelf in it .. _ _ Without this certainty, betterand !!tronger than any human judgment, in vain will the authorityof the Scripture be either defended by arguments or establil!hed bythe authority of the Church, or confirmed by aOy other eupport,

~ i n c e , unlC$! the foundation be laid, it remains in e r p e t u a l s U l l p e n ~ . "Thia doctrine of th03 intrinsic meri t and self-evidencing character

of the Scripture, to all who are enlightened by tIle Holy Spirit,passed into the Gallican, Belgic, Second Belvetic, W cstminster andother Reformed confessioDl! . They preseut a fuller stae"ment of theobjectivo or formal principle of Protestantillm, namely, the ablloluteIlUprema.ey of the \Voro of God u the infallible rule of faith andpractioo, than the Lutheran symbols which give prominenoo to theIlUbjective or material principle of justification by faith.At th e same time the ecclcsiutical traditiou is of great va.lue asa. witness to the hUDllln authorahip and canonicity of the severalbooks, and ill more fully recognized by modern Biblical 8 C h o l a ~ h i p ,in ita conflict with delrtructivc criticism, than it Will! in the day" ofcontroveny with Romanism. Th e internal testimony of the BolySpirit and the external testimony of the Chureh join in establi8hingthe divine authority of the Scripture3.

Nz,.. YOR". PalL!\, Scn' \ ' fl".

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Schaff Calvin as Commentator