SHCT 170 Ballor, Sytsma, Zuidema (Eds.) - Church and School in Early Modern Protestantism - Studies in Honor of Richard A. Muller On The Maturation of A Theological Tradition PDF

Church and School in Early Modern Protestantism
Studies in the History of

Christian Traditions
General Editor
Robert J. Bast
Knoxville, Tennessee
In cooperation with
Henry Chadwick, Cambridge
Paul C.H. Lim, Nashville, Tennessee
Eric Saak, Liverpool
Brian Tierney, Ithaca, New York
Arjo Vanderjagt, Groningen
John Van Engen, Notre Dame, Indiana
Founding Editor
Heiko A. Oberman
VOLUME 170
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/shct

Church and School in Early
Modern Protestantism
Studies in Honor of Richard A. Muller on the

Maturation of a Theological Tradition
Edited by
Jordan J. Ballor
David S. Sytsma
Jason Zuidema
LEIDEN BOSTON
2013
Cover illustration: Franeker Academie, from Winsemius (1622). Courtesy: Tresoar, Leeuwarden.
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ISSN 1573-5664
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Copyright 2013 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

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Justification by Faith Alone: Martin Luther among the Early Anglicans copyright David
C. Steinmetz. Lumina, non Numina: Patristic Authority according to Lutheran Arch-Theologian
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CONTENTS
List of Illustrationsxi
List Abbreviations xiii
List of Contributorsxix
Acknowledgements and Dedicationxxv
Introduction: The Dogma Is Not Necessarily the Drama xxvii
Carl R. Trueman
PART I
FIRST GENERATION REFORMERS (ca. 15171535)
Justification by Faith Alone: Martin Luther among the Early

Anglicans3
David C. Steinmetz
Philip Melanchthon and Wittenbergs Reform of the

Theological Curriculum 17
Timothy J. Wengert
Academic Heresy, the Reuchlin Affair, and the Control of

Theological Discourse in the Early Sixteenth Century 35
Amy Nelson Burnett
Influences in Luthers Reforms 49

Fred P. Hall
Pastoral Education in the Wittenberg Way 67

Robert Kolb
Franois Lambert dAvignon (ca. 14871530): Early Ecclesial

Reform and Training for the Ministry at Marburg 81
Theodore G. Van Raalte
PART II
SECOND GENERATION REFORMERS (ca. 15351565)
The Idea of a General Grace of God in Some Sixteenth-Century

Reformed Theologians other than Calvin 97
J. Mark Beach
vi contents
Calvins Reception and Reformulation of the Necessitarian

Concepts of the Early Reformation on Human Will, Providence,
and Predestination111
Kiven S.K. Choy
The duplex gratia Dei and the Organization of Calvins Institutes:

ordo docendi or ordo salutis?123
Cornelis P. Venema
Calvins Hermeneutics of the Imprecations of the Psalter135

Paul Mpindi
The Italian Convert: Marquis Galeazzo Caracciolo and the

English Puritans153
Emidio Campi
Confluence and Influence: Peter Martyr Vermigli and Thomas

Aquinas on Predestination165
Frank A. James III
Peter Martyr Vermigli, Scholasticism, and Aquinas Justice

of War Doctrine185
Mark J. Larson
Moral Philosophy and Moral Theology in Vermigli199

Sebastian Rehnman
Word and Spirit in the Piety of Peter Martyr Vermigli as Seen

in his Commentary on 1 Corinthians215
Jason Zuidema
PART III
EARLY ORTHODOXY (ca. 15651640)
The Man in the Black Hat: Theodore Beza and the Reorientation
of Early Reformed Historiography227
Raymond A. Blacketer
From Professors to Pastors: The Convoluted Careers of Jean

Diodati and Thodore Tronchin243
Karin Maag
contents vii
Swiss Students and Faculty at the University of Heidelberg,

15181622255
Charles D. Gunnoe Jr.
Johannes Piscators (15461625) Interpretation of Calvins
Institutes271
Heber Carlos de Campos Jr.
The Academization of Reformation Teaching in Johann Heinrich
Alsted (15881638)283
Byung Soo Han
Theology and Piety in Ursinus Summa Theologiae295
Lyle D. Bierma
Law and Gospel in Early Reformed Orthodoxy: Hermeneutical
Conservatism in Olevianus Commentary on Romans307
R. Scott Clark
Laurence Chaderton: An Early Puritan Vision for Church
and School321
Joel R. Beeke
The Danzig Academic Gymnasium in Seventeenth-Century
Poland339
Dariusz M. Bryko
Arminius on Facientibus Quod in Se Est and Likely Medieval
Sources347
J.V. Fesko
Bona Conscientia Paradisus: An Augustinian-Arminian Trope361
Keith D. Stanglin
A Promise for Parents: Dordts Perspective on Covenant
and Election373
W. Robert Godfrey
Type, Anti-type, and the Sensus Literalis: Protestant Reformed
Orthodox Approaches to Psalm 2387
Todd Rester
The Holy Spirit and the Churchs Mission: The Perspective of the
Reformed Confessions401
Yuzo Adhinarta
viii contents
The Attempt to Establish a Chair in Practical Theology at Leiden

University (16181626)415
Donald Sinnema
Theologia practica: The Diverse Meanings of a Subject of

Early Modern Academic Writing443
Aza Goudriaan
Lumina, non Numina: Patristic Authority According to Lutheran

Arch-Theologian Johann Gerhard457
Benjamin T.G. Mayes
The Logic of the Heart: Analyzing the Affections in Early Reformed

Orthodoxy471
David S. Sytsma
Reformed Education from Geneva through the Netherlands to

the East Indies489
Yudha Thianto
PART IV
HIGH ORTHODOXY (ca. 16401725)
A Grievous Sin: Gisbertus Voetius (15891676) and His

Anti-Lombard Polemic505
Willem J. van Asselt
Voetius on the Subject and Formal Act of HappinessA Scholastic

Exercise521
Andreas J. Beck
Revealing the Mind of God: Exegetical Method in the Seventeenth

Century533
Henry M. Knapp
Reason Run Amok? The Protestant Orthodox Charge of

Rationalism against Faustus Socinus (with Special
Consideration of a Smoking Gun Passage from De Jesu
Christo Servatore)551
Alan W. Gomes
contents ix
Johannes Cocceius as Federal Polemicist: The Usefulness of the

Distinction between the Testaments567
Brian J. Lee
A Smattering of the New Philosophy: tienne Gaussen

(ca. 16381675) and the Cartesian Question at Saumur583
Albert Gootjes
Nonconformist Schools, the Schism Act, and the Limits of

Toleration in Englands Confessional State597
James E. Bradley
Piety, Theology, Exegesis, and Tradition: Anna Maria van

Schurmans Elaboration of Genesis 13 and Its Relationship to
the Commentary Tradition613
John L. Thompson
John Howe (16301705) on Divine Simplicity: A Debate over

Spinozism629
Reita Yazawa
Orthodoxy, Scholasticism, and Piety in the Seventeenth-Century

Further Reformation: Simon Oomius641
Gregory D. Schuringa
Mylius on Elleboogius: A Fatal Misinterpretation653

Godfried Quaedtvlieg
The Shape of Reformed Orthodoxy in the Seventeenth Century:

The Soteriological Debate between George Kendall and Richard
Baxter665
Jordan J. Ballor
G.W. Leibniz and Protestant Scholasticism in the Years 16981704679

Irena Backus
PART V
LATE ORTHODOXY (ca. 17251790)
The Uniqueness of Christ in Post-Reformation Reformed

Theology: From Francis Turretin to Jean-Alphonse Turretin699
Martin I. Klauber
x contents
Jonathan Edwards (17031758) and the Nature of Theology711

Adriaan C. Neele
Calvinism as Reformed Protestantism: Clarification of a Term723

Herman Selderhuis
Reconsidering the Platonism of Sir Joshua Reynolds (17231792)

and Its Role in His Thought on the Education of Artists737
Nathan A. Jacobs
The Bristol Academy and the Education of Ministers in

Eighteenth-Century England (17581791)749
Jeongmo Yoo
Bibliography of the Works of Richard A. Muller765

Paul W. Fields and Andrew M. McGinnis
Index795
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Fig. 1. Annual Number of Swiss Matriculants to the University of

Heidelberg by Decade265
Fig. 2.Origin of Swiss Students at the University of
Heidelberg 15591583266
Fig. 3.Origin of Swiss Students at the University of
Heidelberg 15831621267
Fig. 4.Cornelis Hendrikus Elleboogius (16031701)654
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
I.Primary Sources
ANF Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James

Donaldson, 10 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
19731974)
Aquinas, Opera Thomas Aquinas, Opera omnia (Rome: Commissio
Leonina, 1882-)
Aquinas, ST Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae
Arminius, Opera Jacob Arminius, Opera theologica (Leiden: Godefridus
Basson, 1629)
Arminius, Works James Nichols, in The Works of James Arminius, trans.
James Nichols and William Nichols, 3 vols. (London,
1825, 1828, 1875; reprint, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1986)
Augustine, Works The Works of Saint Augustine (Hyde Park, NY: New
City Press, 1990-)
BC The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church, ed. Robert Kolb and Timothy
J. Wengert (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000)
Bullinger, Decades Heinrich Bullinger, The Decades of Henry Bullinger,
trans. H.I., ed. Thomas Harding, 4 vols. (Cambridge:
The University Press, 18491852)
Calvin, Institutes John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed.
John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles
(Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960)
CC Philip Schaff, ed., The Creeds of Christendom, 3 vols.
(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1877)
CO John Calvin, Opera quae supersunt omnia, ed. G.
Baum, et al. (Braunschweig: C.A. Schwetschke,
18631900)
CR Corpus Reformatorum: Philippi Melanthonis opera
quae supersunt omnia, ed. Karl Bretschneider and
Heinrich Bindseil, 28 vols. (Halle: Schwetschke,
18341860)
CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, 96+
vols. (Vienna: Holder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1866-)
xiv list of abbreviations
Lombard, Sentences Peter Lombard, The Sentences, trans. Guilio Silano,

4 vols. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval
Studies, 2007-)
Lombard, Sententiae Lombard, Sententiae in IV Libris Distinctae, 2 vols.
(Grottaferrata: Collegii S. Bonaventurae Ad Claras
Aquas, 1981)
LW Jaroslav J. Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehmann, ed.,
Luthers Works, 55 vols. (St. Louis: Concordia,
19551986)
MBW Melanchthons Briefwechsel: Kritische und kommen-
tierte Gesamtausgabe, ed. Heinz Scheible, 12+ vols.
(Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog,
1977- ); Texte: Melanchthons Briefwechsel: Kritische
und kommentierte Gesamtausgabe: Texte, ed. Heinz
Scheible et al., 11+ vols. (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt:
Frommann-Holzboog, 1991- )
MWA Robert Stupperich, ed., Melanchthons Werke in
Auswahl, 7 vols. (Gtersloh: Mohn, 19511975)
NPNF1 The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, ed.
Philip Schaff and Henry Ware (Edinburgh: T&T
Clark, 1996)
OS Calvini opera selecta, ed. P. Barth and G. Niesel, 5
vols. (Mnchen: Kaiser, 19261952)
PL J.-P. Migne, ed., Patrologia Latina, 217 vols. (Paris:
Imprimerie Catholique, 18441865)
PG J.-P. Migne, ed., Patrologia Graeca, 161 vols. (Paris:
Imprimerie Catholique, 18571866)
Turretin, Institutes Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, ed.
James T. Dennison Jr., trans. George Musgrave
Giger, 3 vols. (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1992)
Turretin, Institutio Francis Turretin, Institutio theologi elenctic, 3
vols. (Geneva: Samuel de Tournes, 16791685)
Ursinus, Commentary Zacharias Ursinus, The Commentary of Dr.
Zacharias Ursinus on the Heidelberg Catechism,
trans. G.W. Williard (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian &
Reformed, 1985)
UUW Urkundenbuch der Universitt Wittenberg: Teil 1
(15021611), ed. Walter Friedensburg (Magdeburg:
Selbstverlag der Historischen Kommission, 1926)
list of abbreviations xv
Vermigli, NE Peter Martyr Vermigli, Commentary on Aristotles

Nicomachean Ethics, ed. Emido Campi and Joseph
C. McLelland, trans. Kenneth Austin, et al.
(Kirksville, MO: TSUP, 2006)
Voetius, Exercitia Gisbertus Voetius, Exercitia et Bibliotheca, Studiosi
Theologiae (Utrecht: Wilhelmus Strick, 1644)
Voetius, SDT Gisbertus Voetius, Selectarum Disputationum Theo
logicarum, 5 vols. (Utrecht: Johannes Waesberg,
16481669)
WA Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe
[Schriften], 65 vols. (Weimar: Bhlau, 18831993)
WA Br Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe:
Briefwechsel, 18 vols. (Weimar: Bhlau, 19301985)
WA TR Luthers Werke: Tischreden, 6 vols., in WA
(19121921)
II.Secondary Sources
AAE Arminius, Arminianism, and Europe: Jacobus Arminius

(1559/601609), ed. Th. Marius van Leeuwen, Keith
D. Stanglin, and Marijke Tolsma (Leiden: Brill,
2009)
Heppe, RD Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, trans. G.T.
Thompson (Eugene, OR, 2008)
Muller, AC Richard A. Muller, After Calvin (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2003)
Muller, Arminius Richard A. Muller, God, Creation, and Providence in
the Thought of Jacob Arminius: Sources and Direc
tions of Scholastic Protestantism in the Era of Early
Orthodoxy (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991)
Muller, Calvinists I Richard A. Muller, Calvin and the Calvinists:
Assessing Continuities and Discontinuities between
the Reformation and Orthodoxy I, Calvin Theo
logical Journal 30.2 (1995): 345375
Muller, Calvinists II
Richard A. Muller, Calvin and the Calvinists:
Assessing Continuities and Discontinuities between
the Reformation and Orthodoxy II, Calvin Theo
logical Journal 31.1 (1996): 125160
xvi list of abbreviations
Muller, Decree Richard Muller, Christ and the Decree: Christology and
Predestination in Reformed Theology from Calvin to Perkins
(Durham: Labyrinth, 1986)
Muller, DLGT Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek
Theological Terms (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1986)
Muller, PRRD Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics.
The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520
to ca. 1725, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003)
Muller, S&O Richard A. Muller, Scholasticism and Orthodoxy in the
Reformed Tradition: An Attempt at Definition (Grand
Rapids: Calvin Theological Seminary, 1995)
Muller, UC Richard A. Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin: Studies
in the Foundation of a Theological Tradition (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2000)
PS Carl Trueman and R. Scott Clark, ed., Protestant Scho
lasticism: Essays in Reassessment (Carlisle: Paternoster
Press, 1999)
R&S W.J. van Asselt and E. Dekker, ed., Reformation and
Scholasticism: An Ecumenical Enterprise (Grand Rapids:
Baker Academic, 2001)
III.Journals
AR Archiv fr Reformationsgeschichte
BSHPF Bulletin de la Socit de lHistoire du Protestantisme
Franais
CHR Catholic Historical Review
ChH Church History
CHRC Church History and Religious Culture
CTJ Calvin Theological Journal
DR The Downside Review
HThR Harvard Theological Review
NAKG Nederlands archief voor kerkgeschiedenis / Dutch Review
of Church History
EJ Evangelical Journal
JEH Journal of Ecclesiastical History
JETS Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
JHI Journal of the History of Ideas
JRE Journal of Religious Ethics
list of abbreviations xvii
JRH Journal of Religious History

LQ Lutheran Quarterly
NTT Nederlands theologisch tijdschrift
PP Past and Present
RGG Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart
RJ Reformed Journal
RRR Reformation and Renaissance Review
SCJ Sixteenth Century Journal
MAJT Mid-America Journal of Theology
WTJ Westminster Theological Journal
ZfK Zeitschrift fr Kirchengeschichte
IV.Encyclopedias
ADB Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie

BLNP Biografische lexicon voor de geschiedenis van het
Nederlandse Protestantisme, 6 vols. (Kampen: J. H. Kok,
19782006)
Haag1 Eugne Haag and mile Haag, La France protestante, 1st
ed., 10 vols. (Paris: Joel Cherbuliez, 18461858)
NDB Neue Deutsche Biographie
ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H.C.G.
Matthew and Brian Harrison. 60 volumes. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2004.
OER Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1996)
TRE Theologische Realenzyklopdie (Berlin: de Gruyter,
19762007)
Zedler Johann Heinrich Zedler, Grosses vollstndiges Universal-
Lexicon Aller Wissenschafften und Knste (17321754)
V.Publishers
Brill E. J. Brill
BTT Banner of Truth Trust
Cornell Cornell University Press
CUAP Catholic University of America Press
CUP Cambridge University Press
Duke Duke University Press
xviii list of abbreviations
Eerdmans William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Fortress Fortress Press
HUP Harvard University Press
IUP Indiana University Press
IVP InterVarsity Press
JHUP Johns Hopkins University Press
Kluwer Kluwer Academic
Mellen Edwin Mellen
OUP Oxford University Press
P&R Presbyterian & Reformed
PUP Princeton University Press
RHB Reformation Heritage Books
SAP Sheffield Academic Press
SCES Sixteenth Century Studies
SDG Soli Deo Gloria Publications
SPCK Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge
TSUP Truman State University Press
TTC T & T Clark
UCAP University of California Press
UCP University of Chicago Press
UMP University of Michigan Press
UNCP University of North Carolina Press
UNDP University of Notre Dame Press
UofT University of Toronto Press
V&R Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht
WJKP Westminster John Knox Press
WP The Westminster Press
W&S Wipf and Stock
YUP Yale University Press
VI.Catechisms and Confessions
CA Augsburg Confession (format CA I.5)

CoD Canons of Dordt (format CoD III-IV.10)
HC Heidelberg Catechism (format HC Q/A 1)
SHC Second Helvetic Confession (format SHC XIII.4)
WCF Westminster Confession of Faith (format WCF X.4)
WLC Westminster Larger Catechism (format WLC Q/A 1)
WSC Westminster Shorter Catechism (format WSC Q/A 1)
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Yuzo Adhinarta (Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is on the faculty at

the Reformed Evangelical Seminary in Indonesia.
Willem J. van Asselt (Ph.D., Utrecht University) is Senior Lecturer Emeritus

Church History, Department of Theology, Faculty of Humanities, Utrecht
University and Professor of Historical Theology, Evangelische Theologische
Faculteit, Leuven, Belgium.
Irena Backus (D.Phil., Oxon; Dr. theol. Hab., Bern; Hon. D.D., Edinburgh;
D.D., Oxon) is professor at lInstitut dhistoire de la Rformation in Geneva.
Jordan J. Ballor (Dr. theol., Zurich) is a research fellow at the Acton Institute
for the Study of Religion & Liberty in Grand Rapids, MI, and associate
director of the Junius Institute for Digital Reformation Research at Calvin
Theological Seminary.
J. Mark Beach (Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is Professor of Ministerial

and Doctrinal Studies at Mid-America Reformed Seminary in Dyer, IN.
Andreas J. Beck (Ph.D., Utrecht University) is Dean and Professor of His

torical Theology, and director of the Institute of Post-Reformation Studies
at the Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven, Belgium.
Joel R. Beeke (Ph.D., Westminster Theological Seminary) is President and

Professor of Systematic Theology and Homiletics at Puritan Reformed
Theological Seminary and a pastor of the Heritage Netherlands Reformed
Congregation in Grand Rapids, MI.
Lyle D. Bierma (Ph.D., Duke) is the Jean and Kenneth Baker Professor of
Systematic Theology at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, MI.
Raymond A. Blacketer (Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is pastor of

First Cutlerville Christian Reformed Church in Byron Center, MI.
James E. Bradley (Ph.D., University of Southern California) is the Geoffrey

W. Bromiley Professor of Church History at Fuller Theological Seminary in
Pasadena, CA.
xx list of contributors
Dariusz M. Bryko (Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is Assistant to the

Ministers at the First Presbyterian Church (ARP) in Columbia, SC.
Amy Nelson Burnett (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison) is Paula and

D.V. Varner University Professor of History at University of Nebraska-
Lincoln in Lincoln, NE.
Emidio Campi (Dr. theol., Prague; Dr. theol. Hab., Zurich, Hon. D.D.,
Presbyterian College, Montreal) is Professor Emeritus at the University of
Zurich.
Heber Carlos de Campos Jr. (Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is Assis

tant Professor of Historical Theology at Andrew Jumper Graduate Studies
Center in So Paulo, Brazil, and a Research Associate, Jonathan Edwards
Centre Africa, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa.
Kiven S.K. Choy (Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) teaches at the

Alliance Bible Seminary in Hong Kong.
R. Scott Clark (D.Phil, Oxford) is Professor of Church History and Historical

Theology at Westminster Seminary California in Escondido, CA.
John V. Fesko (Ph.D., Aberdeen) is Professor of Systematic and Historical

Theology at Westminster Seminary California in Escondido, CA.
Paul W. Fields (M.Div Westminster, M.L.S. Syracuse) is a Theological

Librarian at Calvin Theological Seminary and Curator of the H. Henry
Meeter Center for Calvin Studies.
W. Robert Godfrey (Ph.D., Stanford University) is President and Professor

of Church History at Westminster Seminary California in Escondido, CA.
Alan W. Gomes (Ph.D., Fuller Theological Seminary) is Professor of

Historical Theology at the Talbot School of Theology/Biola University, La
Mirada, CA.
Albert Gootjes (Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is a translator of

numerous books and articles on the history of Reformation and post-
Reformation theology, and research fellow at the Junius Institute for
Digital Reformation Research at Calvin Theological Seminary.
Charles D. Gunnoe Jr. (Ph.D., University of Virginia) is Executive Vice

President, Provost, and Dean of Faculty at Aquinas College in Grand
Rapids, MI.
list of contributors xxi
Aza Goudriaan (Ph.D., University of Leiden) is assistant professor of patris-

tics at the Faculty of Theology, VU University Amsterdam and a Research
Associate, Jonathan Edwards Centre Africa, University of the Free State,
Bloemfontein, South Africa.
Fred P. Hall (Ph.D., Fuller Theological Seminary) is President Emeritus at

the American Lutheran Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, IN.
Byung Soo Han (Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is a translator of

numerous books and Vice President at Reformed Orthodoxy Institute of
Yullin Church.
Nathan A. Jacobs (Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is Assistant

Professor of Religion & Philosophy at John Brown University, Siloam
Springs, AR.
Frank A. James III (D.Phil., Oxford; Ph.D., Westminster Theological

Seminary) is President and Professor of Historical Theology at Biblical
Theological Seminary in Hatfield, PA.
Martin I. Klauber (Ph.D., WisconsinMadison) is an affiliate professor at

Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Il.
Henry M. Knapp (Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is pastor of First

Presbyterian Church in Beaver, PA.
Robert Kolb (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin) is Missions Professor of

Systematic Theology Emeritus at Concordia Seminary in Saint Louis, MO.
Mark J. Larson (Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is a student in

International Politics at Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA.
Brian J. Lee, (Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is the pastor of Christ

Reformed Church in Washington, DC.
Karin Maag (Ph.D., Saint Andrews) is Professor of History at Calvin College

and the Director of the H. Henry Meeter Center for Calvin Studies in
Grand Rapids, MI.
Benjamin T.G. Mayes (Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is an editor at

Concordia Publishing House in St. Louis, MO.
xxii list of contributors
Andrew M. McGinnis (Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is research

assistant at the H. Henry Meeter Center for Calvin Studies in Grand Rapids,
MI.
Paul Mpindi (Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is the French Team

Leader at Back to God Ministries International.
Adriaan C. Neele (Ph.D., Utrecht University) is Research Scholar at Yale

University Divinity School, Director of the Jonathan Edwards Center at
Yale University, and Professor Extraordinary at the University of the Free
State, Bloemfontein, South Africa.
Godfried Quaedtvlieg (D.D., Universiteit Johannes Maccovius) is Professor

of Psycho-Theology at Harvard Divinity School where he serves as chief
Coptic papyrus manuscript writer for the Jesus wife project.
Sebastian Rehnman (M.Phil, Gothenburg, and D.Phil, Oxford) is Professor

of Philosophy at the University of Stavanger and Adjunct Professor of
Philosophy of Religion at Misjonshgskolen, Stavanger, Norway.
Todd Rester (Ph.D. cand., Calvin Theological Seminary) is a doctoral candi-

date and director of the Junius Institute for Digital Reformation Research
at Calvin Theological Seminary.
Gregory D. Schuringa (Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is Senior

Minister at Faith Christian Reformed Church in Elmhurst, IL.
Herman Selderhuis (Th.D., Apeldoorn) is Professor of Church History and

Polity at the Theological University Apeldoorn and Director of Refo500.
Donald Sinnema (Ph.D., University of St. Michaels College, Toronto) is

Professor of Theology Emeritus at Trinity Christian College in Palos
Heights, IL.
Keith D. Stanglin (Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is Associate

Professor of Scripture and Historical Theology at Austin Graduate School
of Theology in Austin, TX.
David C. Steinmetz (Th.D., Harvard) is the Amos Ragan Kearns

Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the History of Christianity at Duke
Divinity School in Durham, NC.
list of contributors xxiii
David S. Sytsma (Ph.D., Princeton Theological Seminary) is research cura-

tor of the Junius Institute for Digital Reformation Research at Calvin
Theological Seminary.
Yudha Thianto (Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is Professor of

Theology at Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights, IL.
John L. Thompson (Ph.D., Duke) is Professor of Historical Theology and

Gaylen and Susan Byker Professor of Reformed Theology at Fuller
Theologial Seminary in Pasadena, CA.
Carl R. Trueman (Ph.D., Aberdeen) is Professor of Historical Theology and

Church History and Paul Woolley Chair of Church History at Westminster
Theological Seminary in Glenside, PA.
Theodore G. Van Raalte (Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is Professor

of Ecclesiology at the Canadian Reformed Theological Seminary in
Hamilton, ON.
Cornelis P. Venema (Ph.D., Princeton Seminary) is President and Professor

of Doctrinal Studies at Mid-America Theological Seminary in Dyer, IN.
Timothy J. Wengert (Ph.D., Duke) is The Ministerium of Pennsylvania

Professor of the History of Christianity at The Lutheran Theological
Seminary in Philadelphia.
Reita Yazawa (Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) resides in Japan. His

dissertation is titled Covenant of Redemption in the Theology of Jonathan
Edwards: The Nexus between the Immanent and the Economic Trinity.
Jeongmo Yoo (Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is a postdoctoral fellow

at The Southern Baptist Seminary, Louisville, KY.
Jason Zuidema (Ph.D., McGill) is Affiliate Assistant Professor in the Depart

ment of Theological Studies at Concordia University, Montreal, QC.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND DEDICATION
The scope and scale of Richard Mullers influence on more than a genera-
tion of scholarship of the Reformation and post-Reformation periods is
unlikely to be properly appreciated in the near future. But this volume
represents an initial attempt toward that end. The size of this collection of
essays produced in his honor is merely emblematic of the literature
inspired by his helpfully revisionist career. The variety of the essays, both
in terms of content as well as in terms of the institutional affiliations of
theauthors, speaks to the diverse audiences in which Richards insights
have found positive reception. In attempting to find a unified theme
around which to organize this Festschrift, the dynamic relationship
between the church and the academy, between the pulpit and the
lectern, was chosen, not because it exhausts the implications of Richards
work, but because it represents one of the key insights of his approach
to the sources. Richards work on properly contextualizing theologies of
theReformation and post-Reformation eras is grounded in careful expli-
cation of the self-understanding of these figures within the broader diver-
sity of the trends in intellectual history and historical theology. In this
regard his work stands in remarkable continuity rather than discontinuity
with previous generations of his academic forebears, David Steinmetz and
Heiko Oberman.
Any project of this size can only be achieved with the encouragement
and assistance of a large number of people. Besides the encouragement of
all the contributors to the volume, we appreciate the kind words of Lugene
Schemper, Stephen Grabill, Dave Holmlund, Tony Lane, Elsie McKee,
Susan Schreiner, Tom Osborne, Takahashi Yoshida, Kim Riddlebarger,
Tom Pfizenmaier, James A. DeJong, Rowland Ward, John Duff, Sungho
Lee, Won Taek Lim, Sang Hyuck Ahn, Stefan Lindblad, and Jai-Sung Shim.
Thank you to Ronald Feenstra, Lyle Bierma, Julius Medenblik, and Ina
DeMoor for help in organizing the launch of the book in October 2013 in
the presence of Professor Muller. Special thanks to Jay Collier for kindness
at a particularly important juncture in the planning process. Also thanks
to Arjan van Dijk, Ivo Romein, Robert Bast, Rebecca Lindner, the external
readers and the whole team at Brill. We appreciate their clear answers
knowing that we were on a tight schedule.
xxvi acknowledgements and dedication
Above all, we all thank our families, friends and colleagues for the myr-
iad ways they have shown support and love for us during the many months
of preparation and editing required to bring this collection of essays
to press.
INTRODUCTION
THE DOGMA IS NOT NECESSARILY THE DRAMA
Carl R. Trueman
It is an honour to write an introduction to this Festschrift for Richard

Muller. I could have written a scholarly article on some aspect of Reformed
orthodoxy; but Richards role in my academic life has been much more
than simply that of a scholarly mentor. He has been a personal friend; and
one of the oft untold aspects of scholarly enterprise is the role of friend-
ship. It is one thing to read a book by an influential scholar; it is another to
sit and hear him lecture, seeing an original mind in action. Even greater,
though, is the intimate interaction of casual conversation among friends.
And some such conversations have an impact far beyond their immediate
context.
Indeed, as I reflect upon all that I have learned from Richard, my mind
goes to the halcyon days of the late nineties when, over a period of years,
Richard and I would visit our friend, Willem van Asselt in the Netherlands,
give lectures at Utrecht University, and spend many hours sitting outside
Dutch cafes, drinking fine Belgian beer and talking history. It was there
that I learned that good historians are marked not only by knowledge of
primary and secondary sources but also by careful reflection on historical
method. Indeed, the historian who is not methodologically self-conscious
is a poor historian indeed. And it was in one such conversation that
Richard made a statement which fascinated me and which has become a
significant component of my own historical approach: Not everything
which presents itself in a historical text as a doctrinal problem necessarily
has a doctrinal cause or a doctrinal solution. To borrow a phrase from
Dorothy L. Sayers and turn it on its head: the dogma is not necessarily the
drama.
This point is crucial. There is always a tendency for intellectual histori-
ans to overestimate the power of ideas and then to abstract them from
their historical context. In part this is no doubt an understandable reac-
tion to the repudiation of intellectual history within the larger historical
guild. To reduce human beings to mere puppets in some larger drama of
the flow of capital or of psychological forces inaccessible to the historical
xxviii carl r. trueman
agents seems self-evidently reductionist and contrary to human experi-

ence: we all know that ideas can be powerful forces in shaping history. Yet
too often intellectual historians forget that ideas are the actions and the
instruments of real people whose identity and whose lives cannot be
reduced to a set of abstract principles. Perhaps nowhere is this more evi-
dent than in the history of theology. The church trades in ideas; blood has
been spilled over ideas; historians of the church must inevitably take ideas
with the utmost seriousness.
Yet Richards work has demonstrated time and time again that the his-
tory of doctrine needs to be rooted in more than just the history of doc-
trine. The development of Reformed orthodoxy, like the development of
Christian dogma in general, is not the quasi-Hegelian outworking of some
inner dynamic principle; rather it is the result of a complex interplay of
intellectual and material factors. There is of course the inherited linguistic
and conceptual tradition of past doctrine which brings with it its own
logical and rhetorical conventions. But then there are philosophical
traditions, pedagogical methods, library holdings, even matters of book
production to consider. In addition to these we might add the social con-
text (e.g., urban or rural, kingdom or republic), the existence of political
and military alliances, the shifting sands of social psychology, the personal
experiences of particular individual thinkers, and the networks of formal
and informal personal relationships that existed. Some or all of these fac-
tors play significant roles in every book written in the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries, in every debate which took place, and in every confession
formulated.
The realization of this wider framework for understanding the develop-
ment of doctrine in a way that does not sacrifice the significance of doctri-
nal content is evident in the changing shape of Richards own work. One
need only compare the kind of arguments made in Christ and the Decree
with those in The Unaccommodated Calvin or After Calvin to see how he
has himself integrated wider questions of context into his explanations of
the shifts in emphasis and even content which he discerns in Reformed
thought during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the earlier
work, doctrinal development is explained in doctrinal terms. The narra-
tive is compelling and, dare I say it, true; but it lacks attention to wider
factors which may have been of influence. The later works represent a
broadening of perspective. For example, there is the problem of the order-
ing of the topics in Calvins Institutes which had been a battleground
between dogmaticians for many years. Richards proposalthat Calvin
was persuaded by the topical ordering his friend Melanchthon proposed
introductionxxix
for Pauls argument in the Letter to the Romansis beautiful in its sim-
plicity, its plausibility, and the fact that it does not require that we have
access to Calvins inner theological mind or, worse still, that we see him on
the road to Barthianism nearly 400 years too early.
I have found this broadening perspective to be most helpful. Take, for
example, the problem of assurance which emerges in some sections of
Puritan theology in seventeenth century England. This is enshrined in
the Westminster Assemblys separation of faith and assurance. An older
school of approach saw this variously as the result of an over-emphasis on
predestination or limited atonement. Both may have played a role in
certain instances but the question of assurance is one which always arises
in concrete individual and community contexts. It cannot be reduced in
advance to a matter of merely doctrinal origin. Lack of assurance was a
condition which affected real people; and it was a problem to which their
pastors needed to respond.
The early Reformers, such as Luther and Calvin, placed a high premium
on assured faith. This was at a time when, thanks to the transformation of
church pastoral practice in light of Reformation criticisms and the impact
of urbanization on social and family relations, the world must have
seemed increasingly unstable to the men and women who sat under such
preaching. Geographical and social mobility eroded the extended family.
The rise of new professions meant that the transfer of skills from one gen-
eration to another took on new forms. The world was being turned upside
down. It would not seem surprising, therefore, that Reformation preach-
ing and teaching not only transformed pastoral practice; it also trans-
formed the kind of pastoral problems which preachers and theologians
had to address. To put it bluntly, people only suffer from lack of assurance
when they are told that assurance is a possibility, indeed, even normative
for Christians. That is what the Reformation did; and the peoples response,
given the dramatic changes at play in wider society, was one which gener-
ated examples of those who did not enjoy that which they were told to
expect as the norm.
Given this, the shift on assurance and faith in the seventeenth might
seem less a doctrinal deviation from some early, putatively pristine
Reformation Protestantism and more a necessary modification of that
theology in the light of the pastoral practice and problems which that the-
ology helped to create and to which it had to respond. Yet it is only as one
casts ones evidential and methodological net wider, beyond the mere
words on the page of the massive doctrinal tomes, and acknowledges that
ideas are actions performed in particular contexts as responses to specific
xxx carl r. trueman
circumstances in order to achieve certain intended ends, that one can

start to formulate answers of any real adequacy.
Richard Muller has played a key role not only in deepening our under-
standing of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; he has also demon-
strated in the evolution of his own work the importance of sound historical
method in exploring the nature of texts. The history of theology is not just
the history of doctrinal debates, nor of exegesis. It is the history of real
people acting in real concrete circumstances. His work, and the essays
contained in this volume, bear witness to that fact.
The dogma may sometimes be dramatic, but it is rarely if ever the whole
of the drama. That is perhaps the greatest of Richard Mullers many meth-
odological contributions.
PART ONE
FIRST GENERATION REFORMERS (ca. 15171535)

JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH ALONE:
MARTIN LUTHER AMONG THE EARLY ANGLICANS
David C. Steinmetz
When Henry VIII died on 28 January 1547, he had already outlived Martin
Luther by slightly more than a year.1 Although the two men never met,
they had clashed publicly in a brief but intense paper war. The hostile
exchange started in 1521 when Henry, without prior warning, attacked
Luther in a treatise called the Assertio Septem Sacramentorun (The Defense
of the Seven Sacraments).2 The Pope, delighted as much by the welcome
appearance of a royal treatise against Luther as by its contents, rewarded
Henry with the grand title, Defensor Fidei (Defender of the Faith).
If Henry thought he could bring Luther back into line by his forceful
intervention on behalf of traditional Catholic theology, he was sadly mis
taken. Luther was in fact far more dismissive of Henrys theological gifts
than cowed by his theological arguments. In his 1522 reply to Henry,
Luther observed wryly to his readers that You would think that this book
had been written by the dearest enemy of the King to disgrace the King
forever.3
Unfortunately for Henry, his relationship to Luther (which never
improved) did not end there. By 1522 Luther had his own English disciples
and enough writings in circulation in England to inspire a book burning in
Cambridge. In fact, since 1521 a small group of Cambridge intellectuals,
nicknamed Little Germany, had gathered in the White Horse Inn next to
Kings College to discuss Luthers reforming ideas and their reception in
England. Robert Barnes, an Augustinian friar later martyred under Henry
VIII for his persistent and outspoken Protestantism, is now thought to
have been chair. Thomas Bilney, Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer, Miles
1This essay was given as a lecture at Nashotah House Episcopal Theological Seminary
on 19 April 2012 as part of a larger theological conference on justification in the Anglican
tradition.
2The full text of the Assertio Septem Sacramentorum is easily available online from the
University of Toronto and Cornell University Libraries.
3An English translation of the full text of Luthers reply to Henry VIII, Martinus Lutherus
contra Henricum Rex Angliae, trans. Buchanan (New York: Charles Smith, 1928), has been
provided online by Project Canterbury.
4 david c. steinmetz
Coverdale, Mathew Parker and the ever irascible John Bale participated
at one time or another in these discussions. Even the conservative
Catholic, Stephen Gardiner, may have attended some sessions, though,
undoubtedly, more out of intellectual curiosity than sympathy with
Luthers views. In short, despite Henrys best efforts, Luther had appar
ently come to England to stay.
Gordon Rupp once suggested that many of the early followers of Luther
in England (and elsewhere in Europe) should be known as Martinians
rather than as Lutherans. Rupp reserved the name Lutheran for Prot
estants who subscribed to the Augsburg Confession (especially in the
stricter form known as the Invariata) and who sided with Luther in the
controversy with Reformed theologians over the nature of the Lords
Supper.
In other words, Martinians were somewhat more loosely-defined fol
lowers of Luther. While they certainly accepted many, if not most, of
Luthers negative criticisms of the Catholic Church and a great many of his
positive solutions, they did not necessarily accept all. The Eucharist was a
case in point. Although Luther rejected transubstantiation (a fact all of his
disciples hailed), he nevertheless affirmed a physical real presence of
Christs body and blood in the elements of bread and wine (a theological
point acceptable to loyal Lutherans but generally unacceptable to the less
loyal company of Martinians). To affirm such a physical real presence
meant that the body and blood of the risen Christ transcended the ordi
nary limitations of space and time (a doctrine which many Martinians
regarded as a danger to the real and inescapably finite humanity of the
Redeemer). To put it simply, the risen humanity of Christ shared for
Luther the divine attribute of omnipresence (or, as he called it, ubiquity).
But if the risen humanity of Christ were omnipresent as Luther argued,
then it was almost impossible for Martinians to escape John Calvins reluc
tant conclusion that the Luther they so admired gave Christ a monstrous
body.4
Reformed theologians like Martin Bucer (Regius Professor of Divinity at
Cambridge) and Peter Martyr Vermigli (Regius Professor of Divinity at
Oxford) could not agree with Luthers doctrine of the omnipresence or
4For a fuller, but still brief, introduction to the issues in the controversy over the
Eucharist in the sixteenth century see my Taking the Long View: Christian Theology in
Historical Perspective (New York: OUP, 2011), 115126. See also on monstrous body David
Bagchi and David C. Steinmetz, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Reformation Theology
(New York: CUP, 2004), 126.
martin luther among the early anglicans5
ubiquity of Christs risen humanity. They stressed rather Christs finite

humanity and his role as intercessor at the right hand of the Father. Their
views did not exclude a doctrine of the real presence of Christ, but such a
presence should by necessity be regarded as a spiritual rather than a phys
ical real presence: Christ present by the Holy Spirit, Christ present in his
divine nature hypostatically conjoined to his finite humanity, or Christ
substantially present in the power and effect of his crucified and risen
flesh for human salvation. But no physical real presence, whether Catholic
or Lutheran, could Reformed theologians bring themselves to affirm.
Nicholas Ridley in his A Treatise agaynst the Errour of Transubstantiation
echoed the views of Bucer, Vermigli, and Calvin, if not all their complex
arguments.5
If it is relatively easy to specify how early Anglicans related to Luthers

Eucharistic theology (that is, as Martinians rather than as Lutherans), it is
somewhat more difficult to specify precisely how they related to Luthers
doctrine of justification by faith alone. The problem is not with Thomas
Cranmer, who is clear enough, but with Luther scholarship, which seems
unable to agree about the best way of interpreting Luther. Finnish scholar
ship in particular has challenged what the Finns have labeled a Kantian
way of reading Luther that does not, in their view, do justice to Luthers
pre-Kantian ontology. One does not have to agree with the Finns on every
point (as I do not) to realize that Luthers doctrine of justification by faith
alone is often misstated and even more frequently misunderstood.
Part of the misunderstanding rests on the categories that are used to
explain what Luther had in mind. For example, the bishops at the Roman
Catholic Council of Trent committed an enormous category error in their
reading of Luther when they explained justification by faith alone as justi
fication by credulitas, faith understood as an intellectual assent by believ
ers to what they regarded as orthodox Christian teaching. The catch, as
the Tridentine fathers cheerfully pointed out, was that orthodoxy by
itself does not and cannot justify. After all, the devils also believe and
tremble. Every wicked spirit from Lucifer to Screwtape is as primly ortho
dox as saints Peter and Paul. Heterodoxy is not an illusion devils allow
themselves.
5T.H.L. Parker, ed., English Reformers (Louisville: WJKP, 1966), 289320.

But mere orthodoxy understood as fastidiously correct belief, does not

justify, however laudable correct belief may be. Faith only justifies, Trent
insists, when it is infused by the virtue of love. What does justify therefore
is not faith alone (understood as correct belief) but the faith that works
by love (what the scholastics called faith formed by love).
All of this would have been to the point if what Luther had meant by
justification by faith alone was justification by mere belief, thus paying an
enormous and undeserved compliment to the justifying power of correct
doctrinal formulations. But he didnt, so it doesnt. Trent condemned as
Luthers teaching an error Luther himself condemned.6
When Luther talked about justification by faith alone he was talking
about justification by faith as fiducia or trust. If Augustine analyzed the
human predicament by asking the fundamental question, Whom do you
love?, Luther asked the related but equally fundamental question, Whom
do you trust? Justification by faith alone is about trusting the true God
who can in fact make good on every promise given to poor erring human
ity, however improbable such a hopeful outcome may appear to common
sense and prudential reason. Unfortunately the human race has been
already seduced by the empty promises of all the little gods who cram
themselves into every nook and cranny of the social and intellectual world
human beings inhabit. These little gods fancy themselves as serious rivals
of the God and Father of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, all of them without
exception are utterly unworthy of trust and inevitably let their adherents
down, sometimes gently, sometimes with a nerve-shattering thud.
Luther does not accept the notion that human beings are ever reli
giously neutral. Whatever one puts ones final trust in, whether wealth or
beauty or power or justice or reason or sex or even human decency, that
is ones god. It may be enormously admirable or dangerously self-
destructive. But if that object of trust is the last thing one clings to when
all else fails, if it is the last refuge to be abandoned in the face of inevitable
calamity, then it is ones god, whatever other name it may bear. That is
what Luther means when he says that faith creates gods and idols. If the
ultimate object of trust is not the true God, but only an illusion, a transi
tory deceit of the minds eye, then it is an idol and like all other idols will
prove utterly and disastrously unworthy of trust.7
6The best treatment of the sessions of Trent in which the doctrine of justification is
discussed and defined is still Hubert Jedin, A History of the Council of Trent, vol. 2 (New
York: Nelson, 1961).
7Martin Luther, Large Catechism I.12, in Triglot Concordia: The Symbolical Books of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church (St. Louis: Concordia, 1921), 565.
Justification, however, reorients faith. It redirects the faith of the justi

fied to the only God worthy of trust. In the end, everyone justified by faith
alone is a former idolater, in fact if not in name. Former idolaters know by
sad experience what it means to trust what is not, and can never be, wor
thy of trust.
In the recent past, Luthers doctrine of justification was often explained
by reading it through the lens of the Formula of Concord (1577), a Lutheran
confession of faith written more than thirty years after Luthers death. In
this reading Luther made a sharp distinction between justification or
what Christ has done for believers (Christus pro nobis) and sanctification
or what Christ has done and is doing in believers (Christus in nobis). It is a
distinction famously made by Philip Melanchthon and widely accepted in
Protestant circles ever since.8
In this formulation justification is understood to be an entirely forensic
act in which the righteousness of Christ is imputed to the believing man or
woman, who is clothed with a righteousness of which he or she is not the
author. Justification understood in this way is regarded more as a change
in legal status before God than as an inner transformation, though this
change in status provides the indispensable basis for an inner renewal of
the self. Justification is logically distinct but temporally simultaneous.
That is, it never occurs alone but coincides with a transformative act called
regeneration (or new birth) and marks the beginning of a slow transfor
mative process called sanctification. Still critics (and not all of them
Finnish) have wondered where in all this forensic activity is the Pauline
theme of union with Christ.
Union with Christ seems primarily reserved for the work of sanctifica
tion. Unlike justification, sanctification is not, and never can be, com
pleted in this lifetime. Justification is a momentary act completed as soon
as faith flickers into life; sanctification a slow process that does not end
before death, even in very great saints.
I cannot say that Luther never made use of this sharp distinction
between justification and sanctification or quoted Melanchthons views
without at least some degree of approval. What I can say is that making a
sharp distinction between justification and sanctification is not at all typi
cal of the theological account Luther customarily gave when he explained
what he thought Paul meant by justification by faith alone.
8One of the best introductions of Luthers thought from a more traditional perspective
is Paul Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1966).
What is typical of Luther is to call the whole processjustification and

sanctification justification by faith alone.9 It is a process that extends
over the whole life of the believer. Its basis is disconcertingly simple and
never shifts. On the first day of ones spiritual life as well as on the last day
of ones growth in grace the terms remain the same. Any person who is
justified by faith alone is justified by faith alone, never by faith and some
thing else. St. Francis of Assisi at the end of his long spiritual pilgrimage
and the wobbliest new convert to Christianity taking his or her first steps
in faith are justified in exactly same way. Both are justified by faith alone
and by nothing else.
Justification is therefore not an event over, past, and done, something
completed last Tuesday. It is not an act that can now safely be laid aside in
order to worry with the more pressing ethical questions of sanctification.
Justification is the description of a forgiven and transformed life in which
growth in grace never becomes even the partial ground on which one is
accepted by God. By faith alone means precisely that: alone.
The Law of God plays its own important role in justification, not so
much as a manual of rules to follow (though Luther can ring the changes
on the ten commandments with the best of them) but as a holy demand
that cannot be met, a demand that strips away illusions and drives even
the greatest saint to cling more tightly to Christ. Indeed, the greater the
saint, the greater the perception of sin. Progress in the spiritual life is often
experienced as no progress at all. But it is precisely those who cling tightly
to Christ and despair of their own virtues who are transformed by Christ.
In the end, it is never possible to grow past union with Christ. In that
sense, a Christian is always a beginner.
Luthers early reflections on justification made use of the image of a
spiritual marriage between Christ and the Christian. This image rests in
turn on a distinction in canon law between property (whatever belongs to
one by right) and possession (whatever one has the undisputed use of). In
any marriage a bride and groom bring to the relationship what belongs by
right to them and gain the right to make use of the property of the other.
This fact lays the groundwork for what Augustine called the commercium
admirabile, the happy exchange. Christians bring their property (that is,
their sins) to Christ, who takes possession of them and takes them away.
9For a brief introduction to Luthers earliest reflections on justification see my Luther

and Staupitz: An Essay in the Intellectual Origins of the Protestant Reformation (Durham:
Duke, 1980), 7892. It is striking how many of Luthers mature themes are already in his
earliest lectures on the Psalms.
Christ brings his righteousness to Christians, who gain the rightful use of a
righteousness which is theirs only by marriage. No one participates in this
happy exchange outside the spiritual marriage in which Christ and the
Christian are united by faith. No union with Christ, no benefits, not even
the forensic attribution of an alien righteousness.
Perhaps even this stress on union with Christ may be an underreading
of the text from a Finnish perspective. The gift to the Christian through
union with Christ is Christ himself: not merely a set of qualities, or a favor
able but unearned judgment, or a habit of grace.10 It is Christ who protects
Christians from sin, death, and devil, and not just Christs righteousness.
The Christian is clothed with the righteousness of Christ because the
Christian is clothed with Christ. Justification is first and foremost about
the real presence of Christ.11
Luther does make a sharp distinction of his own between human life in
relationship to God (coram Deo) and human life in relationship to others
(coram hominibus). Every human being stands in these two fundamental
relationships, which are governed by very different principles. These rela
tionships must always be kept distinct and never confused, even though
they intersect in every human being. Confusion of life before God with life
before the world is a never-failing formula for bad theology.
In relationship to God the Christian is always a recipient who receives
gifts and never an agent who gives them. The idea of meritorious gifts to
God is for Luther utter nonsense. Christians cannot give gifts to God, not
because their gifts are flawed or inadequate or done from mixed motives
(which, of course, they are), but because God did not ask for them. They
are worse than imperfect; they are embarrassingly irrelevant.
Life before God is life governed by the gospel. God asks for faith, not
works, and gives the faith for which he asks. Charles Wesley put Luthers
point very well when he wrote:
What shall I render to my God
For all his mercys store?
Ill take the gifts he hath bestowed
And humbly ask for more!
10His 1535 Commentary on Galatians runs very much in this direction. See, for example,
this quotation: But the reason why faith makes us just is that it seizes Christ, the noble and
precious treasure, and keeps him present. Cited by Margarete Steiner and Percy Scott,
trans., Day By Day We Magnify Thee (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1950), 240.
11The best introduction to the Finnish school of Luther research is Carl E. Braaten,
Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1998).
In relationship to the world around them Christians are liberated by

God to do good works and give those works without qualification, reserva
tions, or hidden conditions to their neighbors. For Luther, neighbors are
not people who live in geographical proximity (though they, too, may be
neighbors in the biblical sense). Neighbors are all the people, wherever
they live and whoever they may be, with whom one comes in contact. The
answer to the question who is my neighbor is disarmingly simple. Your
neighbor may be (and is very likely) the very next person you encounter.
Christians are called to be Christ to these neighbors, to share with others
the unqualified love of which they have been the cheerful beneficiaries. In
this sphere, good works, however flawed and imperfect, are anything but
irrelevant. They are the lifeblood of a justified existence.
To be Christ to the neighbor is one aspect of Christian ethics. To see
Christ in the neighbor is the other.12 After all, God is not sick or in prison,
not widowed, not an orphan, not starving or homeless or impoverished.
But Christ encounters the justified as someone sick, imprisoned, wid
owed, orphaned, homeless, and impoverished. The annoying man at the
intersection with a sign that says will work for food may in fact be Jesus
Christ hidden under an off-putting dissonant appearance no one expected.
Inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these my brethren, you have
done it unto me. The words from the Gospel form a text that Luther can
not and will not ignore. Christians should not give good works to the
exalted Christ, who does not need them, but to the lowly neighbor who
clearly does. Seeing and serving Christ in the neighbor lies at the heart of
Christian ethics as Luther understands them.
In his Preface to his translation of Romans, Luther seems genuinely
amazed that anyone who is justified by faith would ask about a proper
motivation for doing good works, as though there were an alternative. The
inquirer only proves by this question that he or she knows no more about
faith, works, or anything else that matters in justification than a cow
knows about geometry. A Christian does good works as an apple tree bears
apples. Before anyone even raises a question about good works, Christians
have already done them.
What will not work as a strategy is to preach to the apple tree on bear
ing pears, however eloquent the preacher or moving the illustrations.
Lecturing the unrighteous on bearing the fruits of the Spirit will yield
12WA 20:514: See that you do not fail to see me. I shall be close to you in every poor and
wretched man, who is in need of your help and teaching, I am there right in the midst.
Whether you do little for him or much, you do it unto me.
similarly disappointing results. St. Paul, after all, was not an Aristotelian,
who thought the habit of virtue was the result of the repeated practice of
virtuous acts. In Luthers view Aristotle had it backwards. The righteous
do what is righteous, freely, spontaneously, maybe even gleefully, because
they are united to Christ, a simple principle but unfailingly accurate.
II
Thomas Cranmer was more knowledgeable about Luther and Lutheranism

than most English theologians of his generation.13 He had not only been
an active participant in the group who gathered in the 1520s in the White
Horse Inn in Cambridge to discuss Luthers writings, but also served in
1532 as an ambassador of Henry VIII to the court of the Emperor Charles V.
During that period, Cranmer lived for several months in Nuremberg,
where he met the principal Lutheran reformer of that city, Andreas
Osiander. He also wooed and married Osianders niece, Margaret, a risky
thing for a future Archbishop of Canterbury to do in Henrys England,
where clerical celibacy was still expected and enforced.
Even after he returned to England, Cranmer maintained a lively corre
spondence with Osiander, an often stubborn and difficult man who had a
genuine gift for turning potential allies like John Calvin into real enemies.
Osiander was perhaps best known among Lutherans as an unremit
ting critic of Melanchthon. What Osiander particularly loathed was
Melanchthons sharp division of justification from sanctification and his
reduction of justification to a forensic act.14
If the Finnish school of Luther studies had existed in his time, he would
have joined it, though, it must be admitted, he defended some positions
the Finns do not. Nevertheless both share a strong accent on union with
Christ as the heart of Luthers doctrine of justification. In any event,
Cranmer was well aware of the division of Osiander from Melanchthon
and the possibility of Osianders alternative readings of Luthers doctrine
of justification by faith alone.
13In 1548 Cranmer issued an English catechism, A Short Instruction into Christian
Religion. The Short Instruction was a translation of the Nuremberg Catechism and consisted
of catechetical sermons based on Luthers Small Catechism. The sermons were almost cer
tainly written by Osiander for young German catechumens and translated into Latin by
Justus Jonas.
14For a brief introduction of Andreas Osiander see my Reformers in the Wings, 2nd ed.
(New York: OUP, 2001), 6469. See also the bibliography on 181.
Cranmer oversaw in 1547 the publication of the First Book of Homilies.

The book was sent to English bishops during the early months of the reign
of Edward VI and distributed by their archdeacons to the priests and par
ishes of their diocese. The homilies came to the parishes, not only as aids
to preaching, but as official statements of the kind of teaching expected in
a properly reformed Church of England. If the Reformation agenda of the
homilies had been missed by anyone when they were first issued in the
reign of Edward VI, their real purpose was reiterated in the early months
of reign of Elizabeth I.
For example, in the Anglican statement of faith, the Thirty-Nine Articles
of 1563, the Elizabethan text declares: Wherefore, that we are justified by
Faith only is a most wholesome Doctrine, and very full of comfort, as more
largely is expressed in the Homily of Justification. The homily in question
was Cranmers Homily of the Salvation of Mankind. Cranmer may also
have written the adjoining homilies On the True and Lively Faith and
Of Good Works Annexed unto Faith, though that is by no means clear.15
However, since every clergyman in England was required by statute in 1571
to sign the Thirty-Nine Articles with its specific reference to the homily
Of Salvation, the erstwhile Marian Catholic was left no escape from
agreeing to Cranmers official teaching on justification by faith alone, that
or lose his position. Bishop Gardiner for his part had no doubt from read
ing Cranmers homily that his Metropolitan would have taught how faith
excluded charity in the office of justifying.16
The Articles themselves on justification and good works are quite brief.
Justification is about being accounted righteous, though whether that
means because of a forensic act or union with Christ or both is difficult to
tell.17 The ground of justification is Christs merit and nothing else, cer
tainly no good works sinners can do to justify themselves before God. The
Articles regard all works done prior to justification as sinful and unpleas
ing to God because they were not done in faith. This means that no works
performed by unjustified men and women can be merits of congruity (a
kind of half-merit that rests on Gods generosity rather than the actual
worth of the work performed). Works of supererogation (Voluntary
Works besides, over, and above, Gods Commandments) are also dis
missed out of hand, since even the greatest saints must confess they are
unprofitable servants. And, in a sentence Luther would have loved, the
15The text of these homilies is found in Parker, English Reformers, 262286.

16Cited by Parker in his introduction to the Homilies, in English Reformers, 257.
17I cite the 1571 English version of the 1563 Articles.
Articles insist that good works spring necessarily out of a true and lively
faith, a faithas evidently known as a tree discerned by the fruit. While
Luther would have a good deal more to say, there is nothing in these
Articles on justification uncongenial to his thought.
The homily repeats the points made in the Thirty-Nine Articles and
expands them slightly. Cranmer wants his hearers to know that justifica
tion by faith is by faith alone and by nothing else. The good works of the
not yet justified are regarded by God as sinful, not only because they are
hopelessly flawed and imperfect but, even more importantly, because
they are not works done in faith. Faith therefore becomes part of the defi
nition of virtue. Just as Augustine had insisted that works not motivated
by the selfless love of God and neighbor were only splendid vices, so
Cranmer insisted that so-called good works that do not spring from a
lively trust and confidence in God can never be regarded as truly good. No
faith, no virtue.
While the good works of Christians done in faith are acceptable to God,
they are still flawed and imperfect, and cannot under any circumstances
be offered to God as merits that will supplement the work of Christ. The
atonement of Christ does not need to be supplemented. It is not flawed,
imperfect, or inadequate to justify the most doubtful candidate for divine
mercy. Justification by faith is therefore justification by faith alone or it is
not justification at all.
Cranmer wants to ward off the error of critics, who, like the bishops of
the Council of Trent, think that faith is a mere intellectual assent to true
doctrine. Trust and confidence are the words that come readily to
Cranmers lips when the subject is justifying faith. Like Luther, Cranmer
regards the justified as people who have risked their lives on the promises
of God and who have trusted therefore what is in fact utterly trustworthy.
But their confidence receives no additional guarantees that make faith
superfluous or lessen the psychological weight of the risk they have taken.
Cranmer is also eager to guard against the notion that it is faith that
justifies, when it is Christ who justifies. Faith links the justified man or
woman to Christ, but the agent of justification is, and remains, Christ
alone. Cranmer seems to have nothing to say about the dispute between
Melanchthon and Osiander over the correct reading of Luther on the dis
puted issue of justification as imputation or justification as the result of
union with Christ. Perhaps the issue was too difficult to be raised in the
context of parish preaching or at least too difficult for 1547.
What Cranmer does stress over and over again is the atoning work of
Christ, conceived largely along Anselmian lines. If Osiander is the apostle
of the work of Christ in nobis, Cranmer is the evangelist of the objective

work of Christ pro nobis. Unlike Cranmer, Luther is particularly fond of the
Christus Victor approach to Christs atonement, stressing the fact that
Jesus Christ has taken the side of poor erring humanity against the formi
dable enemies that oppress it, especially sin, death, and devil. Christ has
broken the power of these enemies by his cross and resurrection, and set
the oppressed free.
Luther can also use themes from Pierre Abelard that stress human
alienation from God as the principal problem overcome by the cross. But
Luther is never as dedicated to Anselms theory of the atonement as
Cranmer is. Cranmer wants to talk about the atonement as a ransom and
about the violated justice of God that must be satisfied in order to release
the full saving power of the mercy of God. It is clear for Cranmer that it
is God the Father to whom the atoning work of Christ is directed.
Thereforeconfidence and trust in Christs atonement lie at the heart of
justification by faith alone as Cranmer understands it. It is not a point
that Luther is quick to make, but also not a point that Luther would not
readily concede.
T.M. Parker once remarked that Cranmer had offered a moderate ver
sion of the doctrine of justification by faith alone.18 It is difficult to see
what he meant. If he meant that Cranmer never mentioned in his homi
lies the forensic imputation of Christs righteousness to the believer or
offered any of Osianders criticisms of this construction of Luthers teach
ing, he was certainly correct. If, on the other hand, he meant that Cranmer
had tried to find a middle way between Luther and Rome, he was certainly
wrong.
There had been repeated attempts to find a theological middle way
between Luther and Rome, first at Regensburg and later at the Council of
Trent itself. The proposed compromise was called the doctrine of double
justice and merged a traditional Catholic base with a more or less Lutheran
superstructure. Unfortunately, the Catholic way of salvation left Christians
at death not yet fit to share the beatific vision or stand in the presence of a
holy God. The advocates of double justice therefore argued that the merits
of Christ would be imputed to Christians in sufficient quantity at death to
make up for any shortfall in their inherent righteousness. Inherent
righteousness was a product of the believers lifelong cooperation with
infused grace. The compromise formula of inherent righteousness plus a
18T.M. Parker, The English Reformation to 1558 (Oxford: OUP, 1950), 124.
supplementary imputation of Christs merits ultimately failed, cordially

hated by both Luther and Rome.
T.H.L. Parker was puzzled by T.M. Parkers use of the word moderate
and asked how any doctrine of justification by faith alone could be moder
ate, when every other alternative to faith alone (faith and something
else; indeed, faith and anything else) was in principle excluded.19 While
Anglicans who signed the Thirty-Nine Articles in good faith and read the
First Book of Homilies in agreement with Cranmer might be Martinian on
the question of the nature of the Eucharist, they were staunchly Lutheran
in their understanding of justification by faith alone. Stephen Gardiner
saw that shining and obvious fact immediately when he read Cranmers
homily in 1547. Cranmer like Luther had removed love from the office of
justifying, though not from the life of faith. In the end both men held that
justification is by faith alone or it is not by faith at all.
19Parker, English Reformers, 257.

PHILIP MELANCHTHON AND WITTENBERGS REFORM OF THE
THEOLOGICAL CURRICULUM
Timothy J. Wengert
The Reformation of the Western church, sparked by Martin Luthers 95

Theses of 1517, instigated a series of institutional crises not simply for the
papacy and its supporters but even more seriously for the Evangelicals.
During the 1520s, new forms for liturgy, preaching, music and church
order, among other things, developed in Wittenberg, electoral Saxony and
elsewhere. For the University of Wittenberg itself, however, which could
of course boast of having originated the entire affair, change developed
relatively slowly. After 1525, for example, the granting of theological doc-
torates, a right granted by the pope at the universitys founding in 1502,
came to a complete standstill.1
For the arts faculty, change came more quickly, instigated during the
rectorate of Philip Melanchthon in 15231524.2 Here, at least according to
the reconstruction by Heinz Scheible, Melanchthon went far beyond the
humanist additions to the medieval curriculum for the humanities under-
taken in 1518 (at which time Melanchthon became professor of Greek) in
that he eliminated all vestiges of lectures on Aristotle according to the
medieval viae.3 In this reform, classic languages (Latin, Greek and Hebrew)
and Melanchthons own unique approaches to grammar, rhetoric, and
dialectics (the medieval trivium) dominated. Wittenbergs so-called other
reformer also instituted, alongside disputations, the regular holding of
1See Karl Frstemann, ed., Liber Decanorum facultatis theologicae Academiae

Vitebergensis (Leipzig: Tauchnitz, 1838), 28.
2See Timothy J. Wengert, Higher Education and Vocation: The University of
Wittenberg (15171533) between Renaissance and Reform, in The Lutheran Doctrine of
Vocation, ed. John A. Maxfield (St. Louis: Concordia Historical Institute, 2008), 121.
3See Heinz Scheible, Aristoteles und die Wittenberger Universittsreform, originally
published in Humanismus und Wittenberger Reformation, ed. Wartenberg and Beyer
(Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1996), 123144, now in Heinz Scheible, Aufstze zu
Melanchthon (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 125151; and his 1999 presentation at the
Luther Congress, Die Reform von Schule und Universitt in der Reformationszeit, origi-
nally published in Luther-Jahrbuch 67 (1999): 237262, now in H. Scheible, Aufstze, 152
172. See also his Die Philosophische Fakultt der Universitt Wittenberg von der Grndung
bis zur Vertreibung der Philippisten, now in H. Scheible, Aufstze, 91124.
18 timothy j. wengert
academic declamations, many of which he then wrote for students to

deliver over the next four decades.4
The reform of the theological faculty, which de facto began with the
accession of Elector John the Steadfast to the electorship in 1525 and his
appointment of Luther and Melanchthon to special chairs, culminated in
1533 (at the beginning of his son John Fredericks rule) with the develop-
ment of new statutes, written by Melanchthon and shaped by his theologi-
cal interests. This essay analyzes these regulations and measures their
importance for the early routinizing of theological training in Protestant
lands. Richard A. Muller has spent a lifetime cataloguing developments in
the later Reformation, especially among Reformed churches and theolo-
gians. This work investigates the beginnings of a peculiarly Wittenberg
and Melanchthonian approach to theological reform. In these statutes
wediscover that central aspects of Melanchthons approach to theology,
pedagogy, and ecclesiology came to full expression and thus contributed
to the development of uniquely Lutheran churches. They successfully
shaped several generations of Lutheran theologiansfriends and foes
alikeso that Melanchthons distinctive brand of doing Evangelical the-
ology became hardwired into every candidate for doctor of theology, not
simply through his writings and lectures but also through the very rules
governing the life of Wittenbergs theology faculty and its granting of
degrees.5
The Changed Situation of 1533
Wittenbergs refusal to issue doctorates in theology during the decade

before 1533 may indicate a certain uncertainty, precipitated by the
Reformation, about whether the university retained degree-granting
rights. In the late-medieval university, degrees were granted in a pub
lic defense of theses, presided over by a master teacher in the faculty
(aMasterof Arts in the case of the humanities; a doctor [Latin for teacher]
of theology, medicine, or law in the higher faculties). These degrees gave
the recipients certain rights to teach. Although masters of arts degrees
were awarded already in the 1520s in Wittenberg, after 1525 all granting of
4See Horst Koehn, Philip Melanchthons Reden: Verzeichnis der im 16. Jahrhundert
erschienenen Drucke, Archiv fr Geschichte des Buchwesens 25 (1984): 12771495.
5For Melanchthons influence on foes, see Robert Kolb, Philipps Foes, but Followers
Nonetheless: Late Humanism among the Gnesio-Lutherans, in The Harvest of Humanism
in Central Europe, ed. Fleischer (St. Louis: Concordia, 1992), 159177.
reform of the theological curriculum19
theological doctorates ceased. Not only were the rights of the university to
grant such degrees under question, the very progress toward that degree
beginning with a Bachelor of Bible, proceeding to the rank of Sententiarius
(the right to lecture independently on Peter Lombards Sentences) and
finally to doctor theologiae (teacher of theology)implied agreement
with the very late-medieval approach to theology that no longer obtained
in Wittenberg. Indeed, Melanchthon, who received his Bachelor of Bible
under Luthers supervision in 1519, short-circuited his own progress toward
a doctorate, then refusing to lecture on Lombard and instead lecturing on
a set of theological topics derived from Pauls letter to the Romanslec-
tures published in 1521 as his Loci communes. Moreover, as had already
been the case for von Staupitz and Luther, Wittenbergs academic tradi-
tion emphasized lectures on the biblical text by its professors. This meant
that, having received the license to lecture on the Latin text of the Bible in
1519, Melanchthon already possessed the only right he would need to con-
tinue this work in the theological faculty right up until the end of his life
in 1560.
In the 1530s, however, the ad hoc arrangements for teaching of the
1520s, which saw a parade of theological teachers and students in
Wittenbergs classrooms (including Andreas Karlstadt, Nicholas von
Amsdorff, Justus Jonas, Francois Lambert, and Johannes Bugenhagen
not to mention Luther and Melanchthon), no longer could provide enough
official lecturers. Caspar Cruciger, Sr., who had spent the late 1520s in
Magdeburg with Nicholas von Amsdorff in order to improve his public
speaking abilities, and Bugenhagen, who lacked a doctorate in theology,
were waiting in the wings for some manner of public recognition of their
relationship with the university. Moreover, by the 1530s Wittenbergs cen-
tral role in training ministerial candidates meant that other Evangelical
territories were seeking to have the leaders of their churches obtain the
appropriate authorization to teach and direct their congregations. The
appearance of old heresies in new dress (promulgated by such thinkers as
Hans Denck, Johannes Campanus, and others) also put renewed pressure
on the Evangelicals to safeguard what they regarded as the pure teaching
of the gospel.
Perhaps even more importantly, the breakdown in negotiations at the
Diet of Augsburg in 1530 led to an emerging self-awareness among the
Evangelical signers of the Augsburg Confession.6 Just as Elector Johns
6See Robert Kolb, Confessing the Faith: Reformers Define the Church, 15301580
(St. Louis: Concordia, 1991), 1362.
unilateral decision in 1527 to instigate a visitation of the churches in his

territories had contributed to the Emperor Charles Vs calling of the diet in
Augsburg to discuss the religious crisis in the Empire, so now the com-
plete breakdown of those discussions and the imperial decree mandating
acceptance of the Confutation of the Augsburg Confession, coupled with
the freedom harbingered in the Nuremberg Armistice of 1532, precipi-
tated the granting of theological degrees by the University of Witten
berg and the performance of ordinations especially under the aegis of
Wittenbergs general superintendent, Johannes Bugenhagen.
With Elector Johns death in 1532, the University now had a perfect
opportunity, under his son and new elector, John Frederick, to reconsti-
tute the theological faculty and its curriculum along strictly Evangelical
lines. For this job, no one was more ready and able than Philip Melanchthon,
whose students would later designate him Praeceptor Germaniae, teacher
of Germany. Years as teacher in both the humanities and theology and his
role as chief drafter of the Augsburg Confession and as author of its defense
against the Confutatio (the Apology of the Augsburg Confession from 1531)
made him the perfect (and only) candidate for writing new statutes for the
theological faculty. What he then developed wove together all of his theo-
logical predilections: a respect for humanist training in languages, the
centrality of training in the Bible (according to his own exegetical princi-
ples), and the need for rules of faithold and new. These curricular inno-
vations influenced generations of theologians trained in Wittenberg who
then eagerly spread this model to other parts of the Holy Roman Empire.
The Theological Statutes of 1533
The first lines of the statutes for the theological faculty demonstrated the
decisive role played by the presentation of the Augsburg Confession in
1530. As in the churches of our realm and in the lower level schools, so also
in the university we desire the teaching of the gospel consonant with the
confession that we presented in Augsburg in 1530 to the Emperor Charles.7
What had begun as an act of confession of faith before a hostile emperor
on 25 June 1530 had already become a measure of true teaching in Saxony,
so that the statutes continue, We have established this teaching to be the
true and perpetual consensus of the catholic church of God, to be piously
and faithfully put forth, conserved and propagated. As these words make
7UUW, 154 (no. 171).

clear, the Augsburg Confessions authority for Saxonys churches rested on

its content (so that this teaching is said to be a true and faithful consen-
sus) and on its appeal, crucial to the negotiation in Augsburg, to its catho-
licity.8 Yet the sense that the Confession represents a norm for teaching
was also clear from the series of passive infinitives (proponi, conservari et
propagari). As Heiko Oberman has argued, the promulgation of the
Confutatio by the Emperor spurred the development of Protestant and
Roman Catholic orthodoxy, a movement implied by these three verbs.9
The worry over a new outbreak of old heresies, sparked among other
things by the brief visit of the anti-Trinitarian Johannes Campanus to
Wittenberg in 1530, led Melanchthon to include a warning against aberra-
tions in Trinitarian doctrine: We most strictly prohibit the spreading and
defense of old heresies condemned in the synods of Nicea, Constantinople,
Ephesus and Chalcedon.10 Not satisfied simply to admit assent to these
doctrines, Melanchthon added a crucial connection to biblical truth: We
assent [to these doctrines] and judge them to have been handed down in
apostolic writings in a sure and certain way. He then defined which
synodical decrees were binding by referring again to the Augsburg
Confession.11 Rather than view this as a symptom of the conservative or
even reactionary character of Wittenbergs reform, these opening com-
ments on what this first article labeled as the Types of Teaching (genera
doctrinae), demonstrate its commitment to the continuity of the church
catholics teaching and simultaneously to what later Lutherans designated
as the creed [symbolum] of our time, the Augsburg Confession.12 This
guaranteed that unlike in other Protestant churches, many of the later
struggles among Lutherans focused on that confession of faith, its author-
ity, and its interpretation.13
8See, for example, the conclusion to the first part of the CA (in BC, 59), quoting from
the Latin: As can be seen, there is nothing here that departs from the Scriptures or the
catholic church, or from the Roman church, insofar as we can tell from its writers.
9Heiko A. Oberman, Dichtung und Wahrheit: Das Wesen der Reformation aus der
Sicht der Confutatio, in Confessio Augustana und Confutatio, ed. Iserloh (Mnster:
Aschendorff, 1980), 217242.
10UUW, 154.
11CA I.5 (BC, 36) mentions the Manichaeans, the Valentinians, the Arians, the
Eunomians, the Mohammedans (universally understood at this time as a Christian heresy)
and the Samosateniansold and new (a reference to Johannes Campanus).
12See the Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, Binding Summary, 5 (BC, 527).
13See, for example, Andreas Osianders attack on the Augsburg Confession and
Wittenberg doctorates, recently described in Wengert, Defending Faith: Lutheran Responses
to Andreas Osianders Doctrine of Justification, 15511559 (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012),
1621, 328330.
The rest of the document outlined the workings of the theological fac-
ulty, beginning in article two with the designation of four professors, sub-
jected to the university rector, admitted to positions based on the
agreement of the faculty and on their possession of a public testimony of
a doctoral degree gained from this institution or from others.14 Teachers
of this college had responsibility to run the affairs of the faculty by com-
mon counsel and chiefly [to] preserve concord in doctrine. This admo-
nition, which (despite tensions) Luther and Melanchthon held to
throughout their tenure at the University, marked a highly prized goal of
the Wittenberg reformation: theology done by conversation rather than
fiat.15 In direct line with this, the compilers of The Book of Concord, several
of whom had studied at Wittenberg, placed the word Concordia in the
books title. In the event that teachers came from other institutions, the
statutes insisted that they be publicly examined and that all who either
received a doctorate at this institution or came from elsewhere promise
that they will faithfully follow and defend this consensus of teaching.16
The third article focused on the teaching responsibilities of the four
professors. At all times [semper] one was to lecture on a book of the Old
Testament and another on a book of the New. In large measure, this con-
centration on biblical lectures went back to the founding of the University
and the early lectures of Johann von Staupitz and, above all, his successor
Martin Luther, who began lectures on the Psalms in 1513 and followed
them with lectures on Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews before returning
to the Psalms. What changed, however, was not the concentration on bib-
lical lectures but the elimination of scholastic lectures on the Sentences of
Peter Lombard. Not content to designate generally such biblical preach-
ing, Melanchthon then listed specific books of the Bible to concentrate on
most wisely: Romans, the Gospel of John, the Psalms, Genesis and Isaiah.
Stressing these books revealed an important aspect of Melanchthons own
construal of good theology: For these books can most greatly instruct the
students about the chief loci of Christian doctrine [de praecipuis locis doc-
trinae christianae].17 The point of repeated lectures on these books was
14UUW, 154 (art. II).

15See Wengert, Luther and Melanchthon - Melanchthon and Luther, Luther-Jahrbuch
66 (1999): 5588, now in Wengert, Philip Melanchthon, Speaker of the Reformation:
Wittenbergs Other Reformer (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010), no. X.
16UUW, 155. Matthias Flacius, a teacher at Wittenberg until 1548, left in part because he
knew that his position would have broken that promised consensus.
17UUW, 155 (art. III). This puts the lie to the oft-repeated claim that Wittenberg
theology was exclusively Pauline. From the outset, it included lectures on a wide variety of
the same as Luthers much earlier advice to readers of his translation of

the New Testament in 1522, so that students could get to the heart of
Christian teaching.
This third article, however, contained more of Philips approach to
Christian doctrine than simply his preference for biblical lectures. It also
mandated that one of the instructors regularly lecture on Augustines On
the Spirit and the Letter. Although this directive was not as assiduously fol-
lowed as the preceding, we do find in the early 1540s a Wittenberg printing
of Augustines tract, with Melanchthons preface, in preparation for lec-
tures by Bugenhagen.18 Again, Melanchthon provided justification for
these lectures, so that the students may see that the teaching of our
churches has the testimonies of educated Fathers. The testimonia Patrum,
a phrase that Melanchthon also employed in the Augsburg Confession,
constituted one of the important aspects of his theological program, espe-
cially demonstrated in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession and in
later editions of the Loci communes, where testimonies from the fathers
comprise a major contribution to the book.19
Melanchthon refused to leave this article at that. Having experienced
late-medieval scholastic lectures at both Heidelberg and Tbingen and
fully supporting humanist critiques of the same, he included a warning
against a return to the infighting that marked much of that form of teach-
ing.20 Indeed, one cannot rightly understand Wittenbergs theology out-
side of the blend of humanism and Evangelical doctrine that marked all of
their teaching.
Moreover, in expositions let simple truth be openly sought after, according
to Gods command, and may it be explained both rightly and properly and
with a perspicacious type of speech. Neither let the professors play around
with ambiguous concealments, nor let them either accuse or insult col-
leagues in any public lectures or disputations. But let whoever would do
these things be punished by the severe judgment of the entire university.21
biblical literature. However, Wittenberg rejected the notion of a lectio continua in Sunday
preaching or in weekly lectures in favor of a concentration, typical for Wittenbergers, on
what they regarded as the most important books.
18See Wengert, Philip Melanchthon and Augustine of Hippo, LQ 22 (2008): 249267,
now in Wengert, Philip Melanchthon, Speaker, no. IV.
19See especially, Peter Fraenkel, Testimonia Patrum: The Function of the Patristic
Argument in the Theology of Philip Melanchthon (Geneva: Droz, 1961).
20See Erika Rommel, The Humanist-Scholastic Debate in the Renaissance and the
Reformation (Cambridge: HUP, 1995).
21UUW, 155.
Even more important than the standard warnings against internecine

warfare within the theology faculty, was Melanchthons plea for simplic-
ity, truth, correctness, and clarity. All of his work in rhetoric and dialectics
for the arts faculty and his theological production as well bore witness to
this goal. Indeed, in a later struggle with Andreas Osiander, the Knigsberg
professor accused Melanchthon of a complete lack of clarity, a very seri-
ous charge for someone who staked his reputation on the opposite.22
Melanchthon knew strife in academia not only over theological ideas
but also over far more mundane things, so that his fourth article insisted
that professors not schedule courses at the same time of day and that they
distribute the teaching load without conflicts born of ambition but
openly and peacefully.23 Again, as befitted someone as interested in good
morals for this life as in good theology for the next, Melanchthon provided
the underlying motivation for regulating such matters, here combining
his vision of the academy with his understanding of the church. For it is
most greatly worthy for this theological assembly [coetus] to be a place
ruled by the best people [aristocraticum], truly and heartily [ex animo]
subject to the glory of God, the welfare of the church and tranquility. Of
course, the current habit, especially in Germany, of separating theological
education from the needs of the church had no place in Melanchthons
thinking. Indeed, he understood both the need for an assembly of the best
people (using a neologism from Greek, aristocraticum) but subject to God
and the church. Here, too, we find mention of tranquility as a goal for life
in the theological faculty. Although some biographers of Melanchthon
have assumed that he fulfilled this mandate in his own behavior,24 this
statutes ideal meant that Melanchthon, despite his often caustic remarks
and attacks on former students, would often cloak his behavior in this, to
use Heinz Scheibles word for it, psychogram, all the more to tip the theo-
logical debates of the era in his favor.25 Nevertheless, he also cherished
22See Wengert, Defending Faith, 302310.

23UUW, 155 (art. IV).
24See, especially, Clyde Manschreck, Melanchthon: The Quiet Reformer (New York:
Abingdon, 1958).
25See Heinz Scheible, Luther and Melanchthon, LQ 4 (1990): 317339; Wengert, The
Day Melanchthon Got Mad: A Study in Lutheran Ecclesiology, LQ 6 (1991): 419433; and
Wengert, Not by Nature Philoneikos: Philip Melanchthons Initial Reactions to the
Augsburg Interim, in Politik und Bekenntnis, ed. Dingel and Wartenberg (Leipzig: Evan
gelische Verlagsanstalt, 2007), 3349; now both in Wengert, Philip Melanchthon, Speaker,
nos. VII & XIII.
tranquility, an atmosphere in Wittenberg that Melanchthon maintained

throughout his career.26
Article five laid out the basic structure for public disputations, to be
held four times a year. First, Melanchthon insisted that they cover mate-
rial useful for listeners being educated.27 But he immediately added two
important caveats: first, that the material be shown to the dean of the
theological faculty ahead of time, and second, that those who failed to do
this would have their disputation postponed until the entire faculty had
examined the theses (propositiones). The appeal for peace also arose in
article six, which outlined the procedure in case of controversy over
ecclesiastical dogma, and one or more might seem to disturb concord in
teaching.28 The dean of the theological faculty, the rector, and the entire
faculty (tota universitas) became involved. In particularly serious cases,
even the prince could be called upon to set up suitable judges to examine
the case and render a decision. Melanchthon could scarcely have imag-
ined that forty years later, in the 1570s, his own son-in-law would be sub-
ject to this very procedure and dismissed from service by an outside panel
of judges in the wake of the so-called Crypto-Calvinist, or better Crypto-
Philippist, controversy over the Lords Supper.29
The last line of this article underscored Melanchthons worry over the
contumacious spreading of bad doctrine through the very system of dis-
putations designed to create teachers in the church. Condemned theses
may not be defended, and if someone obstinately defends them, he must
be restrained with such severity so that he cannot spread bad opinions
more broadly.30 The prevention of the spread of bad teachinghere
26In this connection, Johannes Agricolas attack on Luther in the late 1530s and early
1540s represented a severe test of these rules. Luthers excoriation of lawyers on
Wittenbergs faculty also probably represented a breach of this etiquette. For the former,
see Joachim Rogge, Johann Agricolas Lutherverstndnis unter besonderer Bercksichtigung
des Antinomismus (Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1960), 132210; and for the latter
James Estes, Luthers Attitude toward the Legal Traditions of His Time, Luther-Jahrbuch
76 (2009): 77110.
27UUW, 155 (art. V). Luthers disputations from the 1530s, which covered topics such as
the authority of the Council of Constance, justification, private masses and secret mar-
riages, demonstrate this concern. See WA 39/1.
28UUW, 155 (art. VI).
29Robert Kolb, Historical Background of the Formula of Concord, in A Contemporary
Look at the Formula of Concord, ed. Preus and Rosin (St. Louis: Concordia, 1978), 1287,
291301; Irene Dingel, Historische Einleitung, in Die Debatte um die Wittenberger
Abendmahlslehre und Christologie (15701574), ed. Dingle (Gttingen: V&R, 2008), 315.
30UUW, 156 (art. VI).
labeled mere opinionsthreatened later to turn Evangelical faculties

into war zones, with professors defending errant theses and losing their
positions with stunning regularity.31
In early modern Evangelical universities, bachelor and master degrees
were given in the arts faculty and doctorates in the higher faculties of
medicine, law, and theology. Thus, Melanchthon dedicated a large por-
tion of the articles to describing doctoral promotions. Candidates had to
have attended six years of lectures by professors of theology at either
Wittenberg or another institution that embraces the pure teaching of the
gospel.32 By 1545, the old medieval intermediate degrees of Bachelor of
Bible and Sententiarius disappeared, but in this oldest set of Evangelical
statutes, Melanchthon still described a Biblicus as one who knew Romans
and John. Here Melanchthons unique approach to biblical interpretation
shone through the statutes. Indeed, when we discover this method perme-
ating the entire school of Wittenberg biblical interpreters, this repre-
sents not simply a slavish imitation of the Praeceptor Germaniae but strict
adherence to the very statutes of the University.33
It is necessary, however, in learning to see what are the chief loci, what are
the causes (initia), culminations (progressiones) and goals (metae) of each
doctrinehow we wish to understand the whole. To a great extent, the
epistle of Romans shows these loci and goals (metae). Indeed, if you add the
doctrine of the Trinity from Johns gospel, you have the whole body of eccle-
siastical doctrine.34
The statutes also still called a second degree Sententiarius and explained
that in the past it was customary to lecture on Peter Lombards Sentences.
However, because Lombard departed from the pure teaching of the gos-
pel in the third book on justification and in the fourth on the sacraments,
therefore now a Sententiarius may lecture on the chief rules of doctrine
from Paul [percepta summa doctrinae ex Paulo] according to the judg-
ment of the dean and senior faculty in theology, [or] some Psalms or
something from the prophets.35 Here again the statutes encapsulated
31In addition to the Crypto-Philippists in Wittenberg, one thinks of such teachers as

Joachim Mrlin (1553: Knigsberg), Tileman Hesshus (1560: Heidelberg) and Matthias
Flacius (1561: Jena).
32UUW, 156 (art. VII).
33See, for example, Georg Majors work, as described in Wengert, Georg Major (1502
1574): Defender of the Wittenbergs Faith and Melanchthonian Exegete, in Melanchthon
in seinen Schlern, ed. Scheible (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1997), 129156.
34UUW, 156. Progressio was a technical term in rhetoric for the gradual buildup of a
speech.
35UUW, 156.
Melanchthons own approach to theology, which moved from biblical

interpretation to the Bibles central themes. It was thus no accident that in
the 1550s students such as Tileman Hesshus or Martin Chemnitz held lec-
tures on Melanchthons Loci communes theologici, which had quickly
become Wittenbergs equivalent to Lombards Sentences.36 This emphasis
on the percepta summa doctrinae may also explain why on 23 May 1533
Melanchthon himself commenced a series of lectures that became in 1535
the second edition of the Loci.37
Only after these two stages could a public disputation be held for the
promotion to doctor of theology. The statutes, constructed in part to criti-
cize late-medieval practices, forbade the foolish behavior of night cele-
brations (ineptae vesperiarum), which were often a part of earlier
celebrations. Melanchthons reason for such a ban elucidates his view of
this degree.
For if we judge accurately, no degree in all of life is more difficult to hold and
is a greater burden than this order, to which is commended explication and
adjudication of heavenly doctrine. What can be thought to be greater?
Therefore let that public announcement of public witness be filled with
gravity, so that the rest of us may find reason to think about the greatness of
the burden. A person is to approach this degree reverently, as if coming to
the altar. Let such a one offer to draw near with good and learned people for
governing the church, which experiences enormous struggles.38
If the frivolous festivities of late-medieval degree granting came under
attack at the end of the seventh article, the eighth took on a far more seri-
ous challenge. Until the Reformation, doctors of theology were also celi-
bate. The article began with a comparison of this degree to the moral
standards demanded by Paul (in 1 Timothy 5:22) for ordination, conclud-
ing that those with bad theology or bad morals were not to receive this
degree. Positively speaking, the statutes applied Pauls criteria for epis
copal office from 1 Timothy 3:24 and Titus 1:68 to new doctors of theol-
ogy. And small wonder! In the first class of recipients were two general
superintendents: Johannes Bugenhagen and Johannes Aepinus. More
36In the case of Chemnitz, the lectures came years prior to his earning a doctorate at
the University of Rostock.
37MBW 10:415. This may also indicate a terminus ad quem for the statutes, which may
have been readied for the summer term 1533 that commenced on 1 May. They certainly
were in place by 16 June 1533 with the promotion of Wittenbergs first three Evangelical
doctors of theology: Johannes Bugenhagen, Caspar Cruciger, Sr., and Johannes Aepinus
(who was superintendent of the churches in Hamburg). See below.
38UUW, 156.
importantly and in light of the break with tradition, the statutes provided
reasons for allowing married persons to receive the degree, directly criti-
cizing the demand for celibacy in the old ordinances.39
The other articles dealt with the running of the faculty: the selection of
a dean (article nine), the acceptance of teachers [doctores] from other
institutions (ten), the calling of annual or semi-annual meetings of the
students to examine their fitness for ministry (eleven). Article eleven also
revealed how Melanchthon blended pedagogy and ecclesiology. Pastors
and deacons from the surrounding area were also to receive invitations to
these meetings, For it is necessary that schools be seedbeds [seminaria]
of the churches.40 Article twelve entrusted the seal and records to the
dean, with the admonition to pay attention to witnesses of doctrine and
morals, which are ascribed to ecclesiastical ministers.41 Article thirteen
dealt with the proper administration of the fees for promotions, according
to customary practice.42 Why? Because it is fitting that some token of
gratitude be shown toward those who sustain the work of disputations
and examinations.
The final article (fourteen) served as a peroration to the whole. Here,
too, Melanchthon managed to blend administration, pedagogy, and
ecclesiology.
Of all forms of administration in life, the most difficult is ecclesiastical, and
is more properly divine than human. Therefore, we cannot include all things
in laws. But let these doctors, since they confess the laws handed down by
prophets and apostles and see the form of administration handed down in
Scripture, diligently contemplate this and prudently imitate it in their busi-
ness. Above all, however, let them strive to guard consensus in pure teach-
ing and let them avoid ambitious struggles among themselves. For often
ambitions, depraved jealousy and factions destroy church and governmen-
tal rule.43
The article also admonished professors to watch for errant doctrine and
behavior in their students, and prohibit the publication of libelous and
39UUW, 157 (art. VIII): Nec veteres de celibatu leges et vincula ullis imponimus, quae
multis exilium attulerunt et in multis mediocribus impediverunt veram invocationem dei,
quia, donec manent conscientiae vulnera, non potest fieri vera invocatio. At injustae illae
leges subinde refricant haec ineffabili dei consilio ordinatum esse ad consociandum et
conjungendum genus humanum et ad conservationem ecclesiae. Et sciant hoc genus vitae
deo placere et bonis scholam esse multarum virtutum.
40UUW, 157 (art. XI).
41UUW, 157 (art. XII).
42UUW, 157 (art. XIII).
43UUW, 157158 (art. XIV).
calumnious books (like all early modern universities, Wittenberg also

practiced censorship of the press). It concluded with what Peter Fraenkel
has described as the central metaphor for Melanchthons understanding
of the church: an assembly of teachers and learners.44
Finally, let them remember that this theological assembly [coetus] ought to
be similar to the schools of Elijah, Elisha, John the Baptist, Christ, John the
Evangelist, Polycarp, Irenaeus, and similar people. For whenever the church
flourished, it had some such scholarly assemblies [coetus], through which
godly teaching was propagated. May our assemblies also imitate their stud-
ies and mores.45
For Melanchthon, the succession of prophetic and apostolic teaching
formed the backbone of continuity in the church and established its
teachers authority and, here, the appropriate model and authorization
for theological study.
Immediate and Long-Term Consequences
Wittenbergs theological faculty was not the first to be reformed around

Evangelical principles. For example, the University of Marburg devel-
oped its own standards already in the 1527, and yet not without
Melanchthons help.46 But Wittenbergs renewed statutes were by far the
most influential.
In 1545, when Melanchthon undertook a revision of the statutes, he pre-
served most of the language and rules of the earlier document and
strengthened its ecclesial core. For example, the exordium cited Ephesians
4 (vv. 8, 11, 14) and Isaiah 59:21 regarding the gifts of the Spirit to the church.
It also referred to the college of priests and Levites in the Old Testament
as another example of the coetus theologicus, as well as the post-New
Testament schools in Antioch, Ephesus, and Alexandria. The first law
underscored the schools commitment to the gospel and Christs presence
there (Matthew 18:20). In the second article, Melanchthon listed not the
councils but the three ecumenical creeds alongside the Augsburg
Confession. In listing the subjects of lectures, he mentioned for the first
44Peter Fraenkel, Testimonia Patrum. See also Wengert, Caspar Cruciger Sr.s 1546
Enarratio on Johns Gospel: An Experiment in Ecclesiological Exegesis, ChH 61 (1992):
110133.
45UUW, 158.
46See Barbara Bauer, ed., Melanchthon und die Marburger Professoren (15271627):
Katalog und Aufstze (Marburg: Universittsbibliothek, 2000).
time lectures on the Nicene Creed, which Caspar Cruciger, Sr., then com-
menced and, upon his death, Melanchthon continued. From these addi-
tions, one can detect the origins of the corpus doctrinae that Melanchthon
would publish near the end of his life.47
In article seven, Melanchthon dropped all mention of the Bachelor of
Bible or the degree of Sententiarius. In the same article, he again stressed
the seriousness of the doctorate and its roots in the ancient church: For
thus also in the beginning there were scholarly assemblies in the church,
so that there were guardians and witnesses to the original and pure teach-
ing by whom teaching would be propagated. So Irenaeus refutes Marcion
by citing Polycarp whom he had heard, who had faithfully guarded the
teaching handed down by the apostle John.48 Melanchthon also inserted
two new articles (fourteen and fifteen), which established a library (still in
existence) and insisted that students know Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.
These statutes also had an immediate effect: the granting of three doc-
torates to Bugenhagen, Cruciger, and Aepinus. Everyone in Wittenberg
and, indeed, in Saxony and beyond understood the importance of this act.
From other sources, including a long entry by Justus Jonas (the newly
elected dean) in the theology facultys Liber Decanorum (the first entry
since 1525), we learn just how central they thought this was. Just after the
departure of the papal nuncio, Ugo Rangoni, Elector John Frederick and
his spouse, Sybilla were in Wittenberg to work on a reply.49 Upon hearing
from Luther that doctoral oaths were to be administered to the three can-
didates, the elector expressed his desire to witness the ceremony, which
was then moved up to 16 June 1533 in accordance with his wishes. Luther
called together the entire senate of the theological faculty. In a solemn
ceremony, which included testimonies to the candidates erudition and
godliness, they received the doctoral insignia. In the evening, Philip
Melanchthon composed theses on the topics of faith, the church, and
human traditions, which the candidates then defended on the follow
ing day.50 Among those who posed questions to the candidates were
47See Irene Dingel, Melanchthon und die Normierung des Bekenntnisses, in Der
Theologe Melanchthon, ed. Gnter Frank (Stuttgart: Thorbecke, 2000), 195211.
48UUW, 263 (art. VII). He also mentioned Basils citation of Gregory Thaumaturgos.
49For this and the following, see the Liber Decanorum, 2830. See also the memoranda
produced on the heels of the nuncios departure in MBW 1333, 1334, 1335, and 1341 (Texte
5:427436, 444454) and WA Br 6:480491.
50These became part of the Disputationes found in volume three of Melanchthons
Opera (Basel, 1541), 3:333, and now printed in CR 12:517520. (See MBW 2780 [Texte 10:451
459] for Melanchthons preface, dated 27 July 1541.) In the Opera the three sets of theses
were labeled Gaspar Creuciger Rector Academiae, De Ecclesia D. Ioannes Pomeranus,
Melanchthon, other unnamed theologians from Wittenberg (presumably

Jonas and Luther), and Antonius Anglus and Alexander Scotus.51 The
presence of Barnes and Alesius bestowed an international aura to the
procedure.
The prince remained in attendance for the entire disputation, accom-
panied by Duke Johann Ernst (John Fredericks brother), Prince Francis of
Lneberg, Duke Magnus of Mecklenburg, Duke Ernst of Braunschweig
(the son of Philip), the count [Karl] von Gleichen,52 Wolfgang Reienbusch
(teacher and rector of the school in Lichtenberg), Doctor Johann Rhel
(counselor to the Archbishop of Mainz), and Georg Spalatin.53 Among the
local dignitaries were Wittenbergs sheriff, Johann Metzsch, Johann von
Minckwitz (the prefect in the Saxon court whose son had enrolled at
Wittenberg that year),54 and Bernhard von Mila (provincial governor in
Wittenberg). Later that day, the entire group assembled in the Castle
Church for the formal ceremony presided over by the dean, Justus Jonas.
At the same time, Jonas noted, Nicholas Glossenus (who had received a
Master of Arts the previous year), future preacher in Reval and later pro-
fessor in Greifswald, was promoted as a licentiate in theology.55
After the ceremonies, the Elector hosted a banquet in the castle, filling
by Jonas estimate between eighteen and twenty tables: By this munifi-
cence, the prince wanted to declare his [good] will toward this school.
Wherefore we also wanted to describe these details [minora], so that pos-
terity may understand by what singular propensity of soul, by what love,
the illustrious prince in the first year of his reign acted toward the teachers
of the gospel and the studies of godliness.56 The following day, 18 June
1533, Justus Jonas gave a festive declamation, as was already customary
and De traditionibus humanis D. Ioannes Aepinus. The topics matched the Liber
Decanorum: justification, church, and human traditions.
51The former was Robert Barnes. According to Album Academiae Vitebergensis ab A. Ch.
MDII usque ad A. MDLX, ed. Karl Frstemann [hereafter Album] (Leipzig: Tauchnitz, 1841),
149, the same Antonius Anglus matriculated as a doctor from Oxford University on 20
June 1533. Alexander Scotus was Alexander Alesius from Scotland, who matriculated as a
Master of Arts from St Andrews in Scotland on 7 October 1533 (Album, 151) and received his
Master of Arts from Wittenberg on 14 October 1533. He later became professor of theology
in Leipzig. See MBW 11:5556 & 114115.
52Especially Count Karl von Gleichen (15181599), who matriculated on 30 September
1533 (Album, 150). See MBW 12:153f.
53The princes were on their way to a meeting of the Smalcald League in Schmalkalden,
held at the end of the month.
54See Album, 148.
55See MBW 12:155.
56Liber Decanorum, 30.
when awarding the masters of arts degrees, probably written by Philip

Melanchthon and titled On Degrees in Theology.57 The opening lines
make clear that the Elector was also present for this part of the cere-
mony.58 Its intent was to prove that such a granting of degrees accorded
with the practice of Paul, Christ, and the prophets and apostles, and to
praise the Electors good sense in supporting such education.
One other smaller speech from these festivities, delivered by Valentin
Anspach, has also been preserved.59 This short thanksgiving, written by
Melanchthon and dated in the Corpus Reformatorum 1533, was a custom-
ary part of such degree ceremonies.60 A younger student would often
deliver the official thanks to the teachers and any other important person-
ages present. In this case, he not only mentioned that people were receiv-
ing doctoral degrees but also named several of the princes present in a list
that corresponded to Jonas own account.61 Although the speech itself was
simply puffery, it nevertheless helps adumbrate the significance for the
revitalization of theological studies that the granting of these degrees
represented.
This ceremony, when combined with the statutes, reflected Wittenbergs
growing self-awareness as a center for theological training in the Holy
Roman Empire. Here Melanchthons concern for erudition and clarity and
his insistence on the loci method for biblical interpretation and theology,
grounded in the fathers and the confession presented at Augsburg, came
to full expression. Bugenhagen and Cruciger would remain his colleagues
until their deaths, and, although Melanchthon would later cross swords
with Johannes Aepinus over adiaphora and the descent into hell, these
two theologians also provided a united front against Andreas Osiander
over the all-important doctrine of justification.62
57CR 11:227231. It could be that the date (18 June) is incorrect and that the speech was
delivered the previous day as part of the ceremonies.
58CR 11:227: Non opinor in hoc laudatissimo coetu quenquam, adeo imperitum esse
communium officiorum vitae, ut consilium nostrum in promovendis Doctoribus Evangelii
reprehendat, praesertim cum viderit in hoc consessu Illustrissimum Principem nostrum,
Saxoniae Ducem, Electorem caeterosque Principes, et viros sapientissimos, qui cum sua
praesentia testentur se consilium nostrum probare, nemo poterit sine summa impudentia,
suum iudicium istorum authoritati anteferre.
59Valentinus Harthungus de Anspach [Valentin Hartung from Ansbach] matricu-
lated at the University of Wittenberg on 12 July 1530. See Album, 139.
60CR 10:916917.
61Specifically he mentioned (CR 10:917) the elector, Duke Johann Ernst of Saxony, the
Rector (Caspar Cruciger) and the count [Karl] von Gleichen.
62See Wengert, Defending Faith, passim.
Thus, the statutes provide further clarity on the development of a pecu-

liarly Wittenberg brand of theology, devoted not so much to Luther as to
the creeds of the ancient church, the Augsburg Confession and, above all,
the theological method of Philip Melanchthon. When combined with his
view of church as a community of teachers and learners, these statutes
defined the ethos of theological education during the Reformation.
ACADEMIC HERESY, THE REUCHLIN AFFAIR, AND THE CONTROL OF
THEOLOGICAL DISCOURSE IN THE EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY
Amy Nelson Burnett
Richard A. Mullers research has highlighted the blending of humanist

methodology with Aristotelian philosophy over the later sixteenth cen
tury to produce the Protestant orthodoxy that dominated theology facul
ties through the seventeenth century. The relationship between humanism
and scholasticism was not always so cozy, however. Research on German
humanism in the early sixteenth century has done much to clarify the
issues at stake between humanists and schoolmen, emphasizing the role
of personality conflicts as well as questions of theological content and dif
fering methodologies.1 Erika Rummel has also highlighted the importance
that scholastic theologians attached to having the proper credentials in
order to study the Bible: those who approached Scripture without such
credentials were condemned for putting a sickle to another mans crop.2
The argument over whether a doctorate in theology was needed in
order to pursue biblical and patristic studies was only one aspect of the
larger challenge that humanists posed to the authority of scholastic theo
logians. Up through the fifteenth century the church had maintained a
monopoly on theological discourse, concentrating it in the hands of prel
ates, theologians and canonists and developing mechanisms to deal with
deviant views. With Erasmus at their head, the biblical humanists of the
early sixteenth century demanded that they be included among those
considered competent to shape theological discourse.
The Reuchlin affair would draw their attention to one of the key mecha
nisms for controlling theological discourse, the process of academic con
demnation. The debate that resulted from the condemnation of Reuchlins
Augenspiegel fundamentally weakened the procedures used to identify
1J.H. Overfield, Humanism and Scholasticism in Late Medieval Germany (Princeton:

PUP, 1984); Erika Rummel, The HumanistScholastic Debate in the Renaissance and
Reformation (Cambridge: HUP, 1995); Charles G. Nauert, Humanism and the Culture of
Renaissance Europe, second ed. (Cambridge: CUP, 2006); for a summary of research,
Charles G. Nauert Jr., Humanism as Method: Roots of the Conflict with the Scholastics,
SCJ 29 (1998): 427438.
2Erika Rummel, The Importance of Being Doctor: The Quarrel over Competency
Between Humanists and Theologians in the Renaissance, CHR 82 (1996): 187203.
36 amy nelson burnett
and suppress heresy in an academic context, so that when those measures

were employed against Luther, they proved ineffective. An understanding
of the traditional method of controlling academic discourse and its distor
tion by the Reuchlin affair thus illuminates one generally unnoticed
aspect of the early humanistscholastic debate that shaped initial reac
tions to the charges of heresy leveled against Luthers 95 Theses.
Academic Condemnation
The medieval concept of heresy is difficult to pin down.3 Central to the

definition developed by both theologians and canon lawyers was the idea,
derived from Augustine and Jerome, that heretics pertinaciously held to
new teachings that deviated from the interpretation of Scripture inspired
by the Holy Spirit. The thirteenthcentury theologian Robert Grosseteste
was credited with a definition that became standard: Heresy is a state
ment chosen by human opinion, contrary to holy Scripture, and pertina
ciously defended. The distinction between simple error and pertinacity
was crucial for the discussion of heresy. As Augustine expressed it, one
who erred in matters of faith could not be a heretic if he did not defend his
error pertinaciously and was willing to be led to the truth. Discussions of
heresy within scholastic theology would emphasize the difference
between error, which was a defect of the intellect, and pertinacity, which
was a defect of the will.4
This definition meant that there was a distinction between heretical
teaching and heretical individuals. In the thirteenth century the church
adopted and elaborated inquisitorial procedures used in Roman criminal
law for both the identification of specific heresies, especially academic
heresy, and the prosecution of those suspected of holding heretical
beliefs.5 The use of inquisitorial procedure in the prosecution of heretical
3The best overview is Othmar Hageneder, Der Hresiebegriff bei den Juristen des 12.
und 13. Jahrhunderts, in The Concept of Heresy in the Middle Ages, ed. Lourdaux and
Verhelst (Louvain: University Press, 1973), 42103.
4Winfried Trusen, Rechtliche Grundlagen des Hresiebegriffs und des
Ketzerverfahrens, in Ketzerverfolgung im 16. und frhen 17. Jahrhundert, ed. Guggisberg
et al. (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1992), 120; Edward M. Peters, Transgressing the Limits
Set by the Fathers: Authority and Impious Exegesis in Medieval Thought, in Christendom
and its Discontents, ed. Waugh and Diehl (Cambridge: CUP, 1996), 338357; Ulrich Mauser,
Der junge Luther und die Hresie (Gterlsoh: Mohn, 1968), 1033.
5In contrast to popular misconceptions, there was no single institutional Inquisition
under papal jurisdiction through the medieval period, and there was significant regional
academic heresy and the reuchlin affair37
individuals is relatively familiar, but the process for investigation of hereti

cal teachings has only recently gained the attention of medievalists. Better
described as academic condemnation in order to distinguish it from the
process aimed at individuals, the investigation of teaching alleged to be
heretical was closely associated with the development of the medieval
university and the emergence of corporations of masters of theology
whose authority rested on their intellectual expertise.6
The practice of academic condemnation was a means of controlling
dissent and keeping academic lectures and disputations within the
bounds of orthodoxy. It therefore supplemented the oaths taken by theol
ogy students at certain points in their education, as well as the more infor
mal socialization process that occurred over the long course of study
necessary to become a master of theology.7 The procedure developed con
siderably over the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and differed some
what between Paris and Oxford (the two universities that have been most
studied), but there were certain common features. Individual proposi
tions drawn from a persons works could be judged either by the faculty as
a whole or, increasingly, by an appointed commission. By the end of the
thirteenth century, each article was classified according to the degree of
error or of danger that it posed to the faithful; such labels ranged from
heretical and erroneous to illsounding and absurd. Pastoral concern was
used to justify the condemnation of articles that sounded or might be mis
understood as heretical by simple Christians (prout sonant), even if within
their original context they could be accepted as orthodox. Those whose
variation. In Germany, episcopal inquisitors were commissioned on an ad hoc basis when

heresy was seen to be a problem at the local level. Papal inquisitors had many other eccle
siastical responsibilities, and to the extent they prosecuted heretics, they tended to focus
on cases with political or ecclesiastical implications; Richard Kieckhefer, Repression of
Heresy in Medieval Germany (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1979), 110, 83112.
6J.M.M.H. Thijssen, Censure and Heresy at the University of Paris 12001400 (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania, 1998), 937. On the problem of terminology, ibid, x, and
Andrew E. Larsen, The School of Heretics: Academic Condemnation at the University of
Oxford, 12771409 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 1214.
7With very few exceptions it was applied entirely to students of philosophy and theol
ogy; masters of theology were only rarely censured; Mary Martin McLaughlin, Intellectual
Freedom and its Limitations in the University of Paris in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth
Centuries (New York: Arno, 1977), 207208; Guy Fitch Lytle, Universities as Religious
Authorities in the Later Middle Ages and Reformation, in Reform and Authority in the
Medieval and Reformation Church, ed. Lytle (Washington: CUAP, 1981), 6997; Thijssen,
Censure, 113117; J.M.M.H. Thijssen, Academic Heresy and Intellectual Freedom at the
University of Paris, 12001378, in Centres of Learning, ed. Drijvers and MacDonald (Leiden:
Brill, 1995), 215228. On the course of study, William J. Courtenay, Schools and Scholars in
Fourteenth Century England (Princeton: PUP, 1987), 4148.
teachings were condemned had the right to appeal from the university to
the papal curia, but after the final decision had been made, the author had
to retract his errors or come under suspicion of heresy because of his
pertinacity.8
The goal of academic condemnation was to bring about the submission
of the author, not to exonerate him; there were no acquittals in cases
heard at the university of Paris. The process of academic condemnation
might have little longterm effect on the career of the person whose arti
cles were condemned, but in some cases individuals were removed from
teaching positions or denied access to further academic degrees. Moreover,
the procedure itself can only be described as punitive. Those under inves
tigation could be confined for years while the legal process dragged on.
The public ceremony of recantation, in which the author read each article
aloud and swore not to teach or defend the condemned views, was a form
of ritual humiliation. Resistance to such condemnation might result in
excommunication or fines. The spectre of condemnation was therefore a
strong incentive for teachers to refrain from making provocative state
ments that might lead to denunciation. In England, the intensification of
academic scrutiny in order to detect Lollardy helped contribute to a more
conservative approach to theology in the fifteenth century.9
Propositions condemned by academic specialists could be used author
itatively, in the same way that conciliar decisions were, but such lists had
essentially consultative rather than juridical status. In their discussions of
ecclesiastical authority, theologians recognized that they were subordi
nate to the magisterium of the church hierarchy.10 Their authority
extended over their own academic community but needed further
endorsement if it was to reach outside the university. A decision by the
appropriate authority, whether pope, council, or bishop, was necessary to
turn that which should not be taught into heresy strictly defined and
universally condemned. To give one important example, separate lists of
8William J. Courtenay, Inquiry and Inquisition: Academic Freedom in Medieval

Universities, ChH 58 (1989): 168181; Thijssen, Academic Heresy; Thijssen, Censure, 139;
Larsen, School of Heretics, 518; Winfried Trusen, Der Prozess gegen Meister Eckhart:
Vorgeschichte, Verlauf und Folgen (Paderborn: Schningh, 1988), 164183.
9Thijssen, Censure, 3335; Larsen, School of Heretics, 270272, 284287; Andrew E.
Larsen, Academic Condemnations and the Decline of Theology at Oxford, History of
Universities 22 (2008): 132.
10Thijssen, Censure, 9097; Courtenay, Inquiry, 177180. Courtenay cites examples of
authoritative use, but he also acknowledges that papal condemnations had universal force
in a way that university and episcopal censures did not; this implies that the latter were
perceived as less authoritative.
articles drawn from John Wyclifs works were condemned at Oxford and
at Paris, but only the former condemnation received authoritative status
when it was endorsed by the Council of Constance, and only then were
those propositions used as the basis for condemning the articles taken
from Jan Hus writings.11
Although it was called heresy, suspect teaching identified through the
process of academic condemnation was dependent on a long chain of rea
soning and could be said to oppose Scripture only in a very indirect way.
The condemnations themselves might rest as much on philosophical or
canonistic arguments as on scriptural grounds. There could be muted pro
test against condemnations that were perceived to be illadvised, if not
just plain wrong. The arbitrariness of condemning propositions merely for
sounding heretical (prout sonat) was questioned already in the thirteenth
century.12 Contemporaries also acknowledged the role of nontheological
factors underlying academic condemnation. Thus an account of the inter
rogation of Johann Rucherat von Wesel for heresy in 1479 ended by attrib
uting the harshness of his sentence to the fact that all but one of those
present were realists and regular clergy triumphing over a secular priest
who did not particularly venerate their Thomas.13
Despite these criticisms, however, the process itself was not fundamen
tally questioned, and it proved to be an effective way of supervising theo
logical discourse through the later Middle Ages. It effectively placed the
determination of heresy in the hands of specialists in theology and canon
law, whether located in the papal curia or within a university faculty.
Acting with the authority of the church hierarchy, the men who identified
11Edith C. Tatnall, The Condemnation of John Wyclif at the Council of Constance, in

Councils and Assemblies, ed. Cuming and Baker (Cambridge: CUP, 1971), 209218; Walter
Brandmller, Das Konzil von Konstanz 14141418 (Paderborn: Schningh, 1991), 1:325359.
12Larsen, School of Heretics, 261267; Thijssen, Censure, 3033; Bernard McGinn,
Eckharts Condemnation Reconsidered, The Thomist 44 (1980): 390414.
13Larson, School of Heretics, 273284, emphasizes the importance of interorder rivalry
and other political tensions as motives underlying academic condemnations at Oxford. On
Wesel, Gustav Benrath, Johann Rucherat von Wesel, TRE 17:150153; Otto Clemen, ber
Leben und Schriften Johanns von Wesel, Deutsche Zeitschrift fr Geschichtswissenschaft 8
(18971898): 143173; the Examen Magistrale ac theologicale Doctoris Ioannis de Wesalia
Concionatoris Vuormaciensis, in Commentariorum Aeneae Sylvii Piccolominei Senensis, de
Concilio Basileae celebrato (Basel: Cratander, 1523), 344, makes the following judgment:
Dempto solo articulo de processione spiritussancti, in alijs uidetur non ita graui censura
fuisse castigandus, si indutiae datae fuissent, si consultores ei fuissent adhibiti, si non
omnes uno solo dempto, fuissent de uia realium. Et nisi forsitan impetus quidam irrepsis
set in religiosos, triumphandi de seculari, & praesertim de eo qui illorum Thomam pecu
liariter non coluerat, forsitan poterat cum eo mitius, humanius, & clementius, benigniusque
actum & processum fuisse.
heresy and directed the process by which it was adjudicated controlled a

powerful mechanism for regulating academic discussion of theological
questions.
An important development in the process of academic condemnation
over the fifteenth century was the expansion of the theology facultys
competence to judge theological debate beyond the university commu
nity. The introduction of printing brought an increase in the availability of
written works and the possibility of the broader diffusion of questionable
ideas. Into the early sixteenth century the Paris theology faculty issued
judgments on a variety of cases that concerned not only their own mem
bers but also those on topics ranging from usury and calendar reform to
Cajetans defense of papal authority.14 The Cologne theology faculty also
claimed the right of book censorship, and in 1507 it denounced proposi
tions drawn from the published work of the jurist Peter of Ravenna. At a
hearing before a commission representing each of the universitys facul
ties, Peter submitted to the demand to abstain from teaching the ques
tionable doctrines. Within a few months, however, he began a literary
feud with the Cologne faculty that has been seen as a prelude to the
Reuchlin affair.15
The procedure just outlined would be followed against Johannes
Reuchlin, but in his case it spun out of control. In response to the efforts of
the Cologne theology faculty to condemn Reuchlins Augenspiegel as
heretical, humanists began to assert not only that they were qualified to
participate in theological discourse but also that they had the right to
judge such discourse. Paradoxically, the Reuchlin affair both increased
exponentially the frequency of accusations of heresy and fundamentally
vitiated the effectiveness of one procedure used to suppress it. The prec
edents it established set the stage for the reactions of both sides after the
publication of Luthers 95 Theses.
The Reuchlin Affair
The Reuchlin affair has received considerable attention not only as the
cause clbre that pitted scholastic theologians against humanists but also
14James K. Farge, Orthodoxy and Reform in Early Reformation France: The Faculty of
Theology of Paris, 15001543 (Leiden: Brill, 1985), 115125.
15Charles G. Nauert Jr., Peter of Ravenna and the Obscure Men of Cologne, in
Renaissance. Studies in Honor of Hans Baron, ed. Molho and Tedeschi (DeKalb: Northern
Illinois University, 1971), 609640.
for the light it sheds on early modern antisemitism. It has long been
acknowledged that the Reuchlin affair helped pave the way for the initial
response to Luther. My purpose here is to look more specifically at the
way it contributed to the collapse of the normal procedure for dealing
with statements that were theologically suspect.16
At the center of the debate were propositions drawn from a book
intended for the broader public, Reuchlins Augenspiegel, published in
the fall of 1511. The Augenspiegel combined a polemic against Johann
Pfefferkorn with a defense of the memorandum Reuchlin had written
opposing the confiscation of Jewish books, which Reuchlins opponents
believed was too favorable to the Jews. The book was denounced to the
theology faculty of Cologne soon after its publication, and the dean of the
faculty, the Dominican Jakob Hoogstraeten, took charge of the investiga
tion. Hoogstraeten was the papal inquisitor for the western provinces of
the Empire and a close ally of Pfefferkorn in the campaign against Jewish
books, and so he was hardly a disinterested party.
Reuchlin learned in October 1511 that Arnold von Tongern, one of the
facultys members, had been charged with examining his book and identi
fying statements that were theologically suspect. He immediately wrote to
von Tongern, stressing his submission to the church and stating that he
would gladly modify his position if the faculty told him where changes
were necessary.17 He received a copy of the propositions identified as sus
pect, but the theology faculty refused to identify more precisely what he
needed to change in his book; their goal was Reuchlins submission to
their authority, not a revised version of the Augenspiegel. Reuchlins cor
respondence with the theology faculty grew testier over the next several
months, culminating in the facultys demand that Reuchlin should not
16The most recent treatments of the Reuchlin affair (with discussions of earlier research
cited) are Hans Peterse, Jacobus Hoogstraeten gegen Johannes Reuchlin: ein Beitrag zur
Geschichte des Antijudaismus im 16. Jahrhundert (Mainz: Zabern, 1995), 1315; Erika
Rummel, The Case Against Johann Reuchlin: Religious and Social Controversy in Sixteenth
Century Germany (Toronto: U of T, 2002), 3640; and David Price, Johannes Reuchlin and
the Campaign to Destroy Jewish Books (New York: OUP, 2011), 912. The introductions to the
relevant volumes of Reuchlins correspondence also contain useful summaries of develop
ments, Johannes Reuchlin, Briefwechsel (Stuttgart: FrommannHolzboog, 1999), 2:XVI
XXI and 3:XIIIXLI. Fundamental for understanding the legal process against Reuchlin
are the two articles by Winfried Trusen, Johannes Reuchlin und die Fakultten.
Voraussetzungen und Hintergrnde des Prozesses gegen den Augenspiegel, in Gundolf
Keil, et al., ed., Der Humanismus und die oberen Fakultten (Weinheim: Acta Humaniora,
1987), 115157, and Die Prozesse gegen Reuchlins Augenspiegel. Zum Streit um die
Judenbcher, in Reuchlin und die politischen Krfte seiner Zeit, ed. Rhein (Sigmaringen:
Thorbecke, 1998), 87131.
17Ulrich [Kollin] to Reuchlin, 26 October 1511, Reuchlin, Briefwechsel, 2:200201;
Reuchlin to Arnold von Tongern, 28 October 1511, Reuchlin, Briefwechsel, 2:202205.
only prevent the sale of copies of the Augenspiegel at the upcoming

Frankfurt book fair but should also publish a retraction, so no one might
think he deviated from the catholic faith.18 Rather than doing so, Reuchlin
presented his own defense to the public. In the spring of 1512, in time
for the Frankfurt book fair, he published an expanded German defense of
his memorandum.19 Arnold von Tongern responded in the fall of 1512 by
publishing his Articuli sive Propositiones, a list of the propositions he
had drawn from the Augenspiegel along with commentary. This in turn
prompted Reuchlin to write a Defensio contra calumniatores suos
Colonienses, published in the spring of 1513.20
The Defensio has been analyzed as a justification of the Jews right to
their books, as a contribution to the humanistscholastic debate, and as a
slanderous polemic against the Cologne theologians.21 Its true signifi
cance, however, rests on the fact that it challenged the moral, legal, and
intellectual competence of the Cologne theology faculty to judge heresy.
Although written as a direct address to Emperor Maximilian, asking the
emperor to protect Reuchlins good name, the Defensio was intended to
shape public opinion in a way that would prevent condemnation of the
Augenspiegel as heretical. Reuchlin moved the right to judge the suspect
propositions, and the book from which they were taken, out of the aca
demic sphere and into the public forum. In so doing he changed the
parameters of the debate entirely.
The Defensio followed four important rhetorical strategies. First,
Reuchlin asserted repeatedly that he had never said or written anything
that opposed the orthodox church and its head, the pope, and that he will
ingly submitted to the churchs judgment in all things. In this way he tried
to head off any accusation of personal heresy based on pertinacious asser
tion of error.22
18Hoogstraeten and the Cologne theology faculty to Reuchlin, 29 February 1512,

Reuchlin, Briefwechsel, 2:278281.
19Ain clare verstendnus in ttsch uff doctor Johannsen Rechlins ratschlag von den juden
bchern was a translation and expansion of the Latin response to possible objections to
Reuchlins memorandum contained in the Augenspiegel; cf. Reuchlin to the Cologne theol
ogy faculty, 27 January 1512, Reuchlin, Briefwechsel, 2:234; Johannes Reuchlin, Smtliche
Werke, vol. 4 (Stuttgart: FrommannHolzboog, 1999), 173196.
20The semiannual Frankfurt book fair was decisive for the timing of publication. The
pamphlets were published specifically for successive meetings of the fair; Reuchlin,
Briefwechsel, 3:XVIII.
21Price, Reuchlin, 148150; Rummel, Case against Johannes Reuchlin, 1819; Trusen,
Reuchlin, 144150; Overfield, Humanism and Scholasticism, 266268.
22Reuchlin, Schriften, 204/205; cf. 220/221, 260/261, 264/265, 274277, 280/281, 284/285,
294/295, 434/435.
Second, rather than defending himself against heresy, he took the

offensive and accused his opponents of slander. Reuchlin charged that his
enemies were at fault in searching for heresy where there was none, and
their denunciations should not be believed. He claimed that their chief
goal was to destroy his reputation and his good name, and that he was in
fact forced to publish his Augenspiegel in order to protect himself from
their lies.23 Strategically, this was an extremely important move, because
it shifted attention away from the fact that a grave charge had been lev
eled against Reuchlins book and focused it explicitly on the motives and
misdeeds of his opponents.
Third, Reuchlin undermined the credibility of the Cologne theology
faculty. He was scathing in his criticism of his opponents. They were not
genuine theologians instructed in doctrine, Scripture and ethics, who
showed brotherly love to all. Instead, they were theologists or even diabo
lists, more concerned with sophistical syllogisms than with Scripture, who
loved to argue and who were sunk in all manner of vice.24 To promote
their own purposes, they misrepresented Reuchins position in his advice
concerning Jewish books, they used faulty logic to find heretical state
ments in Reuchlins book, and they mistranslated, abridged, and other
wise distorted his words, so that others would endorse their condemnation
of it.25
Quite apart from their moral failings, however, Reuchlin argued that
the Cologne theologians had no legal right to judge his book. The status of
Jewish books was a matter of law, not of theology, and as a jurist he had
based his advice on legal principles. His memorandum was written in obe
dience to the emperors command, and it was intended only as advice, to
be followed or not as the emperor decided. It was the responsibility of the
bishops, and not the theology faculty, to determine whether there was
anything questionable in the Augenspiegel.26
Finally, Reuchlin attacked the entire procedure followed in academic
condemnation. He criticized the practice of judging suspect propositions
prout sonant, excerpted from a written work without regard for context,
and he cited biblical and classical examples as well as the principles of
Roman law to demonstrate that the genuine meaning of a statement had
to be determined on the basis of the authors intention. He mocked the
23Reuchlin, Schriften, 204/205, 216221, 234/235, 286/287308/309, 332/333, 386389.

24Reuchlin, Schriften, 236245, 282/283.
25Reuchlin, Schriften, 332433.
26Reuchlin, Schriften, 256265, 276279.
claim that a statement might sound heretical or suspect to pious ears; only
the deaf ears of the godless could possibly be offended by what he had
written. It was ridiculous and unreasonable for the theology faculty to ask
him to retract statements that were offensive without explaining precisely
how they offended.27
The Cologne theology faculty responded immediately to this challenge
to its authority. When advised by the law faculty that they had little chance
of successfully prosecuting Reuchlin for slander, the theologians turned
instead to the emperor and asked him to forbid sale of the Defensio, a
request that was granted.28 In August it officially condemned the
Augenspiegel.29 It also asked other theology faculties to judge the work on
the basis of the suspect propositions drawn from it. The Louvain theology
faculty was the first to respond. Stressing the fact that it was the special
province of theology faculties to define heretical or erroneous teaching,
the Louvain theologians unanimously concluded that the book should be
prohibited and existing copies burned. The theology faculty of Mainz con
curred, although it noted that since Reuchlin claimed to believe only
what is fitting to a Christian and submitted to the decision of the church,
the condemnation should not affect his good name. The theology faculty
of Erfurt was even more favorable to Reuchlin, stressing his reputation as
a learned man skilled in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, known for the integrity
of his life, who humbly submitted himself to the Roman church.
Nevertheless, his incautious words might lead to error or heresy, and
therefore it also endorsed the suppression of the Augenspiegel.30
Even before the arrival of the decisions of the other faculties,
Hoogstraeten took the next step and, in his role as papal inquisitor, initi
ated formal legal proceedings in Mainz to condemn the book as heretical
and to burn all existing copiesin effect changing the facultys consulta
tive decision into a juridical one. Before an official condemnation
could be issued, however, the pope intervened and called for a new
investigation to be led by the bishop of Speyer. In March 1514, the bishop
declared that the Augenspiegel contained neither errors nor heresy.
27Reuchlin, Schriften, 266275, 286293.

28The facultys appeal to the emperor was made indirectly, through the Cologne town
council, Adolf Kober, Urkundliche Beitrge zum Reuchlinschen Streit: Ein Gedenkblatt
zum 30. Juni 1922, Monatsschrift fr Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums N.F. 31
(1923): 110122, esp. 120221.
29Peterse, Hoogstraeten, 3324; Price, Reuchlin, 150151.
30The condemnations of Cologne (16 Aug.), Louvain (28 July), Erfurt (3 Sept.), and
Mainz (13 Oct.) in E. Bcking, Ulrichi Hutteni Equitis Operum Supplementum, 2 vols.
(Leipzig, 1864; repr. Osnabrck, 1966), 1:133138.
Hoogstraeten appealed this decision to the papal curia, and as support for
its case, the Cologne faculty sent a translation of the Augenspeigel to the
theology faculty of Paris, which formally condemned it in August.
Reuchlins case proceeded slowly, but by July 1516 the commission was
prepared to issue a decision that complaints against Reuchlins book were
unfounded. At the last minute, however, Pope Leo X intervened and sus
pended the case for an indeterminate period.
Ironically, by this stage of the conflict the issue of heretical content
Reuchlins statements about the Jewshad receded into the background.
Reuchlin himself was a jurist, and he had a sound grasp of inquisitorial
procedure. Over the course of the process, he and his legal advisors
exploited legal irregularities in his opponents actions to have the case
thrown out of court. Reuchlins defenders had no interest in the issue of
Jewish books that had started the controversy but focused instead on the
procedure for and the proponents of condemnation. Reuchlins initial
strategy of deflecting attention away from the actual content of his book
and focusing on the procedure used to identify and condemn suspect
statements was therefore successfulat least until the Luther affair again
raised the question of heresy.
Just as important as the legal proceedings was the publicistic battle
waged on Reuchlins behalf. Reuchlin had not attacked scholastic theol
ogy in general, nor did he discuss the methodological approach of human
ism. Nevertheless, the similarities with broader humanist concerns were
evident, and they were made obvious in the Letters of Obscure Men, espe
cially the second volume published in 1517. The letters mocked the eager
ness of theologians to label anyone who disagreed with them as heretics
and portrayed Reuchlins scholastic opponents, especially Hoogstraeten,
as ignorant, vainglorious laughingstocks.31 Such characterizations fit only
too well with Erasmus lampooning of theologians in his Praise of Folly,
which had already provoked a rebuke from the Louvain theologian Martin
Dorp.32 In his response to Dorp, which from 1516 on was published as a
31See, for example, Bcking, Supplementum, 1:1920, 3335, 195196, 196198, 206210;
on the publicistic importance of the Letters for the humanist cause more generally, Erika
Rummel, The Confessionalization of Humanism in Reformation Germany (Oxford: OUP,
2000), 1215.
32The exchange between Dorp and Erasmus is described by Erika Rummel, Erasmus
and his Catholic Critics, 2 vols. (Nieuwkoop: De Graaf, 1989), 1:113, and Daniel Kinney,
Introduction, in Thomas More, In Defense of Humanism, ed. Kinney, vol. 15, The Complete
Works (New Haven: YUP, 1986), xixxxviii. Whether the letters represented a real
and serious disagreement between Erasmus and Dorp or, as Lisa Jardine has suggested,
were a performance intended to promote the humanists approach to theology is not as
preface to the Praise of Folly, Erasmus made fun of scholastic theologians

who sat in judgment and issued condemnations, supposing themselves
wise even though they were ignorant of Greek and Hebrew, and he con
trasted them with genuine theologians who devoted themselves to the
study of Scripture.33 Thomas More would go even further in his own letter
to Dorp, mocking the sophistical use of dialectic in theology and pointing
out that any statement could be misrepresented when taken out of con
text. His letter was an eloquent defense of the humanist approach to the
ology.34 Last but not least, in an Epistola apologetica written in support of
Reuchlin, Willibald Pirckheimer criticized theologians whose use of dia
lectic went beyond the proper bounds. He prescribed a humanist course
of study for those who wanted to earn the name of theologian, and then
listed those who were worthy of that label, including a certain Martinus
Lueder Augustiniani.35 Only a few weeks later, the publication of Luthers
theses on indulgences would initiate a new controversy that soon eclipsed
the Reuchlin affair.
The Luther Affair
In taking action against the Augenspiegel, the various university theology

faculties had followed the normal procedure for academic condemnation.
The notoriety caused by the publicistic debate that ensued under
minedthe credibility of that process, however, as quickly became appar
ent through the controversy that followed the publication of Luthers 95
Theses. Because the Wittenberg theology faculty supported Luther,
denunciation would have to come from outside of Wittenberg. The arch
bishop of Mainz initiated this process by asking the Mainz theology fac
ulty to evaluate the theses and by forwarding them to the papal curia.36
important for this discussion as the actual positions presented in the exchange; Lisa
Jardine, Erasmus, Man of Letters: The Construction of Charisma in Print (Princeton: PUP,
1993), 111122.
33Collected Works of Erasmus, 3:111139, esp. 122124. Significantly, in his letter to Dorp,
Erasmus also made several points intended to ward off accusations of heresy, including the
fact that he himself had a doctorate in theology and that his editorial work was supported
by many prelates and pious theologiansand opposed only by a few who were truly
ignorant.
34Kinney, More, 2127, esp. 2845. Mores letter, written in the late summer/fall of 1515,
was not published during his lifetime but circulated in manuscript.
35Emil Reicke, et al., Willibald Pirckheimers Briefwechsel (Beck: Munich, 19402009),
3:146172, esp. 158163.
36Although the Mainz theology faculty stated that the theses seemed to go against the
teaching of the church, it refused to make a final judgment; Wilhelm Borth, Die Luthersache
Like the Reuchlin affair, the Luther Affair would proceed in two are
nas, the publicistic battle in Germany and the legal process in Rome. The
latter was hampered from the beginning by the electors protection of
Luther, and by the fall of 1518 the legal question had changed from whether
Luthers teachings were heretical to whether Luther himself was a perti
nacious heretic. This was a much more serious charge, especially since the
legal process had papal authorization. The publicistic debate, however,
would take up those questions concerning the identification of heresy and
the procedure for judging academic heresy that had been raisedand left
unansweredby the Reuchlin affair.
The fundamental issue was whether a published work contained state
ments that should be condemned, and if so, where those statements fell
on a scale that ranged from poorly phrased or open to misinterpretation
(male or prout sonant) to heretical or blasphemous. Just as important as
the practical definition of heresy was the question of how it was identified.
Could the objectionable contents be satisfactorily determined on the
basis of propositions removed from their context? It had always been
common for those accused of heretical teaching to argue that such a pro
cedure distorted their ideas, but Reuchlin and his defenders had gone fur
ther, both ridiculing and pouring scorn upon the prout sonant principle,
and they did not hesitate to accuse those who employed it of slander. Even
some of Luthers Catholic opponents felt that the initial accusations had
gone too far. Cajetans focus on theses 7 and 58 at Augsburg can be seen as
tacit acknowledgement that Luthers accusers had suspected heresy
where there was none.37
A second issue concerned who had the right to judge whether a state
ment was heretical: a restricted group trained in scholastic theology, or
the learned public who read the pamphlets of Reuchlin and his support
ers. Reuchlin himself distinguished between pious and learned theolo
gians and his opponents in Cologne. His humanist supporters identified
this distinction with their own broader claim that the ones most qualified
to interpret Scripture were those who could study the text in the original
languages rather than those who had the proper academic credentials.
The impact of Reuchlins Defensio can be judged by the frequent use of the
(Causa Lutheri) 15171524. Die Anfnge der Reformation als Frage von Politik und Recht
(Lbeck: Matthiesen, 1970), 2932; Peter Fabisch and Erwin Iserloh, Dokumente zur Causa
Lutheri (15171521), 2 vols. (Aschendorff: Mnster, 1988), 1:293309.
37On Cajetans careful reading of and response to Luther, see Jared Wicks, Roman
Reactions to Luther: The First Year, 1518, CHR 69 (1983): 521562, esp. 538551.
term theologist in humanist correspondence and publications from 1513

on. While Reuchlin may not have intended to go so far, his more enthusi
astic supporters developed the implications of the Defensio to challenge
the theologians monopoly on the right to judge theological discourse.
The corrosive consequences of these unresolved issues can be seen in
Bonifacius Amerbachs reaction to the Paris theology facultys condemna
tion of Luther in 1521:
They thunder only that it is heretical, scandalous, offensive to pious ears and
the like, without citing Scripture, undermining his foundation, or giving rea
sons for what they call errors. But if this ought to be the manner of con
demning heretics henceforth, there will be no need to maintain so many
colleges of priests and theologians, since anyone from the number of chief
censors whose character is more senseless than lead, or thicker than wood,
or blunter than a pestle, can condemn with such words and concepts, where
it is done not with sacred letters but with force, not with reasons but with
authority, not with a collection of scripture passages but with bundles of
wood.38
A significant and influential public audience now called into question a
procedure whereby a relatively small group of academic experts had the
authority to police theological discourse and to condemn propositions
removed from their context without giving a more detailed rationale for
their judgment. In the wake of the Reuchlin affair, charges of academic
heresy leveled by scholastic theologians became an object of derision
rather than something to be feared.39 In the second decade of the six
teenth century, theology faculties lost their moral authority to monitor
academic discourse in Germany, with fateful consequences for the early
Reformation.
38To Andrea Alciato, 11 June 1521, Alfred Hartmann, Die Amerbachkorrespondenz, vol. 2:
Die Briefe aus den Jahren 15141524 (Basel: Universittsbibliothek, 1943), 308.
39In response, scholastic theologians would change their own strategies for dealing
with ideas deemed heretical; for one example, see Mark Crane, A Scholastic Strikes Back:
Nol Bdas Apologia...adversus clandestinos Lutheranos (1529), Opuscula 1.3 (2011): 112,
http://opuscula.synergiesprairies.ca/ojs/index.php/opuscula/issue/view/3, accessed 12
July 2012.
INFLUENCES IN LUTHERS REFORMS
Fred P. Hall
Introduction
Martin Luther was born into late medieval and Renaissance Roman
Catholicism. As he matured through the churchs training system, its
teachings and demands terrified him. Coincidentally he encountered the
Vulgate Bible and often found it at odds with the church. Franz Lau called
his education and life experience, as well as the Holy Spirit working
through Scripture, the midwives of Luthers spiritual birth, which in turn
brought Luther to peace with God as he became reformer of the church
and of education.1
Influences
Home
Martin Luther was born 10 November 1483, to Hans and Margaretta in
Eisleben, and grew up in Mansfeld in Anhalt Saxony. Luthers parents
sought success for their family by thrifty living and hard work. Hans, a
peasant, and Margaretta, from an established burgher family, were both
from Eisenach. Throughout his life Luthers speech and writing reflected
the popular peasant dialect and folklore of his home town.2 Hans suc-
ceeded in copper mining and in the community:3
Many never became more than common laborers. But Hans Luder did.
Within seven years he had started his own enterprise in the copper business.
Not long after he became a member of Mansfelds city council. Less than 25
years after Martins birth, Hans and his partners owned at least six mine
shafts and two copper smelters.4
1Franz Lau, Luther, trans. Fischer (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963), 58ff.

2Julius Kstlin, Life of Luther, 2nd ed. (New York: Longmans, 1900), 21ff.
3Heiko Oberman, Luther: Man between God and the Devil, trans. Walliser-Schwarzbart
(New Haven: Yale, 1989), 83ff.; Martin Brecht, Martin Luther: His Road to Reformation, 1483
1521, trans. Schaff (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1985 (PB 1993)), 3ff.
4James M. Kittelson, Luther the Reformer (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 33.
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Hans was involved with church leadership and some clashes over clergy
monetary demands. Hans and Margarettas home included a typical late-
medieval religiosity.5 They raised Martin with discipline so harsh that it
often estranged parents and children,6 but he absorbed the determination
and work ethic of his parents.7 Though uneducated, they gave Martin a
good education, compelling him to be a good student and to succeed in
life beyond their achievements.8 After God, Luther said, he owed all to
their love in the home and their gift of his education.9
Luthers culture included superstitions of medieval Catholicism and
the devils dark realm.10 Indeed, Hans mines and woods and home were,
he believed, inhabited by elves, gnomes, witches, and spirits. Always the
other world and the next life were close at hand.11 From his childhood
Luther sensed the reality of the devil that strongly appeared in his later
views.12 This, coupled with the fear induced by medieval Catholicism, tor-
mented him until his theological breakthrough.13
Early Education
Preparing for advanced education, Luther attended the Mansfeld
Trivialschule until 1486. There he studied Latin, prayers, confessions, the
creed, the Decalogue, the Latin Vulgate Bible, the liturgy, grammar/syntax,
classical literature, and music theory. Latin schools wove religious training
into the curriculum, and prepared him for his later work in classical Latin
at Magdeburg, Eisenach, and Erfurt.14
In 1497 Luther continued his university preparations at Magdeburg
while living with the Brethren of the Common Lifea community of dis-
ciplined service. Luther was shamed by the devotion of Prince Wilhelm of
Anhalt, a frail Franciscan begging monk, who wasted away to die through
fasts and self-flagellation.15
5Brecht, Luther, 11.

6Heinrich Boehmer, Road to Reformation, trans. John W. Doberstein and Theodore G.
Tappert (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1946), 6.
7Oberman, Luther, 87.
8Bernard Lohse, Martin Luthers Theology, trans. and ed. Harrisville (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 1999), 28ff.
9Brecht, Luther, 7.
10James Atkinson, Martin Luther and the Birth of Protestantism (Atlanta: Knox, 1981),
19ff.
11Reginald W. Deitz, Luther and the Reformation (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1953), 33ff.
12Lohse, Theology, 29.
13Brecht, Luther, 11ff; Boehmer, Road, 20.
14E.G. Schwiebert, Luther and his Times (St. Louis: Concordia, 1950), 110117.
15Boehmer, Road, 17.
influences in luthers reforms51
After a year Luther left Magdeburg to complete his pre-university

schooling at Eisenach in Thuringia, near relatives of his parents.16 He lived
with Heinrich SchalbeThe most pious home in Eisenach.17 Through
the Schalbes Luther met supporters of the Franciscans, known as
Schalbes collegium, and Vicar Johannes Braun. Here Luther came to
know joyful piety. In the group gathered about Braun, songs and motets
for various voices were sung, giving Luther access to the world of music.18
Luther called Braun his very closest friend.19
Luther continued Trivialschule at the school of St. George with his best
teacher of Latin, Rector John Trebonius, and another teacher, Wiegand
Geldennupf. These teachers motivated their students beyond rote memo-
rization and strict discipline, so that Luther could read ancient authors,
give speeches, and write essays and poetry in Latin. Luther was fortunate
to have teachers who recognized his ability, gave him a quality education,
and recommend him for university.20 Eisenach was a
congenial, comfortable atmosphere dominated by strong religious convic-
tion and often the scene of stimulating conversations with distinguished
guests. One of the most frequent of these was the vicar of St. Marien [Braun],
who was also in charge of the Franciscan monastery at the foot of the
Wartburg, the Barfuesser Kloster.21
Later Luther would characterize his stay in Eisenach as one of the happi-
est periods of his life.22 Perhaps this genuine Christian witness assisted
Luther in his anguish over the next four years as he desperately sought
assurance of Gods acceptance.23
University
Luther began university studies with a host of background influences. As
his university studies mixed with his previous experiences, Luther encoun-
tered challenges that wrought significant changes in his life and attitudes.
The University of Erfurt was Germanys premium school. Located midway

18Lohse, Theology, 31.
19Oberman, Luther, 100ff.
20Kittelson, The Reformer, 39.
21Schwiebert, Times, 127f.
22Schwiebert, Times, 128.
23Kittelson, The Reformer, 40.
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between Mainz and Electoral Saxony, Erfurt never achieved political or

ecclesiastical autonomy because of competition between Mainz and
Saxony.24 In his Ninety-five Theses (1517) against the indulgences spon-
sored by the Archbishop of Mainz, Luther, of Saxon Wittenberg, tripped
into this theo-political strife. In April 1501, Martinus Ludher ex Mansfelt
[age 17] entered the liberal arts department at the University of Erfurt,
joining the bursa of Saint George at Lehmanns Bridge: As long as he was
a member of the bursa, day and night, whether he was in the house or
outside, he was constantly under the regulations and under the strict
oversight of the master of the bursa as well as of the instructors and proc-
tors of the university.25
Luther worked toward the Masters degree while preparing for the
Bachelors examination. He passed the Bachelors examination in fall 1502,
finishing thirtieth in a class of fifty seven. In early 1505 he completed his
Masters degree, ranking second of seventeen students.
Luthers university studies equipped him with the philosophical form
and theological methods that he later utilized to apply scriptural teaching
against the religious establishment of his day. His later work benefited
more from the methods of his education than from the content. In his
Reformation work Luther applied the methods skillfully, using various lan-
guages in his expositions and translations of Scripture in disputations,
theology, philosophy, ethics, and education, and in comments on ecclesi-
astical and societal matters.26 Luther held
that disputation was in itself the best method for the development of the
logical faculties. In his own case, at all events, this method was eminently
successful. He had already gained a reputation among his fellow-students as
a sharp dialectician and ready disputant, and had on this account been nick-
named the philosopher.27
Philosophy
Luthers education emphasized scholastic philosophy and theology.28
However, he later exited scholasticism to become its strongest critic.

25Boehmer, Road, 22ff.
26Boehmer, Road, 2325; Oberman, Luther, 114.
28Leif Grane, Luther and Scholasticism, in Luther and Learning, ed. Harran
(Selinsgrove: Susquehanna University, 1985), 52.
Scholasticism
Late-medieval scholastic theology included two schools: via antiqua, trac-
ing from Thomas Aquinas through Duns Scotus, and via moderna, issuing
from the English scholar, William of Occam and Gabriel Biel, a protagonist
of Occam and the via moderna. A sort of second Occam,29 Biel affiliated
with the Brethren of the Common life and was influential at the University
of Tbingen from 1484 until his retirement in 1489.
Via antiqua is associated with realism, which maintained that univer-
sals have real substantial existence.30 Via antiqua emphasized logic and
dialectic to analyze everything using Aristotelian syllogistic reasoning to
penetrate even the mysteries of God and the world beyond this life. It ele-
vated the use of human reason. Aristotle reigned supreme.31
In contrast, via moderna has been identified with nominalism, which
maintained that universals have no existence independent of being
thought, and are merely names (hence nominalism) representing noth-
ing that really exists.32 Reality is the experience of the universal principles
in the lives of individuals. Thus, Via Moderna maintained that humans
cannot penetrate the mysterious realms of God by logic, but held that
divine truth was only revealed by the Holy Scriptures, which must be
accepted through faith.33 At Erfurt, a via moderna stronghold, nominal-
ism influenced Luthers scholastic education. The leading lights at Erfurt,
Jodocus Trutfetter (from Eisenach) and Bartholomaeus Arnoldi (von
Usingen) introduced their students directly to Aristotles texts instead of
using commentaries. They interpreted Aristotle more critically, and with
more understanding, than elsewhere in Germany. Luther was fortunate to
complete his liberal arts studies in one of the most dynamic faculties in
Europe.34
Trutfetter (1460?1519) taught at Erfurt and Wittenberg. By 1504 he was
a distinguished doctor of theology at Erfurt, dedicated to the philosophy
of Occam and Biel.35 Bartholomaeus Arnoldi von Usingen (ca. 14641532)
received his M.A. at Erfurt in 1491. He was highly esteemed among his

30Anthony Flew, ed., A Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd ed. (New York: St. Martins, 1984),
299.
31Ernest G. Schwiebert, The Reformation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 245.
32Flew, Dictionary of Philosophy, 250.
33Schwiebert, Reformation, 245.
34Oberman, Luther, 116, 114.
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colleagues and was Luthers close friend.36 His teaching followed Biel obe-
diently.37 He maintained that,
Christ has redeemed the faithful from the servitude of sin and the power of
the devil, but not from the Law. Christhas given his Holy Spirit to the
Church to establish the new ceremonial and judicial laws, and he has
retained the moral law. Christ has fulfilled and perfected the law of Moses in
order that He be imitated.38
Thus, the New Law is the Lex imitationis, necessary for salvation. This
linked Usingen through Biel to the Imitatio Christi spirituality of the
Brethren. Usingens understanding of salvation as solely a gift of God
referred only to an outer structure: Salvation is unmerited; but God has
obliged himself to accept mans virtuous acts. Man provides the substruc-
ture, the substance of the act; its meritoriousness is a gift of God.39
Usingen maintained that mans free will takes the initiative to open the
door of his heart for Gods gracious assistance.40 In late-medieval scholas-
tic theology this action of human initiative is summarized with the expres-
sion facere quod in se est (to those who do what is in them), God will not
deny grace.41 Scholastics immediately preceding the Reformation taught
that God recognizes the natural human capacity to turn to him by doing
the best they can and honors that with grace to bring one to repentance,
confession, forgiveness, and justification. This is Erasmus semi-Pelagian
view that Luther opposed in The Bondage of the Will (1525).
Trufetter and Usingen applied the fundamental principles of via mod-
erna: all philosophical speculation must be tested byexperience and
reality-based reason, while All theological speculation must be tested by
the authority of the Scriptures as interpreted by the Church.42 By its tests
of experience and Scripture, nominalism became a key factor in the devel-
opment of natural science and theology. Trutfetter and Usingen formu-
lated the common core of nominalism, consolidating its fundamental
principles into a cohesive program at Erfurt. They wrote handbooks and
philosophies to introduce students to the application of nominalistic
criteria.43
36T. Kolde, Arnoldi, Bartholomaeus, in New Schaff-Herzog, 1:304.

37Heiko Oberman, The Harvest of Medieval Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), 4, 180.
38Oberman, Harvest, 118.
39Oberman, Harvest, 179. Cf. Harry J. McSorley, Luther Right or Wrong? (Minneapolis:
Augsburg, 1969), 198ff.
40Oberman, Harvest, 180ff.
41Muller, DLGT, 113.
43Oberman, Harvest, 118.
Luthers scholastic training had diverse effects. On the one hand, this
challenging climate of intellectual innovation,44 in which his study was
pursued under gifted professors, for whom he maintained high esteem,
Luther received an excellent introduction to medieval scholasticism.45
Luther learned to think in a scholastic way according tovia moderna,
and mastered the subject of theology according to late medieval stan-
dards.46 But, however, the aspect of nominalism that depended upon
doing ones best to qualify for grace increased his terror and his spiritual
assaults (Anfechtungen).47
Humanism
Humanism brought classical anthropology, including form, style and sub-
stance, from the Renaissance to the Reformation. Erasmus, Luther, and
Melanchthon were key formulators of Christian humanism.48 The influ-
ence of humanism stretched from Luthers early university attendance
through his translation work in the middle 1530s. At Erfurt Luther discov-
ered the humanists and treasured their literature.49 Later, humanism gave
Luther access to biblical languages (Greek and Hebrew), classical litera-
ture, Scripture, and the early fathers. He demonstrated astonishing knowl-
edge of the classics; e.g., during the Leipzig debate (1519), he used scriptural
and patristic sources and classical rhetoric to express basic Christian
concepts.50
At Wittenberg (from 1513), Luther used the classics, the fathers and
acclaimed language scholars, Reuchlin (Hebrew) and Erasmus (Greek).51
He encouraged exegetes to drink deeply from the Scriptures and to criti-
cize the fathers and classics when they neglected the theology of the
Scriptures.52 This principle was foundational for Wittenbergs New
Theology,53 and transformed Wittenberg into a center of biblical human-
ism.54 His writings during that period show that theological depth

46Grane, Luther and Scholasticism, 53.
47Lau, Luther, 55ff.
48Lewis W. Spitz, Luther and Humanism, in Luther and Learning, 69ff; Spitz, Luther
and German Humanism (Aldershot: Variorium, 1996); Manfred P. Fleischer, ed. The Harvest
of Humanism in Central Europe (St. Louis: Concordia, 1992), 28ff.
49Spitz, Luther and Humanism, 74.
50Spitz, Luther and German Humanism, vii.
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resulted from years of study of the Holy Scriptures and the history of early
Christianity. He did not wish to found a new church but to cleanse and
reform Christianity by a return to its original standards of doctrinal
teachings.55
Monastery
From childhood through university, Luther experienced heightened
Anfechtungen concerning his acceptance before God, exacerbated by the
gruesome deaths of several colleagues. His fear of sudden death terrorized
him. At Erfurt he searched Scripture to find peace. When lightning struck
nearby, he saw God calling him to become a monk to resolve his aggrava-
tions.56 As he relates, I took the vow not for the sake of my belly, but for
the sake of my salvation, and observed all of our statutes very strictly.57
The Augustinian requirement, humbly to love God and neighbor, exposed
his self-centeredness. This root of sin hopelessly entwined him.58 The
Erfurt Augustinian monastery introduced several influences: discipline,
scriptural orientation, the mentorship of Johann von Staupitz, Saint
Augustine, and ordination.
Discipline
Luther entered the monastery fearing Gods punishment and feeling he
must live out Gods law. Since monasteries enable such performance,
he willingly submitted to the Augustinians who, he perceived, practiced
the monastic life most rigorously. His discipline included stringent sub-
mission and obedience to Christ, the pope, the church, her teachings, his
order, and his superiors. His character, rooted in his home, school, and
university experiences, served him well in the monastery. Luther followed
the directives of the Augustinians in prayer, confession, study, mortifica-
tions and Bible memorizationoften exceeding the requirements; e.g.,
when Staupitz directed Luther to prepare for ordination, and later for
the doctorate in Holy Scriptures, Luther obeyed, although not without
protestations.59
55Schwiebert, Reformation, 426ff.

57LW 54: 338; WA TR, 4.
58Walther von Loewenich, Martin Luther: The Man and His Work, trans. Denf
(Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1986), 73.
Scripture
The day Luther entered the monastery he received a red leather-bound
copy of the Latin Vulgate Biblea significant event. Shortly afterward,
Johann von Staupitz, vicar of Augustinian convents, mandated that the
Holy Scriptures were to be read zealously, heard piously, and fervently
made ones own.60 Armed with his new Bible under these requirements,
Luthers biblical theological formation began.61 Observing Luthers inter-
est in Scripture, Staupitz directed him to memorize the Bible.62 Luther
learned the book; reading it as directed; knowing every page,63 practically
by heart, and could quote it freely in his lectures without verification, and
even cite the Bible passages, in which reference, scholars claim he seldom
made a mistake.64
Johann von Staupitz

While in the cloister Luthers mentor was Dr. Johann von Staupitz, Vicar-
General of the Observant Augustinian order and first professor of Bible at
the University of Wittenberg.65 As Steinmetz writes, Staupitzs earliest
influence seems to have been exclusively through pastoral conversations,
[as] a skilled counselor who enabled Luther to face what he feared and
resolvehis acute theological anxieties.66
Staupitz valued Augustine and biblical exposition.67 He focused on
human redemption, The dialogue between heaven and earth, between
the self-giving misericordia [mercy] of God and the dire miseria of man.
Luther called him, a preacher of grace and the cross. Staupitzs goal was
that the task of the theologian is the confession of the praise of God.68
AsLuthers superior, Staupitz directed him to study Scripture, become a
priest, become a vicar of monasteries, journey to Rome, earn his theologi-
cal doctorate, and assume the teaching position at Wittenberg. As Luthers
spiritual counsel,69 Staupitz helped him know that behind the authority
of the church, with futile religious attempts of contrition or heroic devo-
tion, stands the prior grace of the electing God whose mercy is shown

63LW 54:14, WA TR #116.
65David C. Steinmetz, Misericordia Dei (Leiden: Brill, 1968), 5.
66Steinmetz, Context, 13.
68Steinmetz, Misericordia, 1.
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inthe wounds of Christ. Luther clung to this hope for the rest of his life.70
Staupitz protected Luther following the indulgence controversy, and
introduced him to like-minded communities.71 He helped Luther under-
stand penance and forgiveness and set him on the path to the Ref
ormation.72 Luther proclaimed that he received everything from
Staupitz, being my father in the doctrine and having given birth (to me)
in Christ.73 For Luther, Staupitz was Gods agent to initiate Luthers life
work on all fronts.
Augustine
During his time of development Luther mined Augustines corpus.
Luthers knowledge of Augustine increased rapidly from 1513 to 1518 as
he struggled to interpret the Psalms and the writings of Saint Paul.74 As
Steinmetz observers, Regarding Romans 9, Luther is not drawn to the
position in the Expositio, though he knows it, but stays with the [harsher]
position of Augustine in the Enchiridion, however much he may fear that
Augustines mature position is too strong a drink for the immature.75
Though informed by Augustines Expositio of Romans, Luther maintained
the primacy of Scripture as needed for his hearers, and did not merely
echo the writings of even Augustine. In discussing the fathers, Luther
noted, Its necessary to stick to the clear Word of God and not to human
opinions.76
Ordination
Recognizing Luthers capabilities, the order called him to the priesthood
when he had completed his noviate and monastic profession in 1506. After
his ordination in 1507 he began teaching philosophy at the Erfurt order in
April 1508 and later at Wittenberg, 15081509. His studies included Gabriel
Biels work on the Mass and his expansive commentary on Lombards
Sentences (Collectorium), Occams Questiones, and other scholastic schol-
ars covering Scripture and church practices.77 Later he worked through
Biels dogmatics and history. This work reinforced Luthers nominalist
theology to prepare him for his early lectures on Lombards Sentences.
70Steinmetz, Context, 911, 19.

71Leif Grane, Martinus Noster (Mainz: von Zabern, 1994), 18, 28, 151.
72David C. Steinmetz, Luther and Staupitz (Durham: DUP, 1980), 3.
73Oberman, Luther, 152; WA Br 11:67.
76LW 54:260, No. 3695.
Doctoral Studies/Early Teaching

Luthers graduate studies, following via moderna, concentrated on
Lombards Sentences and the Holy Scriptures. Luther taught at Erfurt and
Wittenberg while completing the stages of certification for the Doctor of
Theology (15071512):78 Biblicus (Erfurt 1509), Sententiarius (Wittenberg
1509), Formatus (Erfurt 1510), Licentiatus (Erfurt 1511), and Doctor of
Theology (Wittenberg 1512). Staupitz recommended Luther as professor of
Bible at Wittenberg. Frederick the Wise paid the fee. The chancellor
granted the license, and Karstadt conferred the degree on 19 October 1512.
Effects of the Influences
Luther experienced radical changes while serving as Lectura in Biblia at

the University of Wittenberg. In 15131518 he lectured on the Psalms,
Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews, and experienced his theological break-
through. He became the reformer who, through biblical humanism, trans-
formed the university curricula and dethroned Aristotle. With the support
and assistance of the Wittenberg faculty he developed his Theology of
the Cross (theologia crucis). With the assistance of his colleague Philip
Melanchthon, Greek and Hebrew were introduced after 1518. Reflecting
the influence of humanism, Wittenberg became the center of the German
Reformation from which streamed thousands of students and reformers
to spread Wittenbergs New Theology throughout the continent.79
Teaching
During his early teaching (15131518) Luther presented his rejection of
scholastic theology and his theologia crucis. Luther considered the Psalms
to be the prayers of Christ and his interpretation concentrated on the mes-
sage of Christ. He was not a theological analyst but a listener of the Holy
Spirit, and one who proclaimed the message that he heard. This listening
was the beginning of his theological work.80 Luther became aware of
the Spirits work through the Word, which brings one under the will of
God and into union with Christ. His teaching was not from a prescribed
78Brecht, Luther, 90ff., 125ff.; Schwiebert, Reformation 230ff., 429ff.; Oberman, Luther,
139145.
80LW 10:410; Bernard Lohse, Martin Luther: An Introduction to His Life and Work, trans.
Schultz (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 29.
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curriculum but from the understanding of Christ he gained from prayerful

listening to the Holy Spirit through the Word.81
Luther also listened to the message of the church and her teachers and
by using nominalist methods he compared them with Scripture. Where
the authorities and teachers differed from the Word of God, he called for
disputations to present the differences for discussion. Through his Christo-
centric approach Luther emphasized the issues of humility, pride, judg-
ment, trust, and ones personal relationship with God. Christs humility on
the cross, e.g., showed how everyone must humble themselves under
Gods judgment to receive his grace: Luther was particularly concerned
with questions about the righteousness of God and the justification of
people. Even in the early lectures, Lohse writes, it was characteristic that
Luther considered every question from the standpoint of damnation and
salvation, from sin and grace, or from the attempt to realize oneself in
contrast to receiving the alien righteousness of Christ.82
Luther stated the basis of his lectures on Psalm 69:
For surfeit now reigns to such an extent that there is much worship of God
everywhere, but it is only going through the motions, without love and
spirit, and there are very few with any fervor. And all this happens because
we think we are something and are doing enough. Consequently we try
nothing, and we hold to no strong emotion, and we do much to ease the way
to heaven, by means of indulgences, by means of easy doctrines, feeling that
one sigh is enough. And here God properly chose the things that are not to
destroy the things that are. For one who from a sincere heart considers him-
self to be nothing without a doubt is fervent and hastens toward progress
and that which is good.83
The emphasis was obedience, humbly submitting to Gods judgment. This
is the life of continual repentance.84 The contrite sinner, in union with the
righteous Christ in his suffering and death, is raised with Christ in his res-
urrection and ascension.85 Luthers Theology of Humility became his
theologia crucis and justification by faith. As he had experienced, the
Psalms apply to those with Anfechtungen to affirm them in their despair,
and to give them hope.
In Romans, Luther encountered the obedience of faith (Rom. 1:5).86
As in the Psalms, the disciple is humbled in union with Christs humility.
81Brecht, Luther, 130ff.; LW 10:219, 294.

82Lohse, Luther, 29.
83LW 10:351.
84Oberman, Luther, 162; LW 31:25.
85LW 10:351384.
86LW 25:5.
Trusting the promises of God leads to justification by faith and life in the
Spirit. This trust was important as Luther came to his Reformation break-
through, discovering the power of God hidden under the contrary and not
expressed through the obvioustheologia crucis rather than theologia
gloria.
Breakthrough
From his university days until ca. 1518, Luther continued to be troubled
regarding his assurance of salvation. As he learned more of Augustine and
his teaching of predestination, Luthers Anfechtungen heightened his
dread that, despite his monkery, God had not elected him.87 Humanistic
research led him to the fathers and Scriptures so the Holy Spirit could
work through Scripture to bring him to his theological and spiritual break-
through. His breakthrough occurred incrementally from 15091519.
1509. Luthers marginals on Augustines works indicate both his interest
in Augustine and his realization of the contradiction between Aristotle
and the churchs teaching. Integrating Augustines arguments into his lec-
tures, Luther depended on Scripture against the arguments of reason
human philosophy cannot comprehend Scripture. Faiths questions must
be resolved through Scripture, otherwise, philosophy has violated the
Word of God.88
15131515. Through the Psalms, Luther learned obedience, repentance,
faith and trust. The Spirit works through Gods Word to defeat
philosophy.89
15151516. In Romans, Luther found his breakthrough regarding the
righteousness of God: (1:17) Only in the Gospel is the righteousness of
God revealed (that is, who is and becomes righteous before God and how
this takes place) by faith alone, by which the Word of God is believed.
For the righteousness of God is the cause of salvation. And here again, by
the righteousness of God we must not understand the righteousness by
which He is righteous in Himself but the righteousness by which we are
made righteous by God. This happens through faith in the Gospel.90 (3:20)
Therefore, grace alone justifies.91 In Romans 3:21, however, God still
87Lau, Luther, 59.

89LW 10:4.
90LW 25:151ff.
91LW 25:242.
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required self-control over carnal weaknesses, For grace is not given with-
out this self-cultivation.92
1518. In Explanations of the Ninety-five Theses, Theses 1 and 2, Luther
referred repentant Christians to the priest who pronounces Gods for
giveness because Christ gave his followers authority to forgive the
repentant.93
1519. From Galatians, Luther proclaimed that God forgives those who
hear the word of Christ, confess their sins in his name, and trust that God
forgives them and draws them to himself through Christ (Gal. 2:15f, 21).94
This completed Luthers incremental breakthrough. Through Scripture,
the Holy Spirit led him to his breakthrough and guided his later work as
pastor, expositor, reformer and educator, influencing thousands of stu-
dents throughout Europe.
Opposition to Scholastic Theology

Study and teaching of philosophy, theology, and Scripture showed Luther
contradictions between scholasticism and Scripture which he resisted:
Smoke of the earth has never been known to lighten heaven; rather it blocks
the stream of light over the earth. Theology is heaven, yes even the kingdom
of heaven; man, however, is earth and his speculations are smoke.95
Luther criticized Biels theology and rejected the facere quod in se est,
demonstrating his independence from this aspect of nominalism.96 Using
scholastic methods and Scripture he opposed scholasticism and late-
medieval Catholic theology.
Luthers Disputation Against Scholastic Theology (1517), theses 2030,
attacked Biel claiming that an act of love without Gods grace ... is impos-
sible for the natural man. Indeed, Luther railed against the idea that
natural man could prepare himself for Gods saving grace by his own
efforts and natural powers.97 Other theses include rejection of the view
that doing all that one is able to do can remove the obstacles to grace
(33), as well as affirmation that nature necessarily glories and takes
pride in every work which is apparently and outwardly good (37) and that
we do not become righteous by doing righteous deeds but, having been
92LW 25:244.
93LW 31:83ff.
94Oberman, Luther, 165; LW 27:220f, 241ff.
95Oberman, Dawn, 93-103, citation on 94.
96Oberman, Dawn, 101.
97Schwiebert, Reformation, 455; LW 31:10ff.
made righteous, we do righteous deeds (40). The Disputation opposed

scholasticisms perversion of Augustine with Aristotle: 43. It is an error to
say that no man can be a theologian without Aristotle; 44. Indeed, no one
can be become a theologian unless he becomes one without Aristotle.98
When tested by Augustine and Scripture scholasticism was proven
Aristotelian rather than Christiandeparting from early Catholicism.99
Luther expressed this departure:
If a man receives grace by doing what is in him, it seems impossible
that not everyone or at least the majority of men might be saved
When man is proud, sins, etc., does he do such a work by himself or is
it done by another? Of course, he himself does it and by his own
strength. Therefore, on the contrary, if he does what is in him, he
sins.100
Therefore Luther rejected scholasticism. Using Augustine, nominalism,
and Scripture, he replaced Aristotles priority with his theologia crucis.101
Theologia Crucis and the Holy Spirit

For Luther, the essence of true theology is theologia crucis,102 as expressed
in his commentary on Psalm 5:12, The cross alone is our theology.103 God
can only be known by his revelation in the cross of Christs sufferings.
Christians share those sufferings in union with Christ. God is not known
by human religious activity reaching up to God, but by God, hidden in the
shame of human sin, suffering, and death on the cross, reaching down to
sinful humanity. The Holy Spirit draws us to God to see his love revealed
in this mystery of the cross.104 Luthers conception of the Holy Spirit
begins with his understanding of theologia crucis. In his comment on
Psalm 32:8, I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go,
98LW, 31:11-16.
100LW, 31:68ff.
101While opposing primary influences of Aristotle, Luther often used his methods in
Gospel presentation. This is interpreted as continuity from pre-Reformation scholasticism
to post-Reformation Protestant scholasticism. See D.V.N. Bagchi, Sic et Non: Luther and
Scholasticism, in Protestant Scholasticism, ed. Trueman and Clark (Carlisle: Paternoster,
1999), 14-15; Richard A. Muller, Scholasticism, Reformation, Orthodoxy, and the Persistence
of Christian Aristotelianism, Trinity Journal, n.s., 19.1 (1998): 94-96. Cf. Lohse, Theology, 40f.,
for Luthers approach to God is through the lowness of ones own cross, not by reason.
102Paul Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther, trans. Schultz (Philadelphia: Fortress,
1966), 25.
103WA 5:176.
104Regin Prenter, The Churchs Faith, trans. Jensen (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1968), 38ff.
64 fred p. hall
Luther summarizes his theologia crucis as he paraphrases God as a

pastor:105
This is where I want you to be. You ask that I deliver you. Then do not be
uneasy about it; do not teach Me, and do not teach yourself; surrender your-
self to Me. I am competent to be your Master. I will lead you in a way that is
pleasing to Me. You think it wrong if things do not go as you feel they should.
But your thinking harms you and hinders Me. Things must go, not according
to your understanding but above your understanding. Submerge yourself in
a lack of understanding, and I will give you My understanding. Lack of
understanding is real understanding; not knowing where you are going is
really knowing where you are going. My understanding makes you without
understanding. Thus Abraham went out from his homeland and did not
know where he was going (Gen. 12:1 ff.). He yielded to My knowledge and
abandoned his own knowledge; and by the right way he reached the right
goal. Behold, that is the way of the cross. You cannot find it, but I must lead
you like a blind man. Therefore not you, not a man, not a creature, but I,
through My Spirit and the Word, will teach you the way you must go. You
must not follow the work which you choose, not the suffering which you
devise, but that which comes to you against your choice, thoughts, and
desires.106
The life of faith, in theologia crucis, is complete submission, taught, led,
and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Through obedience in suffering, the
Holy Spirit brings believers into union with Christ in his sufferings for
their sin. He bears their sin, and they share in his righteousness. This is not
Imitatio Christi, but Gods grace working through his gift of the obedience
of faith.
Luthers discipline of study, his understanding of both the usefulness
and weaknesses of the tools of humanism and nominalism, his loyalty and
submission to the authority of Scripture, and his growing awareness of the
work of the Holy Spirit propelled him into his roles of reformer of the
church and of German education.
Conclusion
The above influences contributed to Luthers life work in his diverse call-
ings. He had assimilated Scripture and established the Reformation upon
it. He was transformed from one fearing Gods wrath into a bold protago-
nist of the powerful God who rescues the faithful.
105Psalm 32:10.
106LW 14:152.
Luthers capacity for hard work combined his parents example and
their demands of him. In studies he mastered the materials. He sought
Gods favor in relentless monasticism and mercilessly disciplined his body.
He mastered the languages and content of the Bible to find peace with
God. His self-discipline released from within him his seemingly limitless
capacity to maximize his life space in service for his Lord.
Luthers dependence upon the Holy Spirit working through Scriptures
was the most significant influence in his life and work. Humanisms
workad fontesprovided him an authentic foundation in Scripture and
the teachings of true Catholicism in the church fathers. As he assimilated
these resources he led his attack against the errors of the church and her
teachers.
Luther began his Reformation work by rejecting important elements of
the scholastic theology he had received from Biel through Trutfetter and
Usingen. He opposed as Pelagian the teaching that mans free will can take
the initiative to open the door of his heart to receive Gods gracious assis-
tance to receive Gods gift.107 Rather, Luther depended upon the Holy
Spirit to bring together Christs cross with the lives of repentant, faithful
followers according to theologia crucisthe New Wittenberg Theology.
Luthers inclusion of the humanities in the communication of his work
revolutionized education across Europefrom elementary to university.
He went beyond dialectics or Aristotelian logic to promote Ciceronian
rhetoric, history, poetry, classical and biblical languages, Latin drama, and
the natural sciences. Luthers humanism replaced scholastic dialectics
with rhetoric, because Scripture contains rhetorical statements, not a
collection of syllogisms. Rhetoric was important as Luther presented
Scripture as the carrier of Gods truth. Alongside this he emphasized
the Holy Spirits working through Scripture to bring about spiritual
awakening.
When Luther used the methods of nominalism to test, by Scripture, the
teaching of the church, he found himself in a battle of authorities. In his
95 Theses he appealed to the authority of the pope to overturn indul-
gences and lost. At Leipzig he appealed to the authority of the councils
and lost again. He thus declared that Gods authority, expressed in Holy
Scriptures, ruled over the authorities of pope, councils, or their magiste-
rium, saying (1520), And now farewell, unhappy, hopeless, blasphemous
Rome! The wrath of God has come upon you in the end, as you deserved,

66 fred p. hall
and not for the many prayers which are made on your behalf, but because
you have chosen to grow more evil from day to day!108
Luther and Melanchthon called for the reconstitution of education in
Germany to reform the churchs understanding and preaching of the gos-
pel. Aristotle and Plato had to be abandoned because their ancient pagan
philosophy opposed the teaching of Scripture. Preparation in biblical lan-
guages was necessary to understand Scripture and Luthers lectures and
fully appropriate his theologia crucis.109 Luthers treatises, To the Christian
Nobility (1520) and To the Councilmen of all Cities in Germany That They
Establish and Maintain Christian Schools (1524) proposed general educa-
tion (male and female) to promote spiritual growth and good citizenship.
It included the best features of humanism alongside Christian training.
Luther claimed that this plan would enrich community life by teaching
the Gospel and founding public libraries. Students would learn the Gospel,
languages, Scripture, the fathers, and the history of the church. These
reforms were adopted in several German cities in 1524.110
Influences on Martin Luther, beginning with the tough discipline of
Hans and Margaretta, followed by rigorous studies in university and mon-
astery and capped by his dependence upon the powerful work of the Holy
Spirit through Gods Word produced a man whose influence subsequently
reformed the church and education. His influence still permeates the lives
of the faithful today.
108WA 6:329.
110LW 45:344.
PASTORAL EDUCATION IN THE WITTENBERG WAY
Robert Kolb
Curriculum lies close to the heart of every culture; the execution of the
plan for educating the common people and its leadership shapes the daily
lives of all. Changes in the social, economic, political, ideological, and reli
gious perceptions of both leadership and the general population effect
changes in the plan for formal and informal learning in every society. One
example of this is found in the redefinition of what it means to be Christian
instituted in Wittenberg as Martin Luthers insights into Scripture grew in
the course of his personal engagement with the biblical texts on which he
was lecturing at the university there in the 1520s.
Luther had grown up with an expression of Christianity which relied on
human performance of good works, chiefly the sacred works prescribed in
the rituals of worship and daily life, to maintain the relationship between
the sinner and God. Through his engagement with Scripture as monk and
as academic theologian, on the basis of personal experience and of pre
suppositions bequeathed him by his Ockhamist instructors, the young
Wittenberg professor came to define Christianity as Gods approach to
human beings, as a God of conversation and community. God came to sin
ners with his Word, framed partly in terms of his expectations for their
performance of his will, to be sure, but centered in his promise of forgive
ness of sins, life, and salvation.1 This refocusing of the nature of the
Christian faith demanded the refocusing of requirements for pastoral
ministry and the preparation for pastoral service. In Wittenberg a new
curriculum developed to serve this redefined church. That promise,
Luther believed, was made effective through the death and resurrection of
the Incarnate Word Jesus of Nazareth, the second person of the Trinity.
The Wittenberg professor came to view the Christian life as grounded in
trust in Christ. Because of the mystery of the continuation of sin and evil
in the lives of Gods chosen people, their lives must be constantly listening
to his expectations, which drive them to repentance, and to his promise,
which renews their life through their trust in Christ. Luther labeled Gods
expectations, in a specifically focused, technical sense, law and his
1See Robert Kolb, Martin Luther, Confessor of the Faith (Oxford: OUP, 2009), 4271.
68 robert kolb
promise gospel. (He recognized broader uses of both terms in Scripture,

of course.) In the distinction of law and gospel, Gods expectations for his
human creatures, and Gods re-creative promise of new life through
Christ, Luther saw and taught the fundamental rule for understanding
Gods Word addressed to his people in the Bible.
Philip Melanchthon joined Luther on the Wittenberg faculty in the
midst of the senior colleagues development of his new definition of being
Christian. In his opening address at the university in 1518 Melanchthon
not only issued his famous call for general curricular reform in the arts
or humanities. He also called specifically for reform of the curriculum in
theology since theology really demands the highest possible capacity
for thinking, for intensive concentration, and for precision in analysis.
Because the basis of theology lies in texts in Hebrew and Greek, the mas
tering of these languages was absolutely necessary for future study on the
theological faculty, he asserted.2 Melanchthons vision for the educational
reforms of biblical humanism merged with and grew from Luthers vision
for reform in church and theological faculty.3
His achievement of the degree of Doctor in Biblia in 1512 had imposed
upon Luther the obligation of lecturing on Scripture. Methods of biblical
interpretation in the Late Middle Ages varied significantly; university and
monastery often presented different approaches to the treatment of the
text.4 Luther announced in the published version of his first lectures on
Galatians (delivered 15161517, published 1519) that readers would find
there a different kind of commentary: a testimony of his faith rather than
a traditional scholastic analysis of the text.5 His narrative approach paved
the way for and influenced the style of the homiletical commentaries of
some of his disciples.6 It did not determine the more general form in
2MSA 3:40; Michael Beyer, et al., ed., Melanchthon deutsch. Bd 1. Schule und Universitt,
Philosophie, Geschichte, und Politik (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1997), 5760.
3See Helmar Junghans, Martin Luthers Einflu auf die Wittenberger Univer
sittsreform, in Die Theologische Fakultt Wittenberg 1502 bis 1602, ed. Dingel and
Wartenberg (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt; 2002), esp. 70; and Robert Kolb, The
Pastoral Dimension of Melanchthons Pedagogical Activities for the Education of Pastors,
in Philip Melanchthon: Theologian in Classroom, Confession, and Controversy, ed. Dingel
et al. (Gttingen: V&R, 2012), 2942.
4Christopher Ocker, Biblical Poetics before Humanism and Reformation (Cambridge:
CUP, 2002).
5WA 2:449, 1631; LW 27:159.
6Cyriakus Spangenberg, e.g., among his seven homiletical commentaries on Pauline
epistles, Ausslegung der Ersten Acht Capitel der Episteln S. Pavli an die Ro[e]mer (Strassburg:
Samuel Emmel, 1566); see Robert Kolb, Learning to Drink from the Foundations of Israel,
Cyriakus Spangenberg Learns Hermeneutics from Luther, and Preaching and Hearing in
pastoral education in the wittenberg way69
which published lectures from the university podium were processed

or appeared in print, however. They generally followed the style of
Melanchthons published lectures, something of a combination of new
humanistic linguistic and rhetorical analysis with medieval methods
which offered glosses on words and phrases and scholia presenting longer
comment on the ideas of the text. In addition, Melanchthon emphasized
the organization of these ideas for preaching and teaching in the form of
topics (loci communes).7
Melanchthons vision of theological education materialized in a plan
for the studies of a student of theology, composed around 1529, widely
circulated in manuscript before its initial publication in 1537. It also
shaped Wittenbergs revised theological curriculum introduced in 1533.
What had already emerged in practice as the Wittenberg way of educating
pastors over the previous decade took on formal structure. Peter Lombards
Sententiae had disappeared, replaced by a course of study consisting
almost completely of biblical studies. The 1533 program prescribed that
lectures be given on Romans, the Gospel of John, Psalms, Genesis, and
Isaiah, along with Augustines De litera et spiritu.8 Melanchthons earlier
informal plan commended, in addition to these books, Galatians (along
with Luthers commentary of 1519), Colossians (and his own commentary
and his 1521 Loci communes), either Matthews Gospel or Lukes as prepa
ration for John, Deuteronomy, and the minor prophets.9 Two aspects of
these plans are noteworthy. Melanchthon wanted more from his students
than merely a knowledge of the text. They were also to cultivate the ability
to teach; his humanistic principles led him to creative combinations of
rhetoric, directing the delivery of the biblical message to the lives of hear
ers and readers, with dialectic, shaping the thinking of the students and
Luthers Congregations, Village Pastors and Peasant Congregations, in Luthers Heirs

Define His Legacy, ed. Kolb (Aldershot: Variorum, 1996), XIII, 112, 1337; Simon Musaeus,
Richtige vnd Reine Auslegung des Ersten Buchs Mosy/Von den dreyen Grossmechtigen
Reichen (Magdeburg: Kirchner, 1576); Nikolaus Selnecker, Der gantze Prophet Jeremias
Item/Der Prophet Sophonias/Ausgelegt (Leipzig: Jacob Brwald, 1566), and five similar vol
umes on the prophets.
7On Melanchthons exegetical contributions, see the works of Timothy J. Wengert,
especially The Biblical Commentaries of Philip Melanchthon, in Philip Melanchthon:
Theologian, 4376; Philip Melanchthons Annotationes in Johannem in Relation to Its Pre
decessors and Contemporaries (Geneva: Droz, 1987); Law and Gospel, Philip Melanchthons
Debate with John Agricola of Eisleben over Poenitentia (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997); and
Human Freedom, Christian Righteousness. Philip Melanchthons Exegetical Dispute with
Erasmus of Rotterdam (Oxford: OUP, 1998).
8UUW 1:155.
9MBW 3: 670677.
70 robert kolb
the parishioners engagement with and use of the message. To that end, in
accord with the predominant humanist method of teaching and learning,
he encouraged the gathering of individual passages of Scripture into orga
nized topics, Aristotles , so that Gods Word could make its impact
on the lives of believers. Second, Melanchthon insisted that the message
be delivered as Gods threat against sinners and his promise of salvation to
the chosen, whom the Holy Spirit brings to faith through law and gospel.
He also stressed the preservation of Christian freedomin Luthers sense
of living by faith in Christs liberation from sin, death, and the devil for
service to the neighbor.10
Melanchthon intended his original Loci communes of 1521 to serve as a
handbook for the study of Romans.11 Teaching on the basis of the topics
Paul treated in Romans should serve to bring hearers to know Christ and
recognize the benefits he bestows.12 The systematization of the message
in the form of lectures on the topics set forth in Melanchthons Loci com
munes as those necessary for good preaching and teaching slowly crept
back into the curriculum alongside exposition of the biblical text. Before
Melanchthons death he or select students offered lectures on his later
editions of the Loci. In addition, the text of the Nicene Creed served as the
basis for lectures on the fundamentals of biblical teaching.13
As Timothy Wengert points out, the program of curricular reform
which Melanchthon set in place in 1533, like his Loci communes itself, was
designed to carry out the same task in the theological faculty for which he
had composed the Augsburg Confession in the forum of the imperial diet:
to present, preserve, and propagate the biblical message as expressed in
the true and perpetual consensus of the catholic church of God.14 The
Wittenberg theologians carried out that task not only in person in the lec
ture hall but also in print, taking advantage in yet another way of Johann
10MBW 3:670677; cf. Oswald Bayer, Melanchthons Theologiebegriff, in Der Theologe

Melanchthon, ed. Frank (Stuttgart: Thorbecke, 2000), 2627; cf. Robert Kolb, Teaching the
Text, The Commonplace Method in Sixteenth Century Lutheran Biblical Commentary,
Bibliothque dHumanisme et Renaissance 49 (1987): 571585.
11Volker Stolle, Erkennen nach Gottes Geist: die Bedeutung des Rmerbriefs des
Paulus fr Melanchthons Loci communes von 1521, Lutherische Theologie und Kirche 21
(1997): 190218.
12MSA 2,1:58.
13Hans-Peter Hasse, ed., Philipp Melanchthon: Enarratio secundae tertiaeque partis
Symboli Nicaeni (1550) (Gtersloh: Gtersloher Verlagshaus, 1996).
14See Wengerts essay in this volume, Philip Melanchthon and Wittenbergs Reform of
the Theological Curriculum; on the statutes for the Wittenberg theological faculty, cf.
UUW 1:154.
Gutenbergs inventive genius and the commercial savvy of their printers.

Their lectures appeared as commentaries. Among the earliest strategies
for propagation of their message was what Wengert has dubbed the
Wittenberg Commentary, a series of treatments especially of the New
Testament by the Wittenberg group and others more or less closely associ
ated with them.15
Luther and Melanchthon, with their Wittenberg colleagues, Justus
Jonas, Johannes Bugenhagen, and Caspar Cruciger the Elder, defined their
goal in lecturing to be the preparation of pastors and teachers for the
churches and schools of Saxony, the German lands in general, and much
of western Christendom. As they appeared in print, Luthers commentar
ies often adhered to the testimony-style of presentation which he adver
tised in 1519, but some of his commentaries also were recorded in
something closer to the traditional medieval method of gloss and scholia.
The latter style and method dominated the published commentaries of
his colleagues. That method does not as readily permit ascertaining to
what extent Melanchthon, for example, strove in the classroom to direct
the students from what they were learning about the words of Scripture to
their application in pastoral ministry although some indications suggest
that he indeed endeavored to do precisely that on occasion.16 Luthers
narrative-catechetical style in many of his commentaries enables us to
hear him telling the students how to preach, teach, and give pastoral
care on the basis of the text. For instance, in his mirror of the prince in
the form of comment on Psalm 82 (1530), Luther reminded readers of the
obligation of pastors to rebuke the sins of the princes or municipal offi
cials in their communities. Instead of encouraging revolt, he argued, it
would lead to much more rebellion if preachers would not condemn the
vices of their rulers. For failing to hold rulers accountable makes the mob
angry and discontented, and it also strengthens the tyrants wickedness.
The preachers become accomplices of such evil and bring guilt upon
themselves when they avoid such a preaching of repentance to govern
ment officials. For the office of the Word is not the office of a courtier or
a hired hand. He is Gods servant and minion.17 Such directives and rec
ommendations occur quite frequently in Luthers published lectures.
The vast majority of their students took their Wittenberg education
into service in congregations as preachers or teachers of Gods Word.
15Wengert, Melanchthons Annotationes, 31.

16Kolb, Pastoral Dimension, 3840.
17WA 31,1:196,19198,18, esp. 197,3198,2 and 198,1213.
72 robert kolb
Afew succeeded their professors at the university podium. Some of them,

like their instructors, published these lectures as commentaries for the
benefit of pastors and teachers as they prepared to carry out their duties at
the parish level. Most Evangelical theological faculties within German
speaking lands and other nations followed the pattern set down by the
Wittenberg curriculum rather closely. Daniel Gehrt has analyzed sources
which reveal what lectures were being offeredand over which examina
tions were being givenin the 1550s and 1560s in Jena. Evidence of several
kinds reveals lectures on Melanchthons Loci and on a parallel textbook
which reproduced only passages of Scripture, not other comments from
the fathers or logical analysis of the texts, the Syntagma of Johannes
Wigand and Matthaeus Judex.18 Wigand himself had offered such lectures
at the end of the 1550s in Jena. Biblical lectures included those on Genesis,
Exodus, the Psalter, the prophetic books, Johns Gospel, the Passion of
Christ, Romans, 1 Corinthians, and Galatians. Disputations and exercises
with instructors broadened the educational program of the university,
sharpening skills in rhetoric and dialectic in particular.19 Theological
learning undoubtedly followed a similar path at most universities staffed
by Luthers and Melanchthons students.
Four of the most prominent of their students, David Chytraeus (1531
1600), Nikolaus Selnecker (15301592), Tilemann Heshusius (15271588),
and Johannes Wigand (15231587), provide examples of the continued use
of the Wittenberg ideals of preparing students for service to church and
society by shaping their understanding of the biblical message and their
ability to apply it to their hearers. These Latin commentaries arose out
of classroom lectures.20 These commentaries digest, if not dehydrate,
theclassroom material for the printed page, and thus the echo of what
18Johannes Wigand and Matthaeus Judex, , seu Corpus doctrinae Christi,

exnovo testamento tantum (Basel: Oporinus, 1558); see Robert Kolb, The First Protestant
Biblical Theology. The Syntagma of Johannes Wigand and Matthaeus Judex, in
Hermeneutica Sacra, ed. Johansson, et al. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), 189206.
19Daniel Gehrt, Die Harmonie der Theologie mit den studia humanitatis.
Pfarrerausbildung in Jena um 1558 im Spiegel des Diariums des Adam Sellanus, in
Institutionen und Formen gelehrter Bildung um 1550Die Leucorea zur Zeit des spten
Melanchthon, ed. Matthias Asche et al. (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, forthcoming).
20For specific mention of the lectures behind these commentaries, see, e.g., David
Chytraeus, In Genesin Enarratio (Wittenberg: Crato, 1561), A2a; Chytraeus, In Exodvm
Enarratio, tradita (Wittenberg: Crato, 1561), A5b. Heshusius mentioned that he had given
lectures on Romans in Heidelberg when professor there ten years before the publication of
his commentary, had repeated them for pastors during his ministry in Magdeburg, and was
finally bringing them into print from the University of Jena in 1571: Explicatio epistolae Pavli
ad Romanos. Tradita piae iuuentuti in Academia Iensi (Jena: Huttich, 1572), (?)4a.
actually happened in the classroom becomes somewhat faint. Nonetheless,

these four second-generation Wittenberg commentators lectured and
then turned the material of their lectures to print for the same reason: to
aid the pastoral ministry and proclamation of the gospel of the next gen
eration of pastors. The four represent a range among those who were des
tined in their generation, the immediate successors to the Wittenberg
reformers, to sort out significant elements of the Wittenberg way of teach
ing Gods Word.
Melanchthon arranged for his famulus David Chytraeus to be called to
the University of Rostock, where he remained till his death, exercising
strong influence on Nordic, Baltic, north German, and Austrian churches.
Although personally friendly with Melanchthon to the Preceptors death
and little involved in the public controversies over his theology, Chytraeus
held to Luthers understanding of the Lords Supper quite strictly and
opposed the Crypto-Philippistic interpretation of Christs presence in the
sacrament. Nikolaus Selnecker also rejected the Crypto-Philippism among
some colleagues in electoral Saxony but pursued a generally Philippist
course in the controversies of the 1550s and 1560s. Selnecker served as a
court preacher and electoral official in electoral Saxony and Braunschweig-
Wolfenbttel and as professor at the Universities of Leipzig and Jena.
Tilemann Heshusius and Johannes Wigand, on the other hand, became
critics of Melanchthons positions on a series of issues, especially the free
dom of the will and the presence of Christ in the Lords Supper; they were
leaders among the Gnesio-Lutherans. Wigand held professorships at the
Universities of Jena and Knigsberg, Heshusius at Rostock, Heidelberg,
Jena, and Helmstedt.
All four shared the same (Wittenberg) view of Scripture. As Heshusius
simply asserted in the preface of his Psalm commentary, the Holy Spirit is
the author of the Psalms and they have therefore the highest author
ity.21 Selnecker developed his understanding of Gods work in creating
the Scriptures and in guiding the churchs use of them in a prolegomenon
to his Genesis commentary.22 Wigand emphasized the continuing role of
the Holy Spirit, as perpetual teacher of the church of God, in aiding read
ers and teachers of Scripture throughout the history of Gods people.23
21Tilemann Heshusius, Commentarivs in librvm Psalmorvm (Helmstedt: Jacob Lucius,

1586), A1a.
22Nikolaus Selnecker, In Genesin, privm librvm Moysi (Leipzig: Rhamba, 1569),
A1a-A4b.
23Johannes Wigand, In XII. Prophetas minores Explicationes svccinctae (Basel: Quecum,
1566), *2a-*7b.
74 robert kolb
Allfour viewed their lectures in much the same way Wigand and Judex
described the purpose of their commentaries in their Syntagma: as sup
port for the public ministry of teaching Gods Word so that, like the
Ethiopian eunuch when hearing Philips commentary on Isaiah 53 (Acts
8:35), their hearers might receive redemption through the Messiah.24
Chytraeus not only published a number of his university lectures; he
also issued a handbook for beginning students in the theological faculty,
drawn up on the basis of an earlier oration on Melanchthons loci com
munes, his On Beginning the Study of Theology Properly25 and Prolegomena
to Reading the Text of the Evangelists, both of which followed and adapted
Melanchthons plan for theological education, with references to Luthers
practice of theology as well.26 Luthers prescription that theological study
presume the medieval lectio of the text and proceed with oratio, meditatio,
and tentatio27 had found an echo already in Melanchthon and provided
Chytraeus, too, with his foundation. Prayer launches proper theological
study, seeking Christs teaching and governing minds and hearts through
his Holy Spirit, so that we recognize him as our redeemer, together with
the Father and the Holy Spirit, call upon him, and worship him, arousing
fear of God and faith as well as obedience in the lives of the students.28
24From the extension of their into the Old Testament, Johannes Wigand
and Matthaeus Judex, , SEV CORPVS DOCTRINAE Veri & omnipotentis Dei, ex
ueteri Testamento tantum... (Basel: Oporinus, 1563), 7.
25David Chytraeus, De studio theologiae recte inchoando (1560; Wittenberg: Johannes
Crato, 1566). See Thomas Kaufmann, Universitt und lutherische Konfessionalisierung. Die
Rostocker Theologieprofessoren und ihr Beitrag zur theologischen Bildung und kirchliche
Gestaltung im Herzogtum Mecklenburg zwischen 1550 und 1675 (Gtersloh: Gtersloher
Verlagshaus, 1997), 257285; and Marcel Nieden, Die Erfindung des Theologen. Wittenberger
Anweisungen zum Theologiestudium im Zeitalter von Reformation und Konfessionalisierung
(Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 9195. Chytraeus contemporary in Wittenberg, Viktorin
Strigel, composed a similar, though very brief, work, entitled ratio discendi theologiam,
dated 28 September 1557, with many of the same ideas. It appeared in print fifteen years
after Strigels death, in Reformed circles, in Enchiridion theologicvm, ed. Christoph Pezel
(Bremen: Theodor Gluichstein, 1584), A21a-A28a; see Gehrt, Die Harmonie der Theologie.
Strigels posthumously published, work, Ratio legenda Scripta Prophetica et Apostolica, ed.
Christoph Pezel (Herborn: Christiopher Corvinus, 1587), contains very brief introductions
to each biblical book but does not advise students on how to structure their studies.
26David Chytraeus, in lectionem Textvs Evangelistarum quorum seriem
versa Pagella indicabit (Rostock: Jacobus Transylvanus, 1564).
27Bayer, Melancthons Theologiebegriff, 4447; Timothy J. Wengert, Melanchthon,
biblischer Theologe der Neuzeit, in Melanchthon und die Neuzeit, ed. Frank und Kpf
(Stuttgart: fromann-holzboog, 2003), 2831.
28Chytraeus, De studio theologiae, 1a-b. Thomas Kaufmanns assertion that Chytraeus
approach is in no way to be taken for granted in a student of Melanchthon, Universitt,
262, misrepresents Melanchthons view and the practice of most of his students. The start
ing point of study with prayer and fear of God resembles the hermeneutical steps outlined
Following prayer, reading the sacred texts assiduously and attentively

was necessary for learning the biblical message, with careful consider
ation of grammar and syntaxChytraeus recommended Franciscus
Vatablus Annotationesfocusing on the narrative, and then the sense
of a section, and finally on individual words.29 Chytraeus followed
Melanchthons advice of reading two chapters a day so that the student
can complete reading Scriptures 1,360 chapters in two years; preferably
they should be read in both Latin and Luthers German translation. Next,
the student should recognize how the passages fit into the rule of faith,
which Chytraeus called, according to Wittenberg usage, the body of doc
trine (corpus doctrinae) or theological topics.30 That was what had to be
drilled into the minds and hearts of Christian hearers. The Apostles and
Nicene Creeds could aid in organizing ones own topics, as could John of
Damascus De Orthodoxa Fide, Peter Lombards Sentences, and Wittenberg
materials, including Luthers catechisms, Melanchthons Loci, or his
Examen Ordinandum, composed as a guide for preparing candidates for
ordination for their examinations in 1552/1554. Fourth, students must
master dialectics and rhetoric because these tools help ascertain the true
meaning of what is written. Practicing dialectic and rhetorical skills in
public disputations constituted the fifth pillar of theological education,
followed by mastering Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Seventh, reading the
commentaries of the ancient fathers of the church aids learning, and
alongside them Chytraeus urged recourse to the commentaries of Luther
and Melanchthon. Eighth, reading histories of the church strengthened
the students theological underpinnings, and finally Chytraeus added
philosophical studies, in moral philosophy and in the wisdom of
ancientpagans such as Plato, Seneca, Cicero and others. In addition, he
in Augustines De doctrina christiana, Book 2, an important source for pre-critical

Protestant exegetes. See Muller, PRRD, 2:458459, 492494, 502503.
29Those Wittenberg heirs who did not develop the rules for learning theology as
extensively as Chytraeus did insisted, for instance in Wigands words, on the diligent and
continual reading and hearing of the divine Word, for in the assiduous meditation on the
divine Word the Holy Spirit ignites and strengthens the gifts of knowledge, faith, consola
tion and new life more and more, In Epistolam S. Pavli ad Galatas Annotationes
(Wittenberg: Johann Crato, 1580), 10.
30On the development of the term corpus doctrinae in Wittenberg usage, see Irene
Dingel, Philip Melanchthon and the Establishment of Confessional Norms, LQ 20 (2006):
146169, republished in Dingel et al., Philip Melanchthon: Theologian, 161180. Wigand and
Judex viewed their assembly of Biblical passages under topics as necessary for proper read
ing (and teaching) of Gods Word in such a way that people would come to faith and to
faithful Christian living, ...ex ueteri Testamento, 6.
76 robert kolb
advised acommand of physics, mathematics, arithmetic, astronomy, and

geography.31
Chytraeus tenth rule completing theological learning left the class
room and books, setting the entire process in the midst of daily life: stu
dents must finally learn to see the light of Gods promises through the
cross, through suffering and the assaults of Satan. Since theology is not
simply cognition and knowledge but in particular takes place in the use
and practice of true piety, it is not enough that the mind is instructed with
great erudition and wonderful turns of phrase. It is also necessary that in
the will and heart the true feelings of piety, repentance, faith, comfort,
patience, prayer, and love of God and neighbor are present. It is not pos
sible to experience these feelings apart from genuine sorrows, fears, and
spiritual struggles, a sense of terror and consolation, of faith and joy in
the Lord.32 For the study of theology, like the heart of the teaching of the
gospel, aims at the consolation of afflicted consciences suffering under the
wrath of God, beset by sorrow for their sins. Learning that requires the aid
of the Holy Spirit.33
His earlier Prologomena to Reading the Text of the Evangelists had briefly
treated prayer and cross as well as the meditation that was to sort out the
messages of law, which leads to repentance, and gospel, which God gives
to the disconsolate, repentant sinner who comes in faith to the cross of
Christ.34 Following Melanchthons emphasis on proper method as the
key to effective study and communication, Chytraeus demonstrated how
students should organize what they read into usable topics, suitable for
preaching and teaching in such a way that cultivates faith and obedience
among their hearers. Three principal approaches or methods are possi
ble for presenting and learning knowledge in any field of study: The
31Chytraeus, De studio theologiae, 2a-26a. In his In Genesin Commentarius, 810,

Selnecker outlined nine regulae as well, but his list deviated somewhat from Chytraeus.
They embraced: turning alone to the divine Scriptures; viewing Christ as the center of the
Scriptures; being diligent in reading, teaching, and consolation; seeing the whole of divine
teaching as a body; studying grammar, dialectic, the languages, history, ethics, physics,
chronology, topography, etc.; reading the approved and authentic teachers of the church;
listening to the voice of the ministry of the church; diligently observing and practicing the
distinction of law and gospel; and exercising repentance and prayer. On 1315 he set forth
another four-step guide to considering the text: first, reading the narrative; second, consid
ering the chief circumstances in each chapter; third, considering the topics treated and
how they fit into the body of Christian doctrine; and fourth, considering the specific
aspects and factors in each chapter as well as in the whole book.
32Chytraeus, De studio theologiae, 26b.
33Chytraeus, De studio theologiae, 27b-28a.
34Chytraeus, , A2b-A3b.
synthetic method moves from the prior, from the foundational elements,
through to the goal or end of the discipline being practiced. The analytic
method moves from the goal or purpose for which the knowledge serves
back to its origins. The definitive method sets down definitions of the
chief elements of the teaching in a kind of synopsis and then breaks down
and explains the parts of these chief elements. Chytraeus pointed out that
the source of knowledge in theology, Christian teaching, does not gain its
principles from nature or by logical demonstration on the basis of experi
ence but only from Gods Word revealed through the prophets and apos
tles.35 Precisely this approach of careful reading, sorting insights gleaned
from reading the Biblical texts into appropriate topics for teaching, and
application in the exercise of true piety constituted the goals that he was
trying to foster in his students at his Zaraphath on the Baltic coast when
he published his lectures on Deuteronomy.36
In the lecture hall Chytraeus concentrated on the exposition of the text
of Scripture although he also aided students in identifying what they
should take from the text to combine with other passages under specific
topics that would shape the minds and hearts of their hearers. His com
mentary on Genesis states its goal as the cultivation of true piety and
knowledge of God and of helping the young become accustomed to read
ing the Sacred Scriptures, just as Timothys mother and grandmother did
with him (2 Tim. 3:1417). Chytraeus applied his goal of familiarizing stu
dents with the text and then helping them learn method by suggesting
the topics found in texts and placing them in the proper locations within
the body of doctrine so that the students could better grasp what Gods
will and Word are. Chytraeus recalled that he had experienced this him
self when Melanchthon had taken him as a boy of thirteen into his home,
demonstrating that Wittenberg theory had translated itself into prac
tice.37 In 1572 he asserted that in the actual arena of true theology and the
Christian religion, God is at work daily to arouse, nurture, cultivate, and
preserve the faith of his people through two instruments, through his
Word given in reading and careful meditation, and through the daily exer
cise of true repentance, faith, prayer, obedience, sorrow, and consolation
35Chytraeus, , A7b-B1b.
36David Chytraeus, In Devteronomivm Mosis Enarratio (Wittenberg: Schleich and
Schne, 1575), b4b-b5a.
37Chytraeus, In Genesin, Enarratio, A3b-A7b. Chytraeus repeated the same description
of his goals in his lectures in In Exodvm Enarratio, A4b-A5b; in Explicatio Micheae et Nahvmi
Prophetarvm (Wittenberg: Crato, 1565), B4a; and Commentarivs in Matthaevm Evangelistam
(Strassburg: Rihel, 1556), a2b-a4a.
78 robert kolb
in the school of holy cross (without which no one can be viewed by God as
a Christian).38
Chytraeus commentaries display the Wittenberg theory at work. His
commentaries listed loci which, e.g., Moses had taught in each biblical
chapter at the beginning of his commentary chapter and used these chap
ters to organize his treatment of the text while at the same time drawing
their content from the text. He helped students orient their reading of
Exodus with a careful exposition of the distinction of law and gospel,
which could be used as a test of their ability to apply the insights of
the book pastorally to their congregations.39 His contemporaries also
employed the loci method. For example, Selneckers became quite exten
sive, and he explained to readers that proper reading of the prophetic and
apostolic writings always needed to refer parts of the text to the proper
topical categories.40
Chytraeus commentary on Leviticus, edited by his brother and col
league Nathan, spends 108 pages presenting the Biblical understanding of
sacrifice and sacrifices before coming to the actual text of the book
because students had to understand that
the foundation of our salvation and the basis of our entire religion and the
Christian faith is the teaching concerning the priesthood and the sacrifice of
the Son of God, our Lord and redeemer Jesus Christ, sacrificed for us on the
altar of the cross, which alone merited for us the forgiveness of sins, righ
teousness, and eternal life and without which the faith of the pious and their
calling on God and their hope of eternal life in the face of Gods wrath, in the
sorrows of repentance, in all dangers and the struggle of death could not be
attained or acquired.41
It is not clear whether Chytraeus offered this orientation to the students in

his lectures or prepared it for publication as part of the commentary that
preachers would use.
38David Chytraeus, In Nvmeros sev qvartvm librvm Mosis Enarratio (Wittenberg: Crato,
1572), A7a. Cf. his similar definition in In Psalmvm Confitemini (Rostock: Ferber, 1590),
23, 4.
39Chytraeus, In Exodvm Enarratio, 1014; cf. a similar section in his In Nvmeros
Enarratio, 13; and in In Devteronomivm Mosis Enarratio, 16; Explicatio Micheae, B4a; and
Commentarivs in Matthaevm, 1a-5b. His Wittenberg contemporaries also stressed the foun
dational nature of their law-gospel hermeneutic, see, e.g., Tilemann Heshusius, Explicatio
epistolae Pavli ad Galatas (Helmstedt: Lucius, 1579), 7b-8b, 1a-7b.
40Nikolaus Selnecker, In Acts apostolorvm Annotatio grammatica... (Jena: Thomas
Rhebart, 1567), B4b-B5a.
41David Chytraeus, In Leviticvm, sev tertivm librvm Mosis... (Wittenberg, 1569), 1.
Like his contemporaries, Chytraeus believed that Christ stands at the

center of Old Testament as well as New.42 Johann Wigand explained
the importance of reading Daniel: no prophet computes the time of the
Saviors advent more precisely and speaks of his death and victory. Reading
the prophets in general helps focus on the articles of faith which are fully
detailed in the New Testament, especially on the promises of Christ and
his benefits, as well as on the history of the church under attack from its
enemies, and the story of the faithful throughout history. But most impor
tantly, they witness to the Savior and Redeemer.43
This brief overview reveals how four Wittenberg students continued
their instructors emphasis on exposition of the biblical text within the
framework of pastoral concern for the life of repentance and the forgive
ness of sins. Marshalling current humanistic insights into the nature and
effective use of language and Luthers conviction that Gods Word is per
formative, re-creative, as it calls to repentance and bestows new life
through Christ, these Wittenberg disciples continued to serve the practi
cal needs of the church, at least theoretically, within the framework of the
Wittenberg understanding of the believers living in the midst of the battle
between God and Satan, sin and the life of faith and obedience.
42See Chytraeus, , A2a-A3b, where he places the teaching that God is

creator and Christ is redeemer at the center of his body of doctrine; cf. Chytraeus, In
Exodvm, A4b; In Devteromivm, 35; Historia Iosvae imperatoris popvli Israel, terram promis
sam occupantis & distribuentis (Rostock: Myliander, 1577), 16.
43Johann Wigand, Danielis Prophetae Explicatio brevis (Jena: Huttich, 1571), (:)2a-2b.
Cf. Wigands similar comments in his In Esaiam prophetam Explicationes breves (Erfurt:
Mechler, 1581), A2a-A5a. Wigand also asserted that Christ is the center of New Testament
books as well, see his In Evangelivm S. Iohannis Explicationes (Knigsberg: heirs of Johannes
Daubmann, 1575), 1b-2a.
FRANOIS LAMBERT DAVIGNON (ca. 14871530): EARLY ECCLESIAL
REFORM AND TRAINING FOR THE MINISTRY AT MARBURG
Theodore G. Van Raalte
Introduction
It was after one of our convivial conbibialsfull of the usual stories and
wisecracksthat Dr. Muller privately suggested Franois Lambert
dAvignon as yet another Reformer in the wings ripe for further study.1
Herewith my thanks to Dr. Muller for the suggestion, together with my
deep appreciation for his excellence in writing and teaching, his confi-
dence in his students (which I needed), and his affable personality.
Franois Lambert was the first ordained monk of France to embrace
openly the doctrines of Reform, ca. 1522, and the first Protestant ex-monk
to enjoy holy matrimony.2 In the eight short years that remained for him
he produced significant commentaries on all the Minor Prophets, the
Song of Songs, Luke, and Revelation, besides a doctrinal compendium,
and treatises on marriage, ministerial calling, and the Lords Supper,
among others.3 He also received an appointment as founding theology
professor in Philip of Hesses University of Marburg in 1527.4 This school
came about in part due to what most scholars have treated as Lamberts
1Compare McGoldrick: Lambert...a reformer who, like Hamilton, has not received
attention commensurate with his contributions to the Protestant cause. James Edward
McGoldrick, Luthers Scottish Connection (Cranbury: Associated University, 1989), 41.
2Lambert married Christina of Ertzberg on 13 July 1523. Luther married Katharina von
Bora on 13 June 1525. Several older biographies exist. Gerhard Mller, Franz Lambert von
Avignon und die Reformation in Hessen (Marburg: N.G. Elwert, 1958); Roy Lutz Winters,
Francis Lambert of Avignon 14871530: A Study in Reformation Origins (Philadelphia: United
Lutheran Publication House, 1938); Louis Ruffet, Lambert dAvignon le rformateur de la
Hesse (Paris: J. Bonhoure, 1873); Friedrich Wilhelm Hassencamp, Franciscus Lambert von
Avignon (Elberfeld: R.L. Friderichs, 1860). The following dictionary entries are noteworthy:
Haag1, 6:238243; Johannes Tilemann, Vitae Professorvm theologiae, qui in illvstri Academia
Marbvrgensi, a sva fvundatione, ad nostra vsqve tempora docvervnt (Marburg: Muller, 1727),
113.
3The definitive working bibliography is: Reinhard Bodenmann, Bibliotheca
Lambertina, Pour Retrouver Franois Lambert: Bio-bibliographie et tudes, ed. Fraenkel
(Baden-Baden: Koerner, 1987), 9213. See also: Reinhard Bodenmann, Une lettre oublie
de Franois Lambert dAvignon, BSHPF 142 (1996): 170173.
4The University of Marburg is now the oldest Protestant university.
82 theodore g. van raalte
own proposals before and after the Synod of Homberg in 1526, where a
new church government was proposed with elected church officers and a
school for training preachers.5 Because of its uniqueness and early date,
substantial study of this church order has occurred. Unfortunately all
scholars seem to have ignored the detailed arguments of William J. Wright
who showed that many of its ideas derive from Philip of Hesse rather than
Lambert and were designed for Philip to have very tight control of the
church. At any rate, further study must begin with Wright.6 The present
essay entertains a related and completely unexplored question also very
important for study of the early stages of the Reformation, namely, how
Lambertsand to some extent, Philipsintellectual and pedagogical
practices fit within the late medieval and early modern periods, particu-
larly in the context of the training for the ministry and the establishment
of Philip of Hesses University of Marburg.
Where does the early reformer Franois Lambert fit? Judging by some
of the secondary literature, he castigated the sophists and scholastics
5The articles produced after the Synod were: Reformatio ecclesiarum Hassiae juxta
certissimam sermonum Dei regulam ordinate in venerabili synodo per elementissimum
Hessorum principem Philippum anno 1526 die 20 Octob. Hombergi celebrata, cui ipsemet
princeps illustrissimus interfuit, in Die evangelischen kirchenordnungen des sechszehnten
Jahrhunderts, ed. Richter (Wiemar: Landes Industriecomptoirs, 1846), 5669. Winters
writes, Because the Reformatio ecclesiarum Hassiae was a child born before its time, the
dream of Francis Lambert of Avignon was not realised until the Reformed Churches were
established in Switzerland, France, Holland, Scotland, and America. Winters, Lambert:
Reformation Origins, 129. See, however, note 6.
6On the Reformatios origins, Philip Schaff summarized some older scholarship, It is a
matter of dispute, whether Lambert originated these views, or derived them from the
Franciscan, or Waldensian, or Zwinglian, or Lutheran suggestions. Philip Schaff, History of
the Christian Church, 2nd. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1910), 460. The discussion contin-
ued in Winters, Lambert: Reformation Origins, 9395, 122; W. Maurer, Franz Lambert von
Avignon und das Verfassungsideal der Reformatio Ecclesiarum Hassiae von 1526, ZfK 48
(1929): 208260; and Alton O. Hancock, Philip of Hesses View of the Relationship of
Prince and Church, ChH 35.2 (1966): 165167. Wright, however, showed that Philip of
Hesse (and behind him, Melanchthon and Luther) played a much more important role in
devising the Reformatio than Lambert. Further, Philip wanted the entire clergy subject
to him (his idea, not Luthers). William J. Wright, The Homberg Synod and Philip of
Hesses Plan for a New Church-State Settlement, SCJ 4.2 (1973): 2346, esp. 3033, 4546.
Unfortunately more recent authors have not noticed Wrights arguments and have thus
fallen into some of the traps of the older discussion. Rainer Haas, Lamberts Paradoxa
und die hessischen Kirchenordnungen, Pour Retrouver Franois Lambert, 257272; Willem
vant Spijker, Gemeente en Ambt bij Franciscus Lambertus, Ambt en Aktualiteit, ed.
Folkerts et al. (Haarlem: Vijlbrief, 1992), 7386; Eugne Vassaux, Eglises rformes dEurope
francophone: Droit et fonctionnement (Paris: Harmattan, 2008), 3738; Gury Schneider-
Ludorff, Philip of Hesse as an Example of Princely Reformation: A Contribution to
Reformation Studies, RRR 8.3 (2006): 301319.
reform & training for the ministry at marburg 83
who preceded him and had little appreciation for philosophy.7 But does
this make him as such a humanistic Biblicist as one author has said, or a
mere Biblicist in opposition to a humanist scientific ideal, as another
has said?8 Varied descriptions like this need not surprise us. Like many
figures of his time, Lambert worked within a surging humanism that was
finding its way within the established academic and scholastic structures.
As a Protestant, he was also fighting hard for the legitimacy of reading
Scripture in its own right, without allowing philosophy to serve as a princi-
pium. Instead of trying to label Lambert, we need to pay attention to the
variety of motifs that his written works and his context present to us, and
describe their conjunction and interaction.9 The present essay examines
some of Lamberts rhetoric against the scholastics who preceded him and
balances this with various scholastic motifs present in his writings, in his
disputational theses, and in the pedagogy of the University of Marburg
all to make the argument that he carried out his biblical exegesis and
polemics with significant recourse to existing scholastic methods. His
main concern was that nothing would undermine the priority of Scripture
in theology.
The Need for Well-Trained Ministers
For the first decades of the Reformation the Protestant movement and
even the reforming movement within the Roman Catholic Church suf-
fered from an acute shortage of learned and faithful leaders. Three recent
authors provide statistical cases. Jonathan Reidwho helpfully includes
Lambert within the connections of what he has termed the Navarrian
Networkdescribes the situation faced by the reforming bishop of
Meaux, Guillaume Brionnet, in 15201521. Brionnet found only fourteen
of his secular clergy capable of preaching the gospel whereas fully forty-
three could not even rightly administer the sacraments. Sixty others were
given a year to improve but most were dismissed after the year.10 Matters
7Winters, Lambert: Reformation Origins, 104, 113114, 133. Winters significantly over-
states the case as an examination of Ruffet will show. Ruffet, Lambert dAvignon, 8993,
9798.
8Vant Spijker writes of Lamberts verzet tegen een humanistisch wetenschaap-
sideeal, and speaks of a superficial Biblicism, whereas Winters gives the designation,
humanist-Biblicist. See Winters, Lambert: Reformation Origins, 114; vant Spijker,
Gemeente en Ambt bij Franciscus Lambertus, 86.
9Mullers UC provides a good model.
10Jonathan Reid, The Kings SisterQueen of Dissent: Marguerite of Navarre (14921549)
and her Evangelical Network (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 1:164165. The connections of Lambert to
were even worse when parishes opted to break with the Roman Church.
Burnett states, With the Reformation [of Basel, in 1529], then, the number
of clergy serving Basels church dropped from over four hundred to about
a dozen.11 James Blakeley found that when Lausanne officially embraced
the Reformation in 1536 about fifty percent of the laity converted, but only
1.6 percent of the clergy.12 Guillaume Farel, a contemporary of Lambert
whom Reid also counts as a member of the Navarrian Network, laboured
hard to secure pastors for the Pays de Vaud: three in 15289; about eight
shortly after; about forty by 1536 when Calvin arrived in Geneva, also to be
recruited by Farel.13
Luther and Melanchthon had a great concern for good civil leaders,
especially in view of the Peasants War, and argued that it was the respon-
sibility of the secular authorities to educate the young. This, together with
the need for trained Protestant preachers, moved the young Philip the
Magnanimous of Hesse to establish a system of Latin trivial (i.e. using the
trivium) grammar schools as well as the University of Marburg.14 Only one
type of curriculum was approved in the trivial schools, so as to standardize
the education in preparation for the university: Latin grammar school
curriculum with religious instruction.15 As part of the process of convinc-
ing others of his plan, Philip called a Synod at Homberg, held from 20 to 22
October 1526. He had Lambert present theses for disputation regarding
the religious re-organization of Philips territories. When Philip judged
that Lambert had defended his theses successfully, a committee, to be led
the Navarrian Network are not very strong, but are described by Reid on 277279 and 312.
Reids thesis, based on extensive analysis of correspondence, is that Marguerite of Navarre
servedat times covertlyas patron of a wide network of reforming, Reformed, and
evangelical leaders. See esp. 257260.
11Amy Nelson Burnett, Teaching the Reformation: Ministers and Their Message in Basel,
15291629 (Oxford: OUP, 2006), 27.
12James J. Blakeley, Popular Responses to the Reformation from Without in the Pays
de Vaud (PhD diss., University of Arizona, 2006), 177. Blakeley estimates that up to fifty
percent of the Reformed clergy in the Pays de Vaud up to 1600 were actually from France
hence the title of his dissertation (see also pages 183184).
13Jason Zuidema and Theodore Van Raalte, Early French Reform: The Theology and
Spirituality of Guillaume Farel (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011), 99100.
14Lambert himself had pleaded with Francis I in a dedicatory letter of 1526 for the free-
dom to establish true ministers of the Word of God in each place. He argued that for the
last several centuries such men had been absent. Ruffet, Lambert dAvignon, 6566.
15William J. Wright, The Impact of the Reformation on Hessian Education, ChH 44.2
(1975): 193. The specification of Latin was in opposition to the German schools favored by
the merchants and burghers. Philip wanted a higher education to prepare more students
for university which would in turn equip students for better civic and religious leadership.
He gave the university professors strict control over the curriculum of the preparatory
schools, to ensure uniformity. See Wright, The Impact, 194.
by Lambert, was established. It produced the Reformatio ecclesiarum

Hassiae, of which articles 29 through 34 dealt with the establishment of a
new education system. Article 29 was entitled, Concerning the University
of Marburg. Although this plan never was passed into law as such, a series
of edicts did follow which established much of it, and on 1 July 1527 effected
the institution of the University of Marburg.16
Wright has shown that in the decade prior to 1526 the humanistic
influences that had earlier brought advances in Hessian education were
waning and matriculations to universities by Hessians were down by forty-
one percent. However, a few decades later, when Philips reforms were in
effect, matriculations rose by sixty-five percent.17 Philip had inherited a
somewhat chaotic situation wherein higher education was underappreci-
ated. His university was to be key to resolving this problem.
Regulations of the University of Marburg
Article 29 of the Reformatio envisioned a number of the late medieval

facultiestheology, law, medicine, and mathematics (a mix of the practi-
cal and liberal arts)as well as language professors, reflecting the human-
ist advances of the past century.18 Philip appointed eleven professors: two
for law, one for medicine, two for poetry, one each for Hebrew and Greek,
two for rhetoric and dialectics, one for pedagogy, and two for theology.19
The latter two were Adam Kraft, who was soon busied with other tasks,
and Franois Lambert, who for the next three years took the lions share
of teaching theology.20 Evidently the University sought to provide a
well-rounded curriculum from the start, one that included instruction
not just in the Queen of the Sciences, but also in other non-biblical aca-
demicsubjects. This was Lamberts institutional context. The universitys
16Wright concludes, Although the document itself was never enacted as law, by the
year 1532, the settlement described in the Reformation had been implemented by a series
of individual princely orders, with the exception of a few minor details. Hence the
Reformation was neither a unique, revolutionary creation of the Frenchman Lambert, nor
the ineffectual outcome of a simple debate. It was basically the new settlement, or as the
title announced, the Reformation of the Hessian Church... with emphasis on, ...by the
grace of his most beneficent prince, Philip, and with the special participation of his high-
ness. Wright, The Homberg Synod, 46. See note 5 above for the full Latin title.
17William J. Wright, Evaluating the Results of Sixteenth Century Educational Policy:
Some Hessian Data, SCJ 18.3 (1987): 415, 420.
18Richter, ed., Reformatio ecclesiarum Hassiae, 6869.
19Winters, Lambert: Reformation Origins, 103.
20Mller, Lambert in Hessen, 52; Winters, Lambert: Reformation Origins, 104.
curriculum will be described momentarily; the preparatory schools for

boys used Melanchthons curriculum.21
Two documents were adopted on 31 August 1529, while Lambert served
at the University. The first was Philips Freiheitsbrief, where he stipulates
the textbooks and authors to be studied in each faculty.22 For our pur-
poses, we note simply the use of the Greek classics (Homer, Hesiod,
Aristophanes, Theocrates) for Greek language study, the use of Latin clas-
sical sources for rhetoric (Cicero, Quintillian), the use of Aristotle for natu-
ral philosophy (physics, the heavens, the soul, etc.), and Agricola and
Trapezuntius for philosophy and dialectics.23 The latter two authors show
that the school was definitely oriented in a humanist direction.24 This fits
the wider picture of European university curricula, for starting by the late
1520s the more intricate medieval scholastic logic and the use of Aristotle
in metaphysics gave way to humanist-type dialectics until a revival of the
former began in the 1570s.25 Logic was still taught from 15301580, but it
was more obviously appointed to the practical end of serving rhetoric. The
mention of Melanchthons rhetoric and dialectic later in the Freiheitsbrief
underlines this, for although he included almost all of Aristotles material,
he did not observe Aristotles key distinction between the Analytics, which
covered arguments of certainty, and the Topics, which covered probable
arguments.26 Rather, Melanchthon had the material of the Analytics serve
rhetoric. As his career progressed, Melanchthon moved away from the
Ciceronian-Agricolan dialectics and further toward Aristotle.27 At any
rate, Philips University included Aristotle, but mostly as mediated through
Melanchthon, Trapezuntius, and Agricola.
21Wright, The Impact, 193194. Note that schools for girls were also to be established,
though with a more immediately practical focus.
22Bruno Hildebrand, ed., Urkundensammlung ber die Verfassung und Verwaltung der
Universitt Marburg unter Philipp dem Grossmthigen (Marburg: Elwertsche Universitts-
Buchhandlung, 1848), 618.
23Hildebrand, ed., Urkundensammlung der Universitt Marburg, 1011.
24On these authors, see Peter Mack, A History of Renaissance Rhetoric (Oxford: OUP,
2011), 3947, 5675.
25Mack, Renaissance Rhetoric, 21, 31, 108, 123, 183184; Burnett, Teaching the Reformation,
116, 120121; Brian Copenhaver and Charles B. Schmitt, Renaissance Philosophy (Oxford:
OUP, 1992), 96.
26Wilhelm Risse, Die Logik Der Neuzeit (Stuttgart: Frommann, 1964), 1:1416. Observe
also the distinct trajectories he identifies per his division of chapters; Mack, History of
Renaissance Rhetoric, 110; Kusukawa, Lutheran Method by Philip Melanchthon, 347. This
does not mean that Melanchthon ever regarded arguments based on Scripture as having
only a probable authority. See Quirinius Breen, Christianity and Humanism (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1968), 102103.
27Risse, Die Logik der Neuzeit, 1:79.
The second document, the statutes of the University, described the

classroom activities in more detail. Philip sets the tone of this document
with an introductory statement on the wisdom of the ancient saying that
a republic where philosophers begin to rule or kings to philosophize is
blessed.28 Before long we encounter the expected medieval practice of
holding disputations, but it is held up side by side with the newer human-
ist practice of the declamation. Statute three regarding the choosing of
the dean of the arts faculty stipulates his task as follows: in order that
he may preside over the declamations and disputations, distributed at the
appointed times, of each of the professors and their students.29 According
to statute five, the school does not want to make the students utterly hos-
tile to their studies by overworking them. Yet, though they would enjoy
lecture free days, this freedom was granted, so that they might diligently
repeat all of the lectures in their minds, and by private and public decla-
mations and disputations apply themselves more eagerly and in this
way be made more keen for learning.30 Presumably the teachers and stu-
dents were familiar enough with such declamations and disputations that
detailed instructions in the statutes were not necessary.31 We only learn
that they were to occur every Saturday afternoon. This statute, the ninth,
specified, For the advantage of the students we have above all ordered
that on every Saturday afternoon (when those who are doing their work
diligently in the Paedagogium are also present32), one of the scholars
[scholastici] or auditors [auditoribus] shall hold a declamation of learned
and appropriate argument, or else a disputation that is no less fitting.33
28Quapropter Rempublicam tunc felicem fore, sapienter ille dixit, si quando aut phi-
losophi regnare aut reges philosophari coeperint. Hildebrand, ed., Urkundensammlung
der Universitt Marburg, 19. Compare Wright, The Impact, 182.
29ut declamationibus et disputationibus per singulos Professores atque discipulos
in tempore disponendis praesit. Hildebrand, ed., Urkundensammlung der Universitt
Marburg, 21.
30Non ut a studiis interim sint adolscentes prorsus alieni, sed quo praeauditas lectio-
nes singulari diligentia animo revolvant, publicisque et priuatis declamationibus atque
disputationibus sese propensius accomodent atque in hunc modum ad discendum red-
dantur vegetiores. Hildebrand, ed., Urkundensammlung der Universitt Marburg, 22.
31In a later period the regular practice was that the professor wrote the theses and the
student defended them orally. In the present statute, the professors receive mention before
the students, suggesting the same. per singulos professores atque discipulos. Keith
Stanglin, Arminius on the Assurance of Salvation: The Context, Roots, and Shape of the Leiden
Debate 16031609 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 5658.
32The Paedagogium was the preparatory school for boys in Marburg, to prepare them
for university matriculation. All of Philips other preparatory schools were to follow its
curriculum.
33E studiosorum vtilitate inprimis fore duximius, si ex scholasticis atque auditoribus
quispiam singulus Sabbatinis diebus post meridiem (praesentibus etiam iis, qui Paedagogio
The declamatio was a rhetorical exercise rooted in Ancient Greece and

Rome wherein the student was assigned a concrete situation, usually
asked to impersonate a character, and then expected to argue either pro or
con using all the rhetorical moves he knew.34 The disputatio was a more
structured exercise of logic wherein the opponens presented a thesis
against which either of two things happened. In the older Greek model his
fellow student respondents could raise objections, attempting to force
him to commit an error in logic; in the newer, early modern model, a
respondent posited an anti-thesis and the two argued against each other.35
The Marburg curriculum probably envisions the latter. Overall, the cur-
riculum allowed for both the more scholastic disputation that overtly
tested logic and the more humanist declamation that overtly tested
rhetoric.
The development of theses for disputation at the university would have
fallen quite naturally to Lambert, given the significant number of his pub-
lished collections of theses for public disputation. Indeed, it is important
to note the continuity of practice from the medieval scholastic university
disputations to Luthers ninety-five theses and the many other public reli-
gious disputations that followed in the German and Swiss territories in the
next fifty years.
Lamberts Public Disputations
Lambert himself was recruited for the Reformation partly through a pub-
lic disputation between Zwingli and himself in Zurich on 17 July 1522. For
four hours they disputed on prayers to the Virgin Mary and the saints, with
Zwingli convincing Lambert that such prayers were unscriptural. This was
when Lambert finally laid aside his religious habit.36 At the time Lambert
was on a journey for his Franciscan order. He had already come through
Geneva, Bern, and Zurich; now he quickly turned this into a religious
pilgrimage wherein he met the early Protestant leaders in Basel and then
moved on to Eisenach and Wittenberg. While in Eisenach in December of
operam nauant) declamatiunculum argumenti eruditi atque appositi aut disputationem

non minus accommodam habeat. Hildebrand, ed., Urkundensammlung der Universitt
Marburg, 25. My thanks to Albert Gootjes for translation help.
34Robert J. Penella, The Progymnasmata in Imperial Greek Education, Classical World
105.1 (2011): 7779, 85.
35Ignacio Angelelli, The Techniques of Disputation in the History of Logic, The
Journal of Philosophy 67.20 (1970): 800815.
1522 Lambert posted 139 theological theses which he prepared to defend

against any worthy opponent. No interlocutor came forward.37 Thereafter,
writing propositions seems to have come almost naturally to Lambert.
After teaching for a year at the University of Wittenberg, he left for
Strasbourg but stopped in Metz. In the winter of 1523 he prepared 116 the-
ses for public disputation, which he would defend against anyone pro-
vided that Scripture would be the only foundation for argument.38 The
defense was prevented, but the theses became his Farrago, a work that
was published in 1525 and translated into English in 1536.39 The Farrago
consists of 385 propositions which Lambert calls paradoxa or positiones.
Each one is a brief numbered proposition argued in scholastic style, with-
out ornate prose.40 Lamberts call to Marburg by Philip of Hesse also
involved theses for disputation at the Synod of Homberg (2022 October
1526). Though the architect of many of the ideas of the 148 propositions
was more likely Philip than Lambert, nevertheless Lambert played an
important part in drafting them and was also their public defender.41 Just
as he himself was secured finally for the Reformation by disputing with
Zwingli, so Lambert himself used the disputations at the Synod of
Homberg to win others.42
Exhibiting theses for public disputation, like Luthers 95, was an act
with deep medieval scholastic roots. Its role in the early Reformation has
as such not been overlooked, but the characterization of such theses as
being continuous with the medieval era, bearing strong scholastic form,
and bringing into the public a common academic pedagogical tool has not
been sufficiently emphasized. The public disputations of Lambert and
others also helped convince theological students of the necessity to prac-
tice the same in class, to be equipped for the public defense of the faith.

39Franois Lambert, Farrago omnium fere rerum theologicarum ([Strasbourg: Jo.
Hervagen, 1525]); The Summe of Christianitie, trans. Revel ([London: Robert Redman],
1536).
40Lambert recognizes the tightness of these propositions when he directs the reader to
a discussion in his other writings for a fuller discussion of the same. Lambert, Farrago,
42v.
41Franois Lambert, Apud sanctam hessorum synodum Hombergi congregatam pro
Ecclesiarum reformatione Dei verbo disputanda et deseruienda proposuit (Erphordie: Jo.
Loersfelt, 1527). For discussion, see Wright, The Homberg Synod, 2830.
42Winters, Lambert: Reformation Origins, 7376. Note the many other public disputa-
tions of the Reformation, such as those of Heidelberg (1518), Leipzig (1519), Basel (1524),
Baden (1526), Bern (1528), Marburg (1529), Rive (1534), Geneva (1535), Lausanne (1536),
Worms (1540), Regensburg (1541), Worms (1557) as well as meetings such as the Colloquy of
Poissy (1561).
With Lamberts late medieval to early modern context now clearer to

us, we should not be surprised to find scholastic motifs, even in his biblical
commentaries.
Scholastic Motifs in the Midst of Anti-Sophistic Statements
The bulk of Lamberts publications were Scripture commentaries which

grew out of his public lectures. His sources and methods have been
studied by Fraenkel, Engammere, and Hobbs. Not surprisingly, Fraenkel
concludes that the influence of Lamberts predecessors in the Order
of Franciscans is quite evident in his commentary on Luke. Lambert
overtly chose to follow the locus method because he was convinced that
comparing Scripture with Scripture in a kind of concordance method
something quite Franciscan, actuallydid justice to the ultimate divine
authorship of Scripture. He contrasted this to the Sophists who excelled
in carnal wisdom.43 Yet while Lambert polemicizes against Nicholas of
Lyra, Fraenkel shows that in fact Lambert often follows in particular
Nicholas of Lyra and Ludolphe de Saxe, as well as Pelbart de Temesvr and
Nicolas Denys.44 Engammeres study of Lamberts Canticles commentary
likewise concludes that Lamberts method has strong connections with
his predecessors in terms of reliance on allegory, as well as the precedence
of the spirit over the letter.45 Although Lamberts knowledge of Hebrew
and Greek grew between 1524 and 1530, he refused to bring this into the
pulpit, keeping his distance from both scholastic and humanist studies of
method in preaching, arguing that they undermined the preachers reli-
ance on the Holy Spirit. Hobbs correctly points out that these views also
had late medieval precedents.46 These three studies show that many ele-
ments of Lamberts exegesis were continuous with the past. They also help
explain why the authors noted at the outset of this study disagreed over
whether to call Lambert a superficial Biblicist (vant Spijker) or a human-
istic Biblicist (Winters). Whereas vant Spijkers designation is closer to
43Pierre Fraenkel, Franois Lambert, son commentaire sur lEvangile de Luc et cer-
taines traditions exgtiques de son ordre: trois sondages, Pour Retrouver Franois
Lambert, 215237 (esp. 217218, 220, 222).
44Fraenkel, Franois Lambert, 222, 226, 228230 and passim. Lyra, Temesvr, and
Denys were all Franciscans.
45Max Engammere, Franois Lambert et son commentaire du Cantique des Cantiques,
Revue dhistoire et de philosophie religieuses 70.3 (1990): 304, 309.
46Engammere, Franois Lambert, 300; R. Grald Hobbs, Franois Lambert sur les
langues et la prophtie, Pour Retrouver Franois Lambert, 273301 (esp. 282283).
Lamberts view of himself, neither term does justice to Lambert in

context.
Overall, Lambert preferred a more simple explanation of the Scrip
tures. In an early work he calls the Scholastics very deceptive theolo-
gians.47 Yet, the real issue for Lambert was not humanist versus scholastic
but both of these versus the Bible. Thus, Engammere considers Lamberts
critique of the pope to include an attack on both the humanist and scho-
lastic camps, because both are founded on the power of human reason.48
Lamberts 385 position statements in the Farrago fully agree with this
observation, for his remarks against the sophistae (he never mentions
scholastici) always have to do with particular doctrines, not their method.49
In fact at one point Lombard is mentioned approvingly.50 Once we realize
this is the case, we no longer read Lamberts slurs against the sophists as
if aimed at scholastics, but against any thinkers who in any way under-
mined the priority of Scripture. This might lead us to call Lambert a
Biblicist but, as noted, such a designation runs the risk of decontextualiz-
ing Lamberts work.
Like his theses for public disputation and his Farrago, other works were
structured by numbered theses. For instance, his work on marriage devel-
ops 69 positiones in scholastic style, ending with a more humanist set of
five poetic songs.
One important excursus within Lamberts commentaries also deserves
mention for its scholastic style: when commenting on Hosea 4:19 he writes
out a disputation on the question of the human wills freedom of choice.
Like Luther, Lambert opposes Erasmus, arguing that apart from conver-
sion the wills choice is always bound to sin. In rather scholastic fashion
since the question of whether such freedom exists (an sit?) is the whole
point of the disputationhe begins with a definition of the will itself
(quid sit?) and then proceeds to build the discussion around three fur-
therquestions, closing with 38 summarizing theses all designed to prove
one thing, namely that the will of man is captive and bound and can of
47Franois Lambert, In regulam Minoritarum, et contra uniuersas perditionis sectas

([Strasbourg: Jo. Hervagen, 1525]), d7r.
48Engammere, Franois Lambert, 305.
49Lambert, Farrago, 23v, 44v, 50v (paradoxes 90, 302, 373). See also Lambert, In regulam
Minoritarum, 17r, 20r.
50Lambert, Farrago, 39r (paradox 241). Lambert references Lombards Sentences, II dist.
4. This reference is puzzling since the topic Lambert is treating (in what sense the eucha-
rist is a sacrifice) appears in Sentences, IV dist. 912.
itself do nothing good and nothing pertaining to eternal blessedness.51

Throughout the volume the marginal notations also itemize Lamberts
proofs one by one, and note where he is answering objections. Like his
numerous theses for disputation, these are remarkably scholastic.
Other examples of scholastic motifs in Lambert include theological dis-
tinctions, such as between the visible and invisible church and between
external and internal calling.52 One could also note how many of his para-
doxa in the Farrago are enthymemes chock full of syncategorematic terms
such as therefore, wherefore, whosoever, all, only, for, it follows that, etc.
Their logical connections are tight. Also very interesting, though not nec-
essarily scholastic, is the binary structure of parallel positive and negative
articles in Lamberts Somme chrestienne of 1529, very much akin to the
double structure of Farels Summaire of the same year.53
Conclusion
Lamberts use of scholastic motifs not only makes him a teacher of his
time, but also accords well with his own premises in his Commentarii de
prophetia. When he discusses the secular sciences, his concern is that
when they become foundations to argument, they render faith uncertain.
All human sciences are not useless, but they cannot help us spiritually and
eternally. One does not need to study Aristotle before explaining the
Scriptures, argues Lambert. As long as one understands the language at
hand, only the Holy Spirit is needed for understanding.54 But even here
one must not overextend the argument. Lambert is particularly speaking
about preaching, not all learning. He is rejecting some of his past experi-
ence as an itinerant Franciscan preacher.
Outside of preaching, his own practices of writing theses and proposi-
tions, of relying on past scholastic exegetes, and of teaching at the univer-
sity level where logic and rhetoric belonged to the curriculum show that
51The disputation on freedom of choice was translated into English. Franois Lambert,
The minde and judgement of maister Fraunces Lambert of Auenna of the wyil of man
(London: John Day, 1548), See 70r-74r for the 38 theses.
52Winters, Lambert: Reformation Origins, 116118. The distinction between internal
and external calling was quite programmatic for Lambert. See Franois Lambert,
Commentariorvm...de sacra coniugio ([Strasbourg: Jo. Hervagius, 1524]), 4v.
53For Lamberts Somme chrestienne, see Mller, Franz Lambert von Avignon, 134177.
On Farels Summaire, see Zuidema and Van Raalte, Early French Reform, 1920, 29. See also
Lambert, De sacra coniugio, 7v-12v where a series of 42 contrasting pairs exhibit Gods Word
versus human invention.
54Ruffet, Lambert dAvignon, 8992.
he was not averse to learning. Indeed, he says as much, asking his readers
near the end of the discourse not to misunderstand, as if he thinks no one
can cultivate knowledge in philosophy, the sciences, and the arts (note
both philosophy and the arts receive mention). He simply wants to under-
line that they cannot bring one to God and for that reason are refuse and
filth compared to divine knowledge.55 As he says elsewhere, a university
education is useless for understanding the Bible, unless (nisi) the Holy
Spirit be present.56
One must situate Lambert in these early years of the Reformation when
the rhetoric against the established church was very strong, when areas of
agreement were not in view, and when justification for separation was
very much needed. Above all, he viewed the Reformation as a return to the
Scriptures as the sole foundation for theology. Yet already at this early
stage he finds himself training future pastors at a university and thus
working within a scholastic milieu with the reality of needing to educate
students in the categories and distinctions of theology.57 Educating and
polemicizing simply with the plain explanation of the Scriptures, apart
from any philosophy or deeper reflection on method, would soon prove
more difficult for Protestants than Lambert anticipated. His own practices
prove the point. His pedagogical situation reveals a mix of scholastic
disputations and humanist declamations while his writings evidence a
modest increase of Hebrew and Greek study together with a multitude of
short, propositional, scholastic-type arguments. We may conclude that
while his concerns were mainly biblical exegetical, neverthelessand not
unexpectedlyhe also utilized a variety of scholastic tools from his con-
text to express these concerns.
55Ruffet, Lambert dAvignon, 9798; cf. Lambert, Farrago, 13v, 14r-v (paradoxes 2, 8, 11, 12).
56nisi adsit Spiritus sanctus. Lambert, Farrago, 43v (paradox 293). Italics added.
57Cf. David V.N. Bagchi, Sic et Non: Luther and Scholasticism, in PS, 315.
PART TWO
SECOND GENERATION REFORMERS (ca. 15351565)

THE IDEA OF A GENERAL GRACE OF GOD IN SOME SIXTEENTH-
CENTURY REFORMED THEOLOGIANS OTHER THAN CALVIN
J. Mark Beach
Introduction
An inadequately explored feature of sixteenth-century Reformed theol-

ogy is how Reformed writers of that era treat the idea of a common or
general grace of God (generalis gratia Dei). To be sure, within contempo-
rary scholarship on Calvins theology, the subject of common grace has
seen periodic analysis, though without achieving a consensus on what a
general grace of God involves and implies for the whole of his theological
enterprise. Much of that scholarship has concerned itself with comparing
Calvins position to subsequent figures in theology or to some other topic
or issue, such as natural law. What is more, Calvins treatment of a general
grace, or even his idea of divine grace as such, has not been examined in
relation to his Reformed contemporarieswhich is to say, scholars have
not asked how mid-sixteenth-century Reformed theologians, besides
Calvin, may have addressed this issue.1
1The literature that treats Calvins notion of a general grace of God, that is, a grace that
is not salvific in character, is neither massive nor minuscule. Two broad interpretations of
Calvins views prevail. The first maintains that, for Calvin, while the blindness of human
depravity necessitates Gods redemptive initiative and provision, including the gift of spe-
cial revelation and the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit for redemption, God also works
in and upon all humans through a generalis gratia. This grace has at least a fourfold
effect, namely (1) the restraint of sin; (2) the retention of certain natural giftsbringing
forth positive benefits both morally, socially, and epistemically; (3) the use of earthly pos-
sessions as divine gifts for human enjoyment; and (4) the preservation of the created order
itself, which means therefore that human vocation, which is rooted in creation, cannot be
divorced from divine redemption and faithful service to God. See Herman Bavinck, Calvin
and Common Grace, Presbyterian Theological Review 7 (1909): 437465; printed in Calvin
and the Reformation, ed. Armstrong (New York.: Revell, 1909; repr., Grand Rapids: Baker,
1980), 99130, 225; Herman Kuiper, Calvin on Common Grace (Ph.D. diss., Free University
of Amsterdam; Goes, NL: Oosterbaan & Le Cointre; Grand Rapids: Smitter, 1928); Abraham
Kuyper, De Gemeene Gratie, 3 vols. (Amsterdam: Hveker & Wormser, 19021904), passim;
Quirinus Breen, Calvin and Common Grace, in Religion and Culture 5 (19231924): 119120;
131; 151152; 171172; Religion and Culture 6 (19241925): 3; idem, John Calvin: A Study in
French Humanism, 2nd ed. (Hamden: Archon, 1968), 165ff.; V. Hepp, Het Misverstand in Zake
de Leer der Algemeene Genade (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1923), 1417; Fred Bronkema, The
Doctrine of Common Grace in Reformed Theology or New Calvinism and the Doctrine of
98 j. mark beach
In this essay I shall argue that some sixteenth-century Reformed theo-

logians, contemporaries of Calvin, are not unaware of and in fact employ
either the precise language of a divine generalis gratia or make use of the
concept. Insofar as there has been some intermittent scholarship devoted
to Calvins use of this idea, and the concept is woven into the fabric of his
theology, and insofar as this concept plays a role in how Calvin could
affirm a radical human depravity alongside an acknowledgment of the
positive contributions of unsaved persons to various aspects of human
culturein art, science, and ethicsit is worth considering how other
Reformed writers from that period address these sorts of issues.
Specifically, was the language or the idea of common grace a common-
place? How was such a notion distinguished from saving grace? Did
Reformed writers, contemporaries of Calvin, parrot one another on the
idea of a non-saving grace that mitigates the full effects of human sin?
Indeed, what are the continuities and discontinuities that might be dis-
cerned and explored in this regard?
In posing such questions, this brief essay is not attempting to lay out
the entire scope of the doctrine of grace of the theologians under analysis,
either in its salvific or non-salvific sense. Instead, this essay merely
attempts to demonstrate that questions surrounding the definition of
divine grace, specifically a general grace in distinction from a saving grace,
Common Grace (Th.D. diss., Harvard University, 1928); Eugne Choisy, Calvins
Conception of Grace, in The Doctrine of Grace, ed. Withley (New York: MacMillan, 1932),
228234; Werner Krusche, Das Wirken des Heiligen Geistes nach Calvin (Gttingen: V&R,
1957), 95f.; and Paul Helm, Equity, Natural Law, and Common Grace, in his John Calvins
Ideas (New York: OUP, 2004), 347388. The second school of interpretation pertaining to
Calvins idea of common grace travels in a mildly different direction, being more cautious
in speaking about a doctrine of common grace in Calvins theology. These scholars form
an alternative consensus in detecting only the seeds or the embryonic construct of such
a doctrine. Some of these writers argue a bit anachronistically in saying that since Calvin
doesnt give a formal treatment to common grace, making it a topic of his theology, he has
no doctrine of common grace. See James William Anderson, The Grace of God and the
Non-elect in Calvins Commentaries and Sermons (Th.D. diss., New Orleans Baptist
Theological Seminary, 1976); Richard Arden Couch, An Evaluation and Reformulation of
the Doctrine of Common Grace in the Reformed Tradition (Ph.D. diss., Princeton
Theological Seminary, 1959); J. Douma, Algemene Genade: uiteenzetting, vergelijking, en
beoordeling van de opvattingen van A. Kuyper, K. Schilder en Joh. Calvijn over algemene
genade (Goes, NL: Oosterbaan & Le Cointre, 1981); Charles B. Partee, Calvin on Universal
and Particular Providence, in Readings in Calvins Theology, ed. McKim (Grand Rapids:
Baker, 1984), 6988; idem, The Theology of John Calvin (Louisville: WJKP, 2008), 116119; and
Walter Campbell Campbell-Jack, Grace without Christ? The Doctrine of Common Grace
in Dutch-American Neo-Calvinism (Ph.D. diss., University of Edinburgh, 1992), Chapter 7,
John Calvin: Common Grace in Embryo, 196235. I offer an extended survey of most of
these materials in Calvins Treatment of Divine Grace and the Offer of the Gospel, MAJT
(2011): 5663.
the idea of a general grace of god99
was not unknown among sixteenth-century Reformed thinkers, which

demonstrates that Calvin was not the sole voice working with this idea.
Calvins Reformed Contemporaries on Divine Grace
Heinrich Bullinger (15041575)

Among sixteenth-century Reformed writers the doctrine of divine grace
comes to varying degrees of strict definition. Heinrich Bullinger, for exam-
ple, Zwinglis successor at Zrich, and one of Calvins theological col-
leagues, treats divine grace in a rather formal and precise manner.2 In his
Fourth Decade, Bullinger seeks to offer a definition of grace that honors
the range of meaning that the term has within Scripture itself, for through-
out the Bible the word grace is used in a variety of ways, as is the case in
common speech. In exploring the range of meaning that is attached to the
word grace in Scripture, Bullinger notes that the gifts of God are called
grace, because they are given gratis, and freely bestowed without looking
for any recompence. Yet the apostle clearly distinguishes gift from grace
in Romans 5, for grace denotes divine favor and good-will toward us,
whereas a gift is what God bestows to us according to his good-will, such
as faith, constancy, and integrity. Thus, those persons about whom we
say, They are in Gods grace, are the very ones God dearly loves and favors
more than others. In that sense, writes Bullinger, Noah found grace in
the eyes of the Lord: Joseph found grace in the eyes of the lord of the
prison; and the holy virgin is read to have found grace with the Lord,
because she was beloved of God, and very dear unto the Lord.3 However,
2Important works on Bullinger include Emidio Campi, Heinrich Bullinger und Seine
Zeit: eine Vorlesungsreihe (Zrich: TVZ, 2004); Bruce Gordon and Emidio Campi, ed.,
Architect of Reformation: An Introduction to Heinrich Bullinger (15041575) (Grand Rapids:
Baker, 2004); Fritz Bsser, Heinrich Bullinger (15041575): Leben, Werk, und Wirkung, 2 vols.
(Zrich: TVZ, 2004); Fritz Blanke, Heinrich Bullinger: Vater der reformierten Kirche (Zrich:
TVZ, 1990); Carl Pestalozzi, Heinrich Bullinger: Leben und ausgewhlte Schriften (Elberfeld:
R.L. Friderichs, 1858); and Fritz Blanke, Der junge Bullinger 15041531 (Zrich: Zwingli
Verlag, 1942); also see the shorter treatments of Bullingers life and work given by J. Wayne
Baker, Heinrich Bullinger and the Covenant: The Other Reformed Tradition (Athens: Ohio
University, 1980), xi-xxvi; David Steinmetz, Heinrich Bullinger (15041575): Covenant
and the Continuity of Salvation History, in Reformers in the Wings (1971; reprint, Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1981), 133142; also see Justus Heer and E. Egli, Bullinger, Heinrich in
Realencyklopdie fr protestantische theologie und Kirche, ed. J.J. Herzog, et al., 3rd rev. ed.,
24 vols. (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 18961913), 3:536549.
3Heinrich Bullinger, Sermonum decades quinque, (Zrich, 1557), IV.i.17879; trans.
Decades, IV.67.
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for his part and in connection with his particular argument, Bullinger
wishes to define grace as having a specifically salvific content, calling
grace that favour and goodness of the eternal Godhead, wherewith he,
according to his incomprehensible goodness, doth gratis, freely, for
Christs sake embrace, call, justify, and save us mortal men.4
In his work, De gratia dei justificante nos propter Christum (1554),
Bullinger differentiates between various theological senses of divine
grace. According to Bullinger, we meet with three different uses of the
word grace (gratia) in Scripture and sacred disputation. There is that gen-
eral grace of God, which God has appointed for us all and which rains
upon the good and the evil. None are justified before God by this sort of
grace. Scripture also speaks of a special grace which is Gods favor
bestowed to us individually and embraces us according to his goodness
and mercy and adopts us as sons for Christs sake through faith. The
recipients of this grace are those who are justified. Indeed, St. Augustine
championed this understanding of grace against Pelagius (while not deny-
ing a general grace) inasmuch as saving grace is not according to our merit
but solely according to Gods mercy for Christs sake. Finally, says Bullinger,
there is that grace which God pours in the human heart and brings forth
all kinds of good works which testify of his grace working in us.5
Here Bullinger clearly distinguishes between a divine grace that brings
us to salvation (gratia specialis), a divine grace that enables us to bear the
fruits of salvation (gratia effusa), and a grace that is resident in or expres-
sive of the creation itself, eliciting its benefits (creationis beneficium), that
is, the created capacity of human beings, along with the gifts and talents
that are part of being human (gratia generalis).6 Bullinger notes that
Pelagius took this general grace as sufficient in itself, despite the fall, to
enable humans to choose God and live for him.
In view of what Bullinger says about this gratia generalis in distinction
from gratia specialis, it is also important to consider his remarks about
the law of nature. In fact, it would seem that the idea of a law of nature
is connected to what Bullinger says about a general grace of God, which is
expressive of the blessings of the created order itself.
According to Bullinger, there is a law of nature, or what we might call a
law of creation, that abides in humans in spite of the fall and its corrupting
4Bullinger, IV.i.17879. (Decades, IV.1, 7).

5Heinrich Bullinger, De gratia dei iustificantelibri IV (Zrich, 1554), 7.
6Bullinger so clearly distinguishes between these three sorts of divine grace that he sets
each off via a marginal heading.
effects. Bullinger links this to the human conscience. Thus the law of
nature is an instruction of the conscience, which means that God has
oriented human hearts and minds in a certain direction. In this way, God
instructs humans in what they are both to seek and to avoid.
And the conscience, verily, is the knowledge, judgment, and reason of a
man, whereby every man in himself, and in his own mind, being made privy
to every thing that he either hath committed or not committed, doth either
condemn or else acquit himself. And this reason proceedeth from God, who
both prompeth and writeth his judgments in the hearts and minds of men.
Moreover, that which we call nature is the proper disposition or inclination
of every thing. But the disposition of mankind being flatly corrupted by sin
as it is blind, so also is it in all points evil and naughty.7
It would seem that, for Bullinger, a general grace of God is directly associ-
ated with the law of nature and the human conscienceincluding the
divine judgments which are written on the human heart. The original con-
stitution and order of the creation, yes, even its remnants after the fall,
bespeak a divine grace in a general sense.
As is evident from the above quotation, however, Bullinger doesnt
deny the fall or its destructive effects. The law of nature, due to human
depravity, can be twisted so as to oppose the written law of God; it thus
remains and must remain answerable to the law of God. Nonetheless,
because of this law of nature, even Gentiles, or at least wise Gentiles, are
able to offer wisdom that conforms to the Ten Commandments and the
law of God. Pythagoras, for example, confesses but one God who is the
maker and keeper and governor of all things. Likewise, Zaleucus, Cicero,
Seneca, and others argue for laws that conform to various divine com-
mandments.8 But this wisdom doesnt in itself reach up to God. For
Bullinger, nature still needs grace; otherwise, it is without force and
effect.9 In short, this means that to the degree any Gentiles can receive
the praise of righteousness (so, Melchizedek, Job, Jethro, and others) and
come to salvation, they are saved, not by the works of nature, or their own
deserts, but by the mercy of God in our Lord Jesus Christ.10
This likewise ties into Bullingers discussion whether those works
that heathens do, which have some show of virtue or goodness, ought to
be regarded as sins instead of good works. Bullinger maintains that the
7Bullinger, Decades, II.194; Sermonum, II.i.36.

8See Sermonum, II.i.37ff. (Decades, II.197ff.).
9Sermonum, II.i.38 (Decades, II.205).
10Sermonum, II.i.38 (Decades, II.205206).
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worthy deeds of unbelievers should not be despised or utterly con-

temned inasmuch as such actions are not altogether done without God.
Moreover, such works are very useful in the maintenance and restoration
of tranquillity among nations and governments.11
And therefore did the most just Lord enrich certain excellent men and com-
monweals with many and ample temporal gifts; for upon the Greeks and
many Roman princes he bestowed riches, victories, and abundant glory: and
verily, civil justice and public tranquillity was in great estimation among
many of them. Others received infinite rewards, because they did constantly
and manfully execute the just judgments of God upon the wicked rebels and
enemies to God.12
We see that in Bullingers thought the idea of a general grace of God comes
to clear expression as he links the concept to the created order and
mans created constitution. The benefits of the creationeven in the
remnants after the fallbetoken a divine grace. This is the grace Pelagius
commandeered and sought to make sufficient in itself to enable humans
to aspire after God and receive salvation. While acknowledging the virtu-
ous works of the heathen as being in some sense dependent on God,
Bullinger comes up short of any formal or full notion of a general grace
of God.
Wolfgang Musculus (14971563)

The next theologian we will briefly examine, being a contemporary of
Calvin, is Wolfgang Musculus.13 Like Bullinger, Musculus also takes up
the definition of divine grace in unmistakably formal ways. Musculus
addresses himself to the meaning of the biblical words usually translated
grace as used in both Hebrew ( )and Greek (). Both of these terms
11Sermonum, III.x.174 (Decades, III.419).

12Sermonum, III.x.174 (Decades, III.419).
13For an account of Musculus life and his theology, see Ludwig Grote, Wolfgang
Musculus, ein biographischen Versuch (Hamburg, 1855); Rudolf Dellsperger Rudolf
Freudenberger, and Wolfgang Weber, ed. Wolfgang Musculus (14971563) und die ober-
deutsche Reformation (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1997); Robert B. Ives, The Theology of
Wolfgang Musculus (Ph.D. diss., University of Manchester, 1965); also see Richard Muller,
Wolfgang Musculus (14971563), in Encyclopedia of the Reformed Faith, ed. McKim
(Philadelphia: WJKP, 1992), 248; Hartmut Lohmann, Biographisch-Bibliographisches
Kirchenlexicon, vol. 6 (Herzberg: Bautz, 1993), s.v. MUSCULUS, (Mslin, Muslin),
Wolfgang (Dusanus), 381ff.; Reinhard Bodenmann, Wolfgang Musculus (14971563), Destin
dun Autodidacte Lorrain au Sicle des Rformes (Geneva: Droz, 2000); and Jordan J. Ballor,
Covenant, Causality, and Law: A Study in the Theology of Wolfgang Musculus (Gttingen:
V&R, 2012).
exhibit a range of meanings.14 The most important senses of and

bring Musculus to this definition:
Therefore, Grace is, as touching this present matter, that affection of favoure,
when we love a man hartely, and whatsoever through thys favoure is freely
and franckelye given without respecte of anye deserte or duetie. This defini-
tion of grace we muste diligentlye keepe, that wee maye well understande
these thynges, whyche the holye Scripture dothe ascribe unto Goddes grace,
least we be seduced by some meanes, and make voyde the glorye of the
grace of God.15
Musculus argues that for God there exists no inconsistency or problem to
be both just and gracious.16 Musculus maintains that the source of divine
grace is Gods own goodness, and it is an expression of Gods freedom.
Consequently, whatever is not free, is not grace and does not find its well-
spring in Gods goodness, which is absolutely necessary if grace, purely
conceived, is to be grace.17 Yet, although grace ensues from Gods good-
ness, we must discern that both abide in God co-eternally.18
Musculus also considers how many sortes there be of this grace of
Gods goodnesse. He argues for the distinction between grace purposing
and grace working. Of course, he is speaking of grace unto redemption.19
It is clear that Musculus has a very robust doctrine of divine grace in the
Augustinian mode. Within that mode, however, the issue is whether he
allows any room for a general, non-salvific, grace of God. We discover that
Musculus is not averse to speaking about the unregenerate doing good in
some manner. [The unregenerate man] may in deed be dryven or moved
some other waye to speake with his tong, or to worke with his hande
in some sorte, that which is good.20 It appears that this is associated with
what Musculus has to say regarding the Noahic covenant, which he
describes as a general covenant in distinction from a special covenant.
The generall covenante is that, which he [God] made with hys whole
frame of the earth and all that dwelleth therein, as well beastes as men,
with the day also and the night, winter and sommer, cold and heate, seede
14See Wolfgang Musculus, Loci communes in usus sacrae theologiae candidatorum

parati [hereafter LC] (Basel, 1564), 147; trans. Commonplaces of Christian Religion (London,
1578), 296.
15LC, 186; Commonplaces, 296.
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time and harvest, etc.21 Musculus calls this a general covenant because it
has to do with the whole world; consequently, it may also be described as
earthly and temporal, for it altogether concerns the regular order of the
world. Indeed, in commenting on Gods covenant with the world, as stipu-
lated in the covenant with Noah, Musculus is brought to use the terminol-
ogy of common grace.
And I do not speake for that, that I do condemne so noble, manifest and
generall grace of oure creator, withoute which this world can not endure,
bycause it is earthly and temporal. God forbidde. Surely he [sinful man] is
not worthy to enjoy the good everlasting, that maketh nothing of the earthly
and temporall goodes. Yea he is unthankefull for the gifte of hys life, and not
worthy to enjoy this aire whiche he doth breath of.22
Clearly, for Musculus, Gods preserving of the world is an expression of
divine grace, for with this preservation comes also the gift of life and its
temporal benefits. However, this is still far removed from affirming that
this sort of gracethis general gracehas anything to do with eternal
salvation or the good everlasting. For the special covenant of God is an
everlasting covenant that God mercifully hathe vouchsaved to make with
his electe and beleeving.23 Thus this covenant does not pertain to all but
only to Abraham, the father of all believers, and his seed.24
For Musculus, then, a general grace of God comes to expression in the
divine preservation of the world, not only according to Gods general
providence, but specifically according to a gracious divine covenant, the
covenant made with Noah. Moreover, Musculus, like Bullinger, is not
unaware of the rich range of meaning of the biblical words for grace.
However, insofar as we have been able to ascertain from Musculus
Commonplaces, while he does take up divine grace as a topic of theology,
he does not attempt any extended application of the idea of a general
grace beyond what we have already noted. It is important to note that
Musculus is not averse to using the phrase general grace, and when he
does so, there is no mention of the Pelagianizing abuse of these words.
Instead, the phrase is couched in an overtly gracious context, namely
Gods promise never again to destroy the world with a floodor even
more, his promise to maintain the world for the well-ordering of life and
blessing.

24LC, 179ff.; Commonplaces, 285.
Peter Martyr Vermigli (14991562)

Peter Martyr Vermigli is the last Reformed theologian, being a contempo-
rary of Calvin, whom we wish to examine on the matter of divine grace.25
He, like the other theologians we have surveyed, presents a formal and
strict definition of grace which he believes is in full harmony with
Scripture: It is the good will of God, that commeth voluntarilie of his
owne accord, whereby he holdeth us deare in Jesus Christ, and forgiveth
us our sinnes, giveth us the holie Ghost, a perfect life, and everlasting felic-
itie.26 Noteworthy about this definition of grace is that it is salvific in pur-
pose, free in origin, and focused wholly in Christ. With this definition,
Vermigli understands not onlie what we may call grace, but also by whom
we have the same; and in like maner what the chiefe effects of the same
are.27 He later appeals to Augustines exposition of John 1:16grace for
gracewherein grace must be understood as that which is freelie given.
And if we ask what it is that is freely given, the answer is that which is not
rendered as due, for if it were due us, then we must conceive of it as a
reward that is rightly bestowed, as if we had been good before Gods grace
reached us.28
Like Bullinger, Vermigli speaks of the common grace of creation.29
However, he is quite suspicious of, even hostile to, this terminology
which, given how it is defined in this context, is a reasonable reaction for
a Reformed theologian. Vermigli opposes the view that conceives of com-
mon grace as a Pelagianizing prevenient or enabling grace, so that in God
giving this grace to all people they can proceed to bear fruits of faith and
repentance of themselves. This is the Pelagian heresy.30
25Sources on Vermigli include Frank A James III, ed., Peter Martyr Vermigli and the
European Reformation: Semper Reformanda (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2004); Torrance Kirby,
et al. ed., A Companion to Peter Martyr Vermigli (Leiden: Brill, 2009); Joseph C. McLelland,
Peter Martyrs Loci Communes: a literary history (Montreal: Faculty of Religious Studies,
McGill, 2007); Jason Zuidema, Peter Martyr Vermigli (14991562) and the Outward
Instruments of Divine Grace (Gttingen: V&R, 2008); John Patrick Donelly, Calvinism and
Scholasticism in Vermiglis Doctrine of Man and Grace (Leiden: Brill 1976), and J.P. Donelly
et al. ed., A Bibliography of the Works of Peter Martyr Vermigli (Kirksville: TSUP, 1991); Philip
McNair, Peter Martyr in Italy: An Anatomy of Apostasy (Oxford: Clarendon, 1967); Joseph C.
McLelland, The Visible Words of God: A Study in the Theology of Peter Martyr 15001562
(Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1957).
26Peter Martyr Vermigli, Loci communes D. Petri Martyris Vermilii...ex variis ipsis autoris
scriptis, in unum librum collecti & in quatuor Classes distribute. 2nd ed. (London:
Vautrollerius, 1583), III.2.9 (p. 480); The Common Places of Peter Martyr, trans. Anthony
Marten [hereafter CP] (London: Henry Denham, 1583), III.2.49.
27Loci communes, III.2.9 (p.480); CP, III.2.49.
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What Vermigli finds untenable and erroneous in this appeal to a com-

mon grace is that those who do so actually turn grace into nature, for in
that they assigne a grace, whereby they can atteine unto righteousnes
without Christ, they are both against Christ, and the Mileuitane Councell,
and the holie scriptures. And, again, in that they make grace common
unto all men, they turne it into nature; and they saie that some will use
it, some will not use it.31 The Pelagian conception thus reemerges in
this way.
Vermigli also sharply contests the notion of a preventing grace (i.e., a
prior acting or prevenient grace) which is to be distinguished from
another, more absolute grace, called an after following grace. Not that
Vermigli denies this distinction as such, provided it receives proper defini-
tion, which he provides.32
In discussing the doctrine of predestination and the grace of God that
fits with divine election, that is, the grace that brings the elect to salvation,
Vermigli again turns to the phrase or idea of a common grace. Thus in the
context of discussing how God regenerates sinners and draws them into
his kingdom, Vermigli asserts emphatically: We in no wise saie, that grace
is common unto all men [i.e. predestinating grace or all the benefits of
Christ that belong to those who are predestinate], but is given unto some;
and unto others, according to the pleasure of God, it is not given.33
However, Vermigli, implicitly and indirectly acknowledges another sense
of divine grace which in some respect is common to all people, for in com-
menting on 1 Cor. 12:11that One and the selfe-same spirit distributeth
unto all men as pleaseth himVermigli states that the Spirit is the source
of the graces and free gifts that belong to all people. However, he also
says that these words may no lesse be transferred unto the grace, whereby
we are renewed unto salvation, seeing God is alike free in the one and the
other.34
We see, then, that for Vermigli what is clearly objectionable about mak-
ing grace common to all people is that grace is properly speaking a salvific
term; grace is saving grace. And for Vermigli this grace may never, follow-
ing Pelagius, be erroneously converted into nature. Indeed, the transfor-
mation of grace into nature in no wise agreeth with the doctrine of the
holie scriptures.35 Thus Vermigli is not afraid to affirm that outward

35Loci communes, III.1.40 (p.464); CP, II.1.28.
calling is common to the elect and reprobate alike and that God, accord-
ing to his mercy, causes the sun to rise upon the good and the evil. Vermigli
also asserts that both the predesinate and the reprobate are partakers of
some of the benefits of God.36 But even this common mercy of God is not
altogether common, notes Vermigli. For example, the commodities that
are suited for our bodies are unequally distributed among men. Similarly,
while some persons enjoy a measure of natural happiness and the bless-
ings of good health, others are born either leprous or blind or deaf or men-
tally handicapped or otherwise poor, and are without all manner of
natural felicitie; neither attaine they unto it at anie time...37
Vermigli also acknowledges that natural gifts are sometimes called
graces:
I grant indeed, that there be manie free gifts, by which the godlie cannot be
discerned from the ungodlie; such are the gifts of toongs, prophesieng, the
gifts of healing, and other such like; which things doo no lesse happen unto
the evill, than unto the good. On the other side, faith, hope, and charitie,
belong onelie to the saints.38
Likewise, there are many natural giftssuch as, pregnancie of wit,
strength of bodie, and such likethat are sometimes called graces.
Unfortunately, the Pelagians turned these things into free will. Thus, in
refuting Pelagius the church had to address this abuse of making the grace
of natural gifts into a grace that regenerates and justifies sinners.39
Vermiglis burden and concern is that however we decide to speak of and
understand grace, we must safeguard that it is something freely and
divinely bestowed. This means that grace is neither according to our works
nor is it another word for our works. For we are made acceptable to God
entirely by the good will of God, not by any of our efforts.40
Conclusions
Given this short analysis of a select portion of the writings of Bullinger,

Musculus, and Vermigli on their respective treatments of divine grace,
and more specifically a general grace of God, we offer the following con-
clusions based on the range of material we have considered.

108 j. mark beach
First, the idea of a general grace of God was a theological concept shared
by mid-sixteenth-century Reformed theologians. It is clear that Bullinger,
Musculus, and Vermigli (each contemporaries of Calvin), accept to vary-
ing degrees some notion of a non-saving divine favor or goodness directed
toward the non-elect and unbelievers. Bullinger and Musculus employ
the terminology of a general grace of God. This idea, then, is neither a
novelty among Reformed writers of this period nor a commonplace;
perhaps it is better described as a hybrid notion that emerges from the
topic of grace and the nature of human depravity. We have discovered
that each of these writers has something to say about a general grace,
and each even makes grace a formal topic of theologythis last trait is
absent in Calvins theology. Each of these writers is quite clear about the
meaning of grace, standing in the Augustinian tradition and conceiving of
saving grace in a wholly monergistic fashion; but as an addendum to this
topic it is recognized that there also exists a non-saving or general grace
of God.
Second, Bullinger, Musculus, and Vermigli affirm that the idea of divine
grace may properly be stretched beyond the narrow range of human salva-
tion. Each of them offers strict and formal definitions of grace. Bullinger
and Musculus do so only after they have examined the range of meaning
that the biblical terms for grace have in Scripture. That simple exercise,
however, demonstrates that the biblical concept of divine grace cannot be
narrowly confined to individual salvation, strictly speaking, though of
course divine redemption remains the most prominent and vital aspect of
the biblical concept of grace as elicited by the biblical materials. Even
Vermigli, whom among the writers we examined displayed the most cau-
tion toward the language of common grace, does not deny that the unre-
generate are granted divine illuminations, which are of grace. For
example, in considering divine grace, Bullinger, Musculus, and Vermigli
respectively offer a specifically Augustinian definition of grace. Vermigli,
for instance, calls it the good will of God, that comes voluntarily of his
own accord, whereby he holds us dear in Jesus Christ and forgives us our
sins, gives us the Holy Ghost, a perfect life, and everlasting felicity. The
concern of these theologians is to distinguish grace, rightly understood,
from synergistic misconceptions and outright Pelagian abuses. Since at
that time the locution general grace had, for some, a specifically Pelagian
aroma, Reformed theologians were guarded in how they used those words.
Some, like Vermigli, were hesitant to use the term, whereas others, like
Bullinger and Musculus, were careful to define it. Thus we see Bullinger
and Vermigli explicitly attacking a notion of general grace that identifies
grace with nature along Pelagian lines.
Third, for these Reformed theologians, gracewhether conceived as

saving or non-saving in scoperemains a free gift of divine mercy. It is
not earned, merited, warranted, or deserved by fallen human beings in
any capacity. The gifts that are bestowed to fallen people, whether these
gifts be understood as part of the original, unfallen, creation order or as in
some way a particularly given talent or ability, or as the station one has in
life, bringing some degree of happiness, or as the general welfare of civil
order and justice, securing safety and physical wellbeing, all such gifts,
and many others, remain gifts, which by definition are undeserved and
unearned. God freely bestows these blessings to the unregenerate, and by
implication, to the reprobate. In so doing all persons owe a debt of grati-
tude to God for such gifts. Thus the word grace invariably emerges in the
respective discussions of these theologians. No other word quite suffices
to express the fact that what is given to undeserving sinners, even if what
is given is not the gift of salvation, is not their dueit is of grace. Musculus,
in particular, associates the idea of this general divine grace with the
Noahic covenant.
Fourth, these theologians view the virtues in the unregenerate as a fruit
of a general grace of God. To varying degrees, each of these writers admits
the idea of virtue in the non-elect, properly qualified, and affirms that the
natural gifts which abide among fallen humans are, in some sense, an
expression of divine kindness or mercy. Thus Bullinger speaks of heathen
writers offering wisdom that conforms to the Ten Commandments. In
fact, the virtues that non-believers exhibit are not altogether done with-
out God. Although Vermigli would shy away from using the word grace
to describe this, even he acknowledges that God is the author of these
blessings, terming them gifts and graces. Thus we see how the idea of a
general grace of God is not altogether uncommon in Reformed theology in
the middle of the sixteenth century. The gifts that come to fallen humans,
the blessings that bedeck their lives, and the benefits that allow the human
projecteven in its rebellion against Godto move forward are divine
gifts, divine blessings, and divine benefits.
Last, the several portraits of grace and common grace as formulated by
some of Calvins contemporaries prove to be, not surprisingly, distinct but
also not incongruous with one another. Bullinger, Musculus, and Vermigli
hold in common the idea that God acts upon unregenerate persons in a
manner that is gracious, being undeserved and kindly, but also non-
salvific in character. This general sort of divine grace, however, remains
distinct from grace in its saving operations. All of the above shows that,
among mid-sixteenth-century Reformed theologians, Calvin was not a
solitary voice sounding the idea of a general grace of God.
CALVINS RECEPTION AND REFORMULATION OF THE
NECESSITARIAN CONCEPTS OF THE EARLY REFORMATION ON
HUMAN WILL, PROVIDENCE, AND PREDESTINATION
Kiven S.K. Choy
John Calvins reception of the necessitarian concepts of the early

Reformation in his defense of Martin Luthers early Reformation doctrine
of the bondage of human will had a significant and complex impact on his
reformulation of the human will, providence, and predestination.1 On the
one hand, with his contemporary Reformers, Calvin reverses Luthers
practice, adopts the scholastic distinctions concerning necessity, affirms
the genuine contingency of human will, and discontinues the necessitar-
ian argument for the bondage of human will.2 On these issues, Calvin
seems to safeguard the classical Augustinian affirmation of the genuine
integrity of secondary causality. On the other hand, though he does not
repeat the necessitarian argument Luther used in the early Reformation,
Calvin does adopt key necessitarian concepts and expressions taught by
Luther and other early Reformers.3 While Luther (following Augustine)
basically set the discussion of active presentation of divine willing of
1For further development of the themes in this article see Kiven Choy, Calvins
Defense and Reformulation of Luthers Early Reformation Doctrine of the Bondage of the
Will (Ph.D. diss., Calvin Theological Seminary, 2010), 220263. For key bibliography see
Hermann Barnikol, Die Lehre Calvins vom unfreien Willen und ihr Verhltnis zur Lehre der
brigen Reformatoren und Augustins (Neuwied: Heusersche Buchdruckerel, 1927); John
Calvin, The Bondage and the Liberation of the Will: A Defense of the Orthodox Doctrine of
Human Choice Against Pighius, ed. Lane, trans. Davies (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996); Calvin,
Defensio Sanae et Orthodoxae Doctrinae de Servitvte et Liberatione Humani Arbitrii, ed. Lane
(Geneva: Droz, 2008); John L. Girardeau, The Will in Its Theological Relations (Columbia:
Duffie, 1891); Matthew C. Heckel, His Spear through My Side unto Luther: Calvins
Relationship to Luthers Doctrine of Will (Ph.D. diss., Concordia Seminary, St. Louis,
2005); A.N.S. Lane, The Influence upon Calvin of His Debate with Pighius, in Auctoritas
Patrum II, ed. Leif Grane, et al. (Mainz: Philipp von Zabaren, 1998), 125139; Lane, Did
Calvin Believe in Freewill? Vox Evangelica 12 (1981): 7290; Harry J. McSorley, Luther: Right
or Wrong? An Ecumenical-Theological Study of Luthers Major Work, The Bondage of the Will
(Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1969); Muller, Decree; L.F. Schulze, Calvins Reply to Pighius
(Potchefstroom: Pro Rege, 1971); L.F. Schulze, Calvins Reply to PighiusA Micro and
Macro View, Calvinus Ecclesiae Genevensis Custos, ed. Neuser (Frankfurt: Peter Lang,
1984), 171186.
2Cf. Choy, Calvins Defense, 107219.
3Cf. McSorley, Luther: Right or Wrong? 21, 329, 342; Choy, Calvins Defense, 67104.
112 kiven s.k. choy
hardening in a post-fall framework, Calvin was unique among his peers in

applying the necessitarian concepts and language to the divine ordination
of the fall. This constitutes a major characteristic in Calvins formulation
of the relationship between primary causality and second causality.
Calvins Reception of the Necessitarian Concepts

of the Early Reformation
Even though Calvin does not employ the necessitarian arguments of the
early Reformation, he does adopt various necessitarian concepts advo-
cated in the early Reformation. Hence, we shall find that in at least five
aspects of the necessitarian concepts there are essential continuities
between early Reformation necessitarian concepts and Calvins doctrines
of providence and predestination.
First of all, Calvin adopts some of the active concepts of divine omnipo-
tence advocated by the reformers in the early Reformation. In the defense
for the bondage of human will, Luther set the precedent to use an active
concept of divine omnipotence to defend the idea of sheer necessity.
Anthony Lane points out that Pighius assumed that Calvin agreed with
Luthers teaching that nothing happens to us contingently, but everything
by sheer necessity. Calvins embarrassment was that he did not agree
but could not say so openly without displaying Protestant disunity.4
In addition, Ulrich Zwingli set an important, but perhaps notorious
precedent for applying the necessitarian concepts to divine providence.
Zwingli explicitly minimizes the integrity of second causality: Secondary
causes are not properly called causes. This is of fundamental importance
for the understanding of Providence.5 Zwingli also uses pantheistic lan-
guage to characterize the nature of the creation, everything that is, is in
Him and through Him and a part of Him. And there is nothing which is
not of the Deity.6 Zwingli argues, I say, by divine oracles, we must admit
that there is only one true cause of all things.7 In addition, Zwingli empha-
sizes that divine providence is active and never idle: For this also is alto-
gether incontrovertible, either Providence cares for all things and is
4Lane, Bondage, 7. Cf. LW 33:112.

5Ulrich Zwingli, Reproduction from Memory of a Sermon on the Providence of God,
in On Providence and Other Essays, ed. Hinke (Eugene: W&S, 1999), 138. For Latin text of
this work, see Ulrich Zwingli, Opera (Zrich: Froschoverum, 1545), 1:352a-379.
6Zwingli, Providence, 143.
calvins reception of necessitarian concepts 113
nowhere idle or listless, or there is no Providence at all. And if there is no

Providence, there is no Deity.8 Zwingli is also not shy in naming God as
author of sins: What God does, He does freely, uninfluenced by any evil
motion, therefore, also, without sin. Davids adultery, so far as concerns
God as the author [authorem] of it, is no more a sin to God, than when a
steer covers and impregnates a whole herd.9
Although his presentation was not as pointed as that of Luther and
Zwingli, and he disliked those harsh sayings of Zwingli, and provided
more nuanced distinctions to affirm the genuine contingency of second-
ary causality, Calvin did adopt some active concepts of divine will similar
to that of the early Reformers.10 In his discussion on providence, Calvin
presents the active manner of divine omnipotence in a way similar to that
of Luther:
And truly God claims, and would have us grant him, omnipotencenot the
empty, idle, and almost unconscious sort that the Sophists imagine, but a
watchful, effective, active sort, engaged in ceaseless activity [sed vigilem, effica-
cem, operosam, et quae in continuo actu versetur]. Not, indeed, an omnipo-
tence that is only a general principle of confused motion, as if he were to
command a river to flow through its once-appointed channels, but one that
is directed toward individual and particular motions.... For when, in The
Psalms, it is said that he does whatever he wills [Psalm 115:3], a certain and
deliberate will is meant.11
Calvin uses words, like watchful, effective, active sort, to present Gods
omnipotence as an active, operative and directive will: a certain and
deliberate will. Calvin also argues that God is not an idle God and there is
no mere divine permission. At the very beginning of the Institutes, Calvin
rejects the idea of an idle God:
What good is it to profess with Epicurus some sort of God who has cast aside
the care of the world only to amuse himself in idleness? What help is it, in
short, to know a God with whom we have nothing to do?...not that they
deprive him of his being, but because, in despoiling him of his judgment and
providence, they shut him up idle in heaven.12

10In the Bolsec controversy Calvin resented Bullinger for linking his position to some
of the extreme sayings in Zwingli. Cf. Cornelis P. Venema, Heinrich Bullingers
Correspondence on Calvins Doctrine of Predestination, 15511553, SCJ 17.4 (1986): 61.
11Calvin, Institutes, I.xvi.3. Italics added. Cf. Now where is Gods omnipotence, if such
sovereignty is conceded to the devil that he carries out whatever he wishes, against Gods
will and resistance? Institutes, I.xiv.3.
12Institutes, I.ii.2; I.iv.2. Italics added. Cf. Institutes, III.xxii.6.
114 kiven s.k. choy
Calvin assumes that if we speak of mere permission, we speak of an idle

God.13 Calvin clearly opposes a passive concept of divinus concursus, or in
his words, a general principle of confused motion, that unavoidably goes
along with secondary causality.14 Calvin emphasizes that only an active
government of all things, evil or good, may truly represent the essential
characteristic of God as a creator:
For now I propose to refute the opinion (which almost universally obtains)
that concedes to God some kind of blind and ambiguous motion, while taking
from him the chief thing: that he directs everything by his incomprehensible
wisdom and disposes it to his own end. And so in name only, not in fact, it
makes God the Ruler of the universe because it deprives him of his
control.15
Luther set the precedent of an active concept of Gods omnipotence,
and Calvin followed closely. For them, the divine will is never merely
passive.
The second major precedent Luther set before Calvin is the emphasis
on active and literal representation of hardening and reprobation.
Following Luther, Calvin preferred to adopt biblical expressions in key
theological formulations. Luther condemns Erasmus for not following
Moses and Paul literally: Absurdity, then, is one of the principal reasons
for not taking the words of Moses and Paul literally [simpliciter].16 Luther
assumes that the active presentation is a literal way to read the Bible:
If we have carried conviction on this point, we have won our case, and hav-
ing exploded the tropes and glosses of men, we can take the words of God
literally [simpliciter], with no necessity to make excuses for God or to accuse
him of injustice. For when he says, I will harden Pharaohs heart, he is
speaking literally [simpliciter], as if he said, I will act so that Pharaohs heart
may be hardened or so that through my working and doing it may be
hardened.17
The word literally is very informative about Luthers formulation. Luther
argues that being offensive to human reason is not an excuse for not fol-
lowing the biblical tone and teaching.18 To Luther, no matter how, the
13Institutes, I.xviii.1. Cf. John Calvin, Calvins Calvinism: Treatises on the Eternal
Predestination of God and the Secret Providence of God, trans. Cole (Grand Rapids: Reformed
Free, [1987]), 294295.
14Cf. Institutes, 1.xvi.4.
15Institutes, I.xvi.4.
16LW 33:173; WA 18:707. Italics added.
17LW 33:179180.
18LW 33:173.
biblical way should be preferred.19 The key for Luther is the authors
intent.20 Luther believes that only in this way may we truly present the
full force of the authors intent in the texts.
To put it in a word, this license of interpretation comes to this, that by a new
and unprecedented use of grammar everything is jumbled up [ut nova et inau-
dita grammatica omnia confundantur], so that when God says I will harden
Pharaohs heart, you change the person and take it to mean Pharaoh hard-
ens himself through my forbearance. God hardens our hearts means that
we harden ourselves when God delays our punishment.21
For Luther, if we do not follow the principle of literal representation of
the biblical expressions consistently, the divine Word would be easily
twisted.
By what authority, for what reason, with what necessity is the natural mean-
ing of the word thus twisted for me? What if the reader and interpreter
should be wrong? What proof is there that this twisting of the word ought to
take place in this passage? It is dangerous, and indeed impious, to twist the
word of God without necessity and without authority.22
We find a similar argument in Calvin, too. Calvin says, We ought not to
admit any distinction between Gods permission and his wish. For we see
the Holy Spiritthe best master of languagehere clearly expresses two
things; first, what God does; and next, what he does by his own will.23
Calvin emphasizes the importance of this, so do I deem it in no way dan-
gerous if we simply adhere to what Scripture teaches.24 This is a key con-
viction of Calvin: to teach the full force of the biblical texts. Calvin
understands the offensive nature of this active presentation of Gods gov-
ernment of evil acts. Yet he strongly believes that it is the way of the Bible
and he has to follow:
Since the expression seems harsh to delicate ears, many soften it away, by
turning the act into mere permission; as if there were no difference between
doing and permitting to be done; or as if God would commend his passivity,
and not rather his power. As to myself, I am certainly not ashamed of speaking
as the Holy Spirit speaks, nor do I hesitate to believe what so often occurs in
19LW 33:175.
20LW 33:165.
21LW 33:167. Italics added. WA 18:703.
22LW 33:165. Italics added.
23Calvin, Comm. on Daniel 4:35.
24Institutes, II.iv.3. Cf. Institutes, I.xviii.2.
116 kiven s.k. choy
Scripture, that God gives the wicked over to a reprobate mind, gives them up
to vile affections, blinds their minds and hardens their hearts.25
Calvin adopts the rationale of Luther set in the early Reformation: Speak
as the Holy Spirit speaks. This literal representation of the biblical
expressions clearly signifies the continuity between the two Reformers.
The third important similarity is that Luther set the precedent to use
the term ordain (ordinare) to characterize reprobation. Throughout his
Institutes, Calvin repeatedly uses the term ordain to emphasize the idea
that Scripture teaches that all things are divinely ordained [ordinari].26
In particular, in the famous passage where he calls the decree of the fall
dreadful, Calvin emphasizes that God foreknew what the end of man was
to be before he made him, and foreknew, because he had so ordained
[ordinarat] by his decree.27 We find similar precedent in Luthers The
Bondage of the Will: For he is here speaking of the preached and offered
mercy of God, not of that hidden and awful will of God whereby he ordains
[ordinantis] by his own counsel which and what sort of persons he wills to
be recipients and partakers of his preached and offered mercy.28 Calvins
usage is in line with the literal representation of the biblical expressions.
In his Institutes, Calvin twice uses the term to translate Acts 13:48: as
many as were ordained [ordinati] to eternal life believed. It is likely that
both the precedent set by the early Reformers and the biblical text in Acts
13:48 provide Calvin with the incentive to extend the use of the ordain
and to apply it to the fall.29
The fourth precedent Luther set is his use of a nominalist or perhaps
Scotist concept of divine will and his emphasis on the divine will being
inscrutable:
For if there were any rule or standard for it, either as cause or reason, it could
no longer be the will of God. For it is not because he is or was obliged so to
will that what he wills is right, but on the contrary, because he himself so
wills, therefore what happens must be right. Cause and reason can be assigned
for a creatures will, but not for the will of the Creator, unless you set up over
him another creator.30
25Calvin, Comm. on Ex. 4:1823. Italics added.

26Institutes, I.xvii.1. Cf. Institutes, I.xvi.89, I.xvii.3, III.xxiii.69, III.xviv.2; Calvins
Calvinism, 246.
27Institutes, III.xxiii.7.
28LW 33:139; WA 18:684.
29Institutes, III.xxiv.13, III.xxiv.17. Divine ordination (ordinatio) is also a term fre-
quently used by Calvin to represent similar ideas. Cf. Institutes, I.xvi.8, III.xxiii.4, III.xxiii.6,
III.xxiii.89, III.xxiv.3, III.xxiv.15.
30LW 33:181. Italics added.
It is enough to know simply that there is a certain inscrutable will in God,

and as to what, why, and how far it wills, that is something we have no right
whatever to inquire into, hanker after, care about, or meddle with, but only
to fear and adore.31
Calvin has a similar nominalist idea of divine will: For Gods will is so
much the highest rule of righteousness that whatever he wills, by the very
fact that he wills it, must be considered righteous.32 Quoting Augustine,
Calvin also argues that the divine will is unsearchable and inscrutable.
Similarly to Luther, Calvin argues that we should not seek a deeper cause
than Gods secret and inscrutable plan.33 Heckel here makes a good con-
tribution by arguing that both Luther and Calvin uphold the nominalist
principle that Gods will is the unquestionable norm of righteousness.34
Both Reformers emphasize this nominalist idea of divine will, when they
handle the problem of the bondage of human will and the problem of
Gods sovereignty over sins. David Steinmetz points out that Bucer also
teaches something similar in his commentary on Romans (1536): The
mere will of God, he writes, is the cause of everything and that will is itself
justice.35 Hence, we may conclude that the similarity implies that the
precedent of using a nominalist concept of divine will set by the early
Reformers in their handling of the bondage of human will and predestina-
tion had a great impact on Calvins formulation.
The fifth precedent Luther set is the argument that God should not be
counted as the proper cause of the active governing over sins because
human will after the fall is by nature evil. Heckel points out that there are
many similarities between Luther and Calvin on this issue.36 Luther
argues that God cannot do evil, yet he uses evil instruments, and Calvin
argues that God uses even bad tools.37 Both Reformers argue that the
responsible cause of the evils is the inborn necessity in the wicked them-
selves.38 Luther emphasizes that God acts in them as they are and as he
finds them. Calvin quotes Luther explicitly and argues that the doing of
31LW 33:140. Cf. LW 33:139, 145, 147.

32Institutes, III.xxiii.2
33Institutes, III.xxiii.5, III.xxiv.12.
34Heckel, Calvins Relationship, 238.
35Martin Bucer, Metaphrases et enarrationesin Epistolam ad Romanos, (Strasbourg:
Wendelin Rihel, 1536), 395a. Cf. David C. Steinmetz, Calvin in Context (New York: OUP,
1995), 148, and 155n35.
37LW 33:176; Calvin, Bondage, 40; Cf. LW 33:17.
118 kiven s.k. choy
evil originates from them.39 Luther also points out that God does not do
so by creating evil from scratch. Using a post-fall framework, Luther
argues that God does not create the evil will of Satan. God finds the will of
Satan evil, because after the fall of Satan, the will of Satan has become
evil through Gods deserting it and Satans sinning. Hence, God cannot
help but do evil with an evil instrument. Using the example of Pharaoh,
Luther argues that in hardening Pharaoh, God does not do anything evil.
It is because as God presents Gods words through Moses from without,
Pharaoh of necessity is hardened and provoked owing to its inborn
defect and natural corruption. Based on this rationale, Luther argues that
he can take the words of God literally, with no necessity to make excuses
for God or to accuse him of injustice.40 Calvin also has a similar analogy:
Well and good, for he works through them. And whence, I ask you, comes
the stench of a corpse, which is both putrefied and laid open by the heat
of the sun? All men see that it is stirred up by the suns rays; yet no one for
this reason says that the rays stink.41 This simile of sun and heat had been
used in the debate between Erasmus and Luther.42
Through this review of the five precedents Luther and early Reformers
set before Calvin, we are convinced that Calvin basically adopts the lines
of thought of Luthers necessitarian concepts.
Calvins Extension of the Active Concept of Gods

Sovereign Will to the Fall of Adam
One of the most important modifications Calvin makes in his reformula-

tion of Luthers view is that he does not limit the scope of the active con-
cept of Gods sovereign will in a post-fall framework, but he repeatedly
applies it also to the fall of Adam.43 This constitutes a major discontinuity
between Luther and Calvin. It is interesting that on the one hand, Calvin,
in his core commitment to sticking with the Bible, repeatedly teaches that
we should teach if the Bible teaches and we should stop if the Bible stops.
Calvin explicitly reaffirms this principle when he begins his discussion on
election:
39LW 33:176; Calvin, Bondage, 49.

40LW 33:178179. Cf. LW 33:176.
41Institutes, I.xvii.5.
42Cf. LW 33:170, 172.
43For Calvins adoption and adaptation of Luthers re-interpretation of Augustine, see
Choy, Calvins Defense, 234244.
For Scripture is the school of the Holy Spirit, in which as nothing useful and
necessary to be known has been omitted, so nothing is taught but what it is
of importance to know... The best rule of sobriety is, not only in learning to
follow wherever God leads, but also when he makes an end of teaching, to
cease also from wishing to be wise.44
On the other hand, in the case of the fall, Calvin seems to be pushed both
by his convictions and the heated debates, to explicitly affirm a point on
which the Bible does not say much. Calvin himself admits that it is not
stated in so many words that God decreed that Adam should perish for his
rebellion. Rather it is the concept of Gods sovereignty that pushes him to
question whether God would have created the noblest of his creatures to
an uncertain end. Calvin argues that as the fall had such a great conse-
quence, God must have ordained the fall and the fall in some way pleased
him.45
Luther was not the main source for Calvins concept of divine ordina-
tion of the fall, but we find that the formulations made by Martin Bucer
and Lorenzo Valla may constitute possible sources for Calvins concept of
the divine ordination of the fall. Valla, in particular, provided clear prece-
dents for using active terminology to describe the relationship between
Gods will and the fall of Adam.
In his Commentary on Romans (1536), Bucer also uses similar concepts
to defend Gods hardening. First of all, Bucer argues that as God allows
men to fall when he alone can save them from falling, the idea of mere
permission does not work:
It also cannot fail to judge it inhuman that God even allows men to fall
[Deum vel permittere libi] when he alone can save them from falling, and
cruel, that he punishes the fallen when, bereft of his aid, they could not help
falling.
We must accordingly reject the judgment of reason in this area, and
confess that the judgments of God are a great abyss and inscrutable, yet
righteous
Consequently, once it is agreed that it belongs to Gods glory to declare
that he hardens, blinds, and gives up to depraved reason whom he chooses,
it will be obvious that it can also be said that God foreknew and ordained
[destinasse] these very people for such a fate before he created them; for he
accomplishes all things according to a predetermined and settled plan.46
44Institutes, III.xxi.3. Cf. Institutes, III.xxi.2.

45Institutes, III.xxiii.7.
46Martin Bucer, Common Places of Martin Bucer, trans. and ed. Wright (Abingdon:
Sutton Courtenay, 1972), 98; Metaphrases, 359a.
120 kiven s.k. choy
Here Bucer has many pieces that are common to Calvins formulation:
mere permission does not satisfy human reasoning; we need to confess
the judgments of God as an abyss, inscrutable, yet righteous; the harden-
ing is a just condemnation and punishment; it belongs to Gods glory to
give up; Gods destination of mankind was before God created them; and
God accomplishes all things according to a predetermined and settled
plan. This commentary is one Calvin highly praised and knew thoroughly.
This may be one of the keys sources for Calvins necessitarian concepts in
his doctrine of predestination. Yet here Bucer does not explicitly extend
the scope to Adam. Moreover, Bucers line is also compatible with what
Augustine teaches in Against Julian and Bucer basically puts it in a post-
fall framework to handle the problems of Gods hardening.
Another possible precedent is Lorenzo Valla (14071457). Luther and
the young Melanchthon used Valla as an example to argue for the denial
of free will. The most influential move was Luthers identification of his
position with that of Valla in The Bondage of the Will.47 Nevertheless, fol-
lowing the growth of theodical concern, Melanchthon completely reversed
his position and severely condemned Valla as a representative of Stoicism
in the 1530s.48
Both the mature Luther and Calvin do not follow Melanchthons
change. In Table Talk, Luther maintains a similar stance on Valla:
Laurentius Valla was the best Italian Ive ever seen or heard of in all my
life. He argued well about free will.49 Valla argues that there is a divine
preordination involved in divine foreknowledge: God foresees it because
the future is preordained.50 Valla explicitly applies the concept of repro-
bation and the concept of hardening to Adam before the fall:
I will not hide the fact that certain men have dared to inquire into this pur-
pose, saying, those who are hardened and reprobated are justly hardened
and reprobated, for we come out of that lump polluted and converted into
clay by the guilt of the first parent. Now, if I may cut across much and reply
by one argument, why was Adam, made of unpolluted matter as he was, him-
self hardened for sin and why did he make the universal lump of his offspring of
clay?51
47LW 33:72. Cf. Erasmus, On the Freedom of Will: A Diatribe or Discourse, in Luther
and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation, trans. and ed. Rupp (Philadelphia: WP, 1969), 43.
48Cf. Choy, Calvins Defense, 124140.
49WA TR 1, No. 259. Quoted in General Introduction, LW 54.
50Lorenzo Valla, Dialogue on Free Will, in The Renaissance Philosophy of Man, ed.
Cassirer, et al. (Chicago: UCP, 1950), 176177.
51Valla, Dialogue, 177. Italics added.
Valla extends the hardening logic to Adam too. He also uses hardening
language to describe the fall of the angels:
What was done to the angels was similar. Some of them were hardened, some
obtained mercy, although all were of the same substance, from the same
unpolluted lump which up to this point, if I may say so boldly, remained in
the nature of a substance and in the quality of a material that is, so to speak,
golden.52
Valla ends this with an inscrutable concept of divine will: I said that the
cause of the divine will which hardens one and shows mercy to another is
known neither to men nor to angels.53 This extension of hardening ter-
minology to Adam and angels before the fall is something the orthodox
and the earlier Augustinian tradition did not do.
We cannot conclusively locate the exact source of Calvins idea in
extending the necessitarian concepts of divine will to apply it to Adam
before the fall. Nevertheless, we have clearly documented that Calvin
basically adopts most of the necessitarian concepts advocated by Luther
in the early Reformation. The brief example by Bucer and a similar argu-
ment by Valla are probably direct sources for Calvin. The refusal to use
divine permission to handle the predestination of the fall of Adam, and
the use of active language and concepts to affirm Gods sovereignty over
the fall, together with the adoption of the necessitarian concepts and
presentations advocated by Luther, add a strong deterministic tone and
character to Calvins reformulation of the doctrines of providence
and predestination.
Two Sides of Calvin
As a whole, Calvin does provide a more nuanced formulation that distin-

guishes the necessity caused by inward corruption and that caused by
divine sovereignty, and gives more explicit affirmation to the natural free-
dom and contingency of secondary causality in his reformulation than
Luther does. Nevertheless, in applying the active presentation of the
divine will to the case of Adam before the fall, Calvin actually deviates
from the post-fall framework of Augustine and Luther. On this, Calvin was
unique among his peers and was probably the first major codifier who
explicitly and repeatedly teaches an active ordination of the fall.
52Valla, Dialogue, 177. Italics added.

53Valla, Dialogue, 180.
122 kiven s.k. choy
These may constitute two seemingly contradictory emphases in Calvins

formulation of human will, providence, and predestination. Following the
trend of the second phase of the Reformation, in his reaffirmation of the
genuine integrity of secondary causality, Calvin looks like a classical
Augustinian. In his adoption of necessitarian concepts and in particular
his idea of the divine ordination of the fall, the deterministic side of Calvin
is revealed. This may be the source of various debates among Calvin schol-
ars on the exact nature of Calvins view of determinism and human will
and the ambiguity in reading Calvin.
THE DUPLEX GRATIA DEI AND THE ORGANIZATION OF CALVINS
INSTITUTES: ORDO DOCENDI OR ORDO SALUTIS?
Cornelis P. Venema
The title of one of Richard Mullers studies of Calvins theology, The

Unaccommodated Calvin, attests to a principal feature of his contribu
tionsto the study of Reformation theology and the subsequent period of
Reformed orthodoxy: the historical interpretation of the leading theolo
gians of the period must not be unduly shaped by contemporary theologi
cal interests or debates, but must be disciplined by attention to the
historical and theological context of their reformatory labors.1 Rather than
accommodating the reading of Calvins writings so as to enlist him as an
ally in present-day theological controversy, Calvins writings need to be
treated within the historical framework from which they first emerged. In
Mullers estimation, among the principal and most egregious illustrations
of a non-contextualized interpretation of Calvins theology, and ones that
considerably influenced Calvins studies throughout the early and mid-
twentieth century, were the nineteenth century advocates of a central
dogma thesis and the twentieth-century neo-orthodox portrayals of a
non-scholastic and non-Aristotelian Calvin. Whether in the interest of
rejecting Calvins putative decretal theology in favor of a more existen
tial, Lutheran theology, or in the interest of pitting Calvins Christo-
centrism against an austere doctrine of the divine decrees, the study of
Calvins theology was inappropriately governed by modern theological
emphases rather than sixteenth-century concerns.
One interesting facet of the discussion regarding how Calvins theologi
cal writings are to be interpreted in their sixteenth-century context is the
interpretation of the history and organization of Calvins Institutes, 1536
1559. The history and development of Calvins Institutes have often been
the focus of discussion in the study of Calvins theology, and offer an
example of how contemporary theological interests can influence the
interpretation of Calvins decisions regarding the placement of a particu
lar theological topic in the ordo docendi of the Institutes. For example,
Calvins decision to treat the doctrine of predestination toward the end of
1Muller, UC.
124 cornelis p. venema
Book III of the Institutes has often been adduced as evidence for a more
soteriological and christological treatment of the doctrine than that of
the scholastic theological tradition, which treated predestination as a pars
providentiae.2 However, more recent, contextualized studies of the organi
zation of Calvins Institutes have shown that the placement of the doctrine
of predestination in Book III reflects specific sixteenth-century factors,
such as the organization of the Institutes after the pattern of Melanch
thons Loci communes, which itself reflects the sequence of topics in the
book of Romans, and Calvins ongoing polemics with his theological
contemporaries.3
The aim of the following study is to offer a small contribution to and
illustration of the need to interpret the history and organization of Calvins
Institutes in its sixteenth-century context. Interpreters of Calvins Institutes
have often commented on his unusual ordering of the two benefits that
believers receive when they are united by faith to Christregeneration or
repentance and justification.4 In Book III of the Institutes, Calvin provides
an account of the work of the Holy Spirit in uniting believers to Christ, and
of the two benefits of this union, which Calvin terms the duplex gratia Dei.
Rather than treating the first of these benefits, justification, before the
second, Calvin informs his reader of his decision to reverse this sequence
and thereby go contrary to the ordo docendi that might have been antici
pated. Though Calvins decision to follow this unusual sequence of topics
has elicited some discussion in studies of Calvins Institutes, its signifi
cance for an understanding of the way Calvin organizes his Institutes
within the context of sixteenth-century theological controversy has not
been a special focus of study. Since Calvin extensively comments on the
reasons that led him to follow this unusual order, he provides some insight
into the kinds of considerations that played a role in the general organiza
tion and arrangement of topics in the Institutes.
2See, e.g., Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (Edinburgh: TTC, 1957), II/2:8088; Edward
Dowey, The Knowledge of God in Calvins Theology, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994),
211212; and Basil Hall, Calvin Against the Calvinists, in John Calvin, ed. Duffield (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1966), 27.
3See, e.g., Muller, UC, 118139; and Paul Helm, Calvin, the Two Issues, and the Structure
of the Institutes, CTJ 42.2 (2007): 341348.
4Though Calvin uses the language of regeneration or repentance and justifica
tion for these two benefits, the more common terminology in the history of theology
is sanctification and justification. In what follows, I will commonly use repentance
and sanctification as synonyms to describe the second of these two benefits that Calvin
denominates the twofold grace of God in Christ.
the organization of calvins institutes 125
Since my treatment of the topic of the ordering of the duplex gratia Dei
aims in a small way to contribute to the interpretation of the organization
of Calvins Institutes, I will begin in what follows with a brief summary of
the general distribution of topics in the Institutes. I will then review the
way Calvin orders the topics of justification and sanctification in succes
sive editions of the Institutes. Since he provides an extended explana
tionfor his unusual ordering of these topics, Calvins own comments on
the matter will receive special attention. In the concluding section of the
study, I will identify and evaluate several theological explanations of
Calvins unusual order, some of which betray a reading of Calvins theology
that is unduly abstracted from his historical context.
The Organization of the Institutes: General Observations5
The history of the writing of Calvins Institutes is a fascinating one. From

the first edition in 1536 until the final Latin edition of 1559, the Institutes
grew from a libellus, a little book, to a large book, consisting of four vol
umes. If the first 1536 edition of the Institutes was comparable to a little
chapel, the final Latin edition of 1559 is comparable to a great cathedral.
Or, to use a metaphor from Herman J. Selderhuis biography, John Calvin:
A Pilgrims Life, if the first edition drifted into publication as a little sail
boat of six chapters, the final Latin edition had grown into a large cargo
ship of some eighty chapters.6 Throughout the course of his life, Calvin
was intermittently focused upon enlarging his Institutes, reordering its
treatment of the loci communes and disputationes of traditional theological
discussion and contemporary controversy, until he pronounced himself
satisfied that the work had been arranged in the order now set forth.7
Although there remain differences of opinion among interpreters of
Calvin regarding the structure of the Institutes, several features are com
monly acknowledged.
5For treatments of the history and organization of Calvins Institutes, see, Julius Kstlin,
Calvins Institution nach Form und Inhalt, in ihrer geschlichtlichen Entwicklung,
Theologische Studien und Kritiken 41 (1868): 762, 410486; B.B. Warfield, On the Literary
History of Calvins Institutes, in John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. John
Allen, 7th ed. (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Christian Education, 1936), xxxxxxi;
Jean-Daniel Benoit, The History and Development of the Institutio: How Calvin Worked,
in John Calvin, ed. Duffield (Appleford: Sutton Courtney Press, 1966), 102117; and Muller,
UC, 118139.
6Herman J. Selderhuis, John Calvin: A Pilgrims Life (Downers Grove: IVP, 2009), 229.
7Calvin, Institutes (Battles/McNeil), John Calvin to the Reader, 1559, 3.
Whereas the first edition of the Institutes was clearly constructed as a

basic catechetical manual, consisting of six chapters that treat the tradi
tional topics of the law or Ten Commandments, the Apostles Creed, and
the Lords Prayer, subsequent editions of the Institutes exhibit a more sys
tematic and comprehensive pattern of treating the full range of the loci
communes of Christian theology. Each successive edition of the Institutes,
beginning with a 1539 Latin edition compiled during Calvins tenure as a
pastor in Strasbourg, expands the treatment of topics, adding material
derived from Calvins exegetical labors and polemical disputes with con
temporaries. Though the 1539 Latin edition expands to seventeen chap
ters, almost three times the number of the first edition, it retains the
catechetical arrangement of the first edition. However, with each succes
sive edition thereafter, Calvin moves in the direction of a summary of the
Christian faith that has the character of a summa theologica, a compre
hensive summary of the principal topics of Christian theology, arranged in
an appropriate order and sequence. The shift from a strictly catechetical
arrangement to a more systematic arrangement occurred in the context of
Calvins writing of his commentary on Romans (1539). In the introduction
to his Romans commentary, Calvin clearly distinguishes between his
exposition of biblical texts and the treatment of the traditional topics and
disputations of Christian theology, which he reserves to his Institutes.8
In the course of Calvins expansion of the Institutes from a simple cat
echetical manual to a comprehensive summary of the principal topics of
Christian theology, the arrangement and re-arrangement of topics increas
ingly reflects the pattern and sequence of topics in the book of Romans. In
his analysis of the organization of Calvins Institutes, Muller has argued
that Calvins pursuit of an ordo recte docendi or right order of teaching
was significantly influenced by Melanchthons 1521 and 1535/1536 editions
of his Loci communes. Like Melanchthon, Calvin was profoundly shaped
by his commentary on the book of Romans, which led him to distinguish
the theological task into two areas, commenting on the biblical text and
treating the topics of theology that arise within the framework of exegesis.
The fruit of the first task is the biblical commentary; the fruit of the second
task is the theological summary or instruction (Institutio) in the Christian
faith. Thus, in the arrangement of topics from the 1539 Latin edition until
the greatly expanded edition of 1550, the sequence reflects the structure of
8See John Calvin, The Epistles of Paul to the Romans and Thessalonians, ed. Torrance
and Torrance (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960), 14; and T.H.L. Parker, John Calvin: A
Biography (Philadelphia: WP, 1975), 7273.
the book of Romans and particularly the order of topics in Melanchthons

Loci communes: the doctrine of sin and the nature of free choice; the law
of God in contrast with the gospel; grace, justification, and faith; the fruits
of salvation in faith, love, and hope; the people of God, especially the rela
tion of Old and New Testaments; the Christian life and good works; the
sacraments; the magistrate; and scandal or offense.9 While the order of
topics in Calvins Institutes cannot always be explained by the influence of
the book of Romans or Melanchthons Loci communes, there is broad cor
respondence between them.
The final Latin edition of the Institutes represents an arrangement of
topics that significantly revises the structure of earlier editions. For the
first time, Calvin arranges his summary of topics in four books, which
broadly correspond to the four divisions of the Apostles Creed. In the final
arrangement of topics, Calvin sets forth the twofold knowledge (duplex
cognitio) of God and ourselves, which contains the sum of all Christian
wisdom, in four books: Book I treats the knowledge of God, the Triune
Creator; Book II treats the knowledge of God as Redeemer in the person
and work of Jesus Christ, the Mediator; Book III treats the knowledge of
God, the Holy Spirit, who binds the believer to Christ; and Book IV treats
the doctrine of the church, the external means whereby Christ through
the Spirit joins believers into fellowship with himself. Though the fourfold
creedal division of the final Latin edition of the Institutes retains much of
the sequence of topics in earlier editions, and therefore does not invari
ably follow the sequence of topics in the creed, it does represent a more
satisfying, to use Calvins term, distribution of the loci communes of
Christian theology. Furthermore, the Trinitarian pattern of the creed also
accommodates Calvins distinction between the twofold knowledge of
God as Creator and Redeemer. Within these broad contours, most of
Calvins decisions regarding the sequence and arrangement of topics in
the history and development of the Institutes can be explained.10
The Organization of Calvins Treatment of the duplex gratia Dei
Before considering Calvins explanation for the unusual order of his

treatment of the twofold grace of God, justification and sanctification, in
9See Melanchthon, Loci communes theologici, in CR 21; and Muller, UC, 127130.
10Muller, Unaccommodated Calvin, 134, offers an important comment regarding the
relation of the content of the successive editions of the Institutes: Calvin did not work by
excision and replacement: virtually the entirety of the 1536 Institutes remains in the 1559
edition.
Book III of the final Latin edition of the Institutes, it will be helpful to
observe the order of Calvins treatment of the topic in the various Latin
editions of the Institutes.
1536. In the first edition of the Institutes, Calvin treats the doctrine of justifi
cation at the close of the first chapter, after an extended exposition of the
law or Decalogue. Repentance or sanctification is treated separately and
briefly, in chapter 5, which deals with the Roman Catholic sacrament of pen
ance. In the exposition of repentance, Calvin affirms that the whole sum of
the gospel is contained under these two headings, repentance and forgive
ness of sins.
1539. In the second edition of the Institutes, Calvin treats the twofold grace
of justification and sanctification in chapters 5 and 6, within the setting of
the doctrine of faith and the exposition of the Apostles Creed. For the first
time, Calvin adopts an order of teaching that considers repentance or sanc
tification first (chapter 5), and then justification (chapter 6). Calvin offers a
partial explanation for his decision to follow this order in chapter 6.
1543, 1550. In the third and fourth editions of the Institutes, Calvin retains
the order established in the second edition, treating repentance before
justification.
1559. In the final Latin edition of the Institutes, Calvin continues to follow
the order established in the second edition of 1539. However, he adds an
important explanation of his decision to treat repentance first in the intro
duction to the doctrine of repentance in Book III, chapter 3.
What this overview of the various editions of the Institutes shows is that
Calvin consistently ordered his exposition of the two benefits of the
believers union with Christ in an unusual manner. None of the revisions
or changes in the sequence of topics in the organization of the successive
editions of the Institutes led Calvin to alter his decision, first reflected in
the 1539 or second edition, to treat repentance or sanctification before jus
tification. Calvin follows this order in every edition of the Institutes with
the exception of the 1536 or first edition where justification is treated
briefly in the first chapter on the law of God (Decalogue), and repentance
is treated in the fifth chapter on the false sacraments. That Calvin chooses
to adopt this order is especially remarkable, since it reverses the sequence
of what he terms the second (repentance) and the first (justification)
of the benefits of union with Christ. Furthermore, the order of the treat
ment of the twofold grace of God in the Institutes does not correspond to
the order Calvin follows in his Catechisms of 1537 and 1545.11 In both of
11Instruction et Confession de Foy 1537 (OS 1:393395); Catechismus Ecclesiae Genevensis

1545 (OS 2:9396).
these catechisms, Calvin first treats justification and then repentance,

reflecting Calvins own insistence that justification is the first or princi
pal benefit of Gods grace in Christ.
Calvins own awareness of the unusual nature of the sequence of repen
tance first and then justification is confirmed by two lengthy explanations
that he offers for it. The first of these explanations, which occurs in the
introduction to the doctrine of repentance in chapter 3 of Book III, was
added to the final Latin edition of 1559. The second of these explanations
occurs at the beginning of chapter 11 of Book III, which introduces Calvins
extensive treatment of the doctrine of justification. Most of the second
explanation in chapter 11 dates back to material already included in the
second 1539 edition of the Institutes. Due to the importance of these expla
nations for an interpretation of Calvins decision to follow his unusual
order of treating the two benefits of the believers union with Christ, they
need to be quoted in full:
Now, both repentance and forgiveness of sinsthat is, newness of life and
free reconciliationare conferred on us by Christ, and both are attained by
us through faith (Iam quum utrunque nobis conferat Christus, et utrunque fide
consequamur, vitae scilicet novitatem, et reconciliationem gratuitam). As a
consequence, reason and the order of teaching demand that I begin to dis
cuss both at this point (ratio et docendi series postulat ut de utroque hoc loco
disserere incipiam). However, our immediate transition will be from faith to
repentance. For when this topic is rightly understood it will better appear
how man is justified by faith alone, and simple pardon; nevertheless, actual
holiness of life, so to speak, is not separated (nequeseparetur) from free
imputation of righteousness. Now it ought to be a fact beyond controversy
that repentance not only constantly follows faith, but is also born of faith
(Poenitentiam vero non modo fidem continue subsequi, sed ex ea nasci). [N]o
one can embrace the grace of the gospel without betaking himself from the
errors of his past life into the right way, and applying his whole effort to the
practice of repentance.12
Of regeneration indeed, the second of these gifts, I have said what seemed
sufficient. The theme of justification was therefore more lightly touched
upon because it was more to the point to understand first how little devoid
of good works is the faith through which alone we obtain free righteous
nessby the mercy of God; and what is the nature of the good works of the
saints with which part of this question is concerned. Therefore we must now
12Institutes, III.iii.1 (OS 4:55). Most of this statement was added in the final, 1559 edition
of the Institutes, an edition characterized by its greater attention to the structure of the
whole and the relation of its parts. Cf. the French edition of the Institutes, 1560: ...la raison
et ordre requierent que ie commence a traiter icy des deux.
discuss these matters thoroughly. And we must so discuss them as to bear in

mind that this is the main hinge on which religion turns (praecipuum esse
sustinendae religionis cardinem), so that we devote the greater attention and
care to it. For unless you first of all grasp what your relationship to God is,
and the nature of his judgment concerning you, you have neither a founda
tion on which to establish your salvation nor one on which to build piety
toward God.13
In these two passages, Calvin offers two distinct reasons for the odd order
that he chooses to follow, namely, treating repentance before justification.
First, he believes that this order of treatment will convince his readers that
justification is by faith alone apart from works. In the first passage,
this consideration is referred to explicitly when Calvin notes that when
this topic [i.e., sanctification or regeneration] is rightly understood it will
better appear how man is justified by faith alone, and simple pardon.14
According to Calvin, it will be impossible to introduce such works as a
partial cause of justification, since his preceding discussion of them com
pels the conclusion that they are not such as could justify. In that discus
sion, Calvin argues that there is no sinless perfection in this life, and that,
however much believers advance in holiness, they must still rest their
hope on Gods mercy in order to have fellowship with him. But it is also
referred to indirectly in the second passage, which notes that this order
will assist Calvins readers when the topic of justification is taken up, since
a clear picture will have already emerged as to the nature of the good
works of the saints, with which part of this question is concerned.15 Far
from suggesting that Calvin wishes to place more emphasis upon sanctifi
cation than justification, the order Calvin follows serves to buttress the
basic Reformation claim that believers are justified by grace alone through
faith alone, and not upon the basis of meritorious works. Calvin adopts
what appears to be an unusual order, not to diminish the Reformation
emphasis upon justification by faith alone, but to confirm it.
Second, Calvin believes that this order of treatment will also convince
his readers that, though justification is not based upon good works, it
cannot be separated from its necessary accompaniment, repentance.
Accordingly, in the first passage, Calvin identifies a second consideration
for adopting this order: it will show how actual holiness of life, so to speak,
13Institutes, III.xi.1 (OS 4:182).

14Institutes, III.iii.1 (OS 4:5) melius patebit quomodo sola fide et mera venia iustifice
tur homo.
15Institutes, III.xi.1 (OS 4:182): et qualia sint sanctorum bona opera, in quibus pars
huius quaestionis versatur.
is not separated from free imputation of righteousness.16 And similarly, in

the second passage, he states that this order of treatment will enable his
readers to understand how little devoid of good works is the faith through
which alone we obtain free righteousness by the mercy of God.17 By treat
ing sanctification before justification, it will be clear that these two bene
fits are granted inseparably and simultaneously to all who are joined to
Christ by faith and indwelt of his Spirit. Once again the order of treat
ment serves Calvins polemical and apologetic purpose to defend the
Reformation view of justification against the counter-Reformation, which
argued that the Reformation view undercut the necessity of good works in
salvation. Thus Calvin acknowledges in both passages that these two
aspects of Gods grace are inseparable, being conferred by Christ and
obtained through faith. He also acknowledges that justification is the
first and sanctification the second of these parts.18 In short, Calvins
order of teaching in the Institutes does not imply that he is indifferent to
the distinction or theological relation between the benefits of justification
and sanctification.19
Summary Observations Regarding Calvins Ordering of

the Twofold Grace of God
When Calvins explanations for his decision to treat repentance before jus
tification are viewed within the framework of the broader observations we
have made regarding the organization and sequence of topics in the final
edition of the Institutes, several observations may be made.
First, Calvin recognizes that his ordering of topics is unusual, and does
not appear to conform to the dictates of what he calls reason and the
order of teaching (ratio et docendi series). Since both of the benefits of
free justification and repentance are granted inseparably and simultane
ously to all believers who are united to Christ, the order of teaching
16Institutes, III.iii.1 (OS 4:5): neque tamen a gratuita iustitiae imputatione separetur
realis (ut ita loquar) vitae sanctitas.
17Institutes, III.xi.1 (OS 4:182): et quam otiosa non sit a bonis operibus fides, qua sola
gratuitam iustitiam, Dei misericordia obtinemus.
18Institutes, III.iii.1 (OS 4:55). The relative priority of justification, while not explicitly
indicated in the first passage, is suggested by Calvins comment that repentance not only
follows faith, but is also born of faith (Poenitentiam vero non modo fidem continue subsequi,
sed ex ea nasci).
19See Paul Helm, John Calvins Ideas (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 405406, for a discussion of
the careful (scholastic) way Calvin articulates the concomitance and theological subse
quence of sanctification in relation to justification.
suggests that they should be treated together. However, Calvin chooses to

treat these topics separately, and in a peculiar sequence, in order to
achieve a didactic and apologetic purpose. Within the context of the ongo
ing dispute with Roman Catholic teaching, Calvin believes that the order
he adopts will simultaneously advance the Reformations doctrinal case
on two fronts: first, it will show why justification cannot be based upon
meritorious good works, but is freely and graciously based upon the impu
tation of Christs righteousness alone; and second, it will show why the
charge of antinomianism against the Reformers is invalid, since true
believers are simultaneously justified and sanctified. The primary occa
sion for Calvins unusual ordering of topics is his polemic for the
Reformation doctrine of justification in the face of Roman Catholic criti
cism. The considerations that play a determinative role are, accordingly,
didactic, polemical, and even rhetorical.20
Second, though Calvins exposition of the twofold grace of God seems
to present an exception to a more general pattern of following the
sequence of topics in the book of Romans, where justification is treated
prior to sanctification, the theological points that Calvin aims to make by
means of the sequence adopted is anticipated in Calvins own commen
tary on the book of Romans. Already in his 1539 commentary on Romans,
Calvin had argued that free remission of sins cannot be separated from
the Spirit of regeneration. This would be, as it were, to rend Christ asun
der.21 Even though the sequence of topics in the Institutes (first repen
tance and then justification) does not follow the pattern of the book of
20Since these considerations are neither strictly logical nor derived from the nature of
the subject at hand, they may be termed didactic and rhetorical. They belong to the
rhetorical category of deliberative discourse. For the role of rhetoric in the organization
of Calvins Institutes, see, Quirinus Breen, Christianity and Humanism (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1968), John Calvin and the Rhetorical Tradition, 107129; E. David Willis,
Rhetoric and Responsibility in Calvins Theology, in The Context of Contemporary
Theology, ed. McKelway and Willis (Atlanta: JKP, 1974), 4363; and William J. Bouwsma,
Calvinism as Theologia Rhetorica, in Calvinism as Theologia Rhetorica, ed. Wilhelm
Wueller (Berkeley: Center for Hermeneutical Studies in Hellenistic and Modern Culture,
1986), 121. Though Muller properly objects to Bouwsmas general claim that Calvins
Institutes is not logically ordered (Muller, UC, 130), Bouwsma does make an apt comment
on the rhetorical shaping of Calvins arrangement of topics in the Institutes, which seems
applicable to his decision to treat repentance before justification in Book III: The Institutes
is not logically ordered; it consists of a series of overlapping topics generally following the
order of the Apostles Creed. This organization allowed Calvin the flexibility for a variety of
persuasive strategies. [T]he text is throughout a complex mixture of demonstration,
advocacy, and apologetic. Willis, Rhetoric and Responsibility, 57, explicitly cites Calvins
treatment of justification and repentance as an instance of rhetorical correlation.
21Calvin, Romans and Thessalonians, 164.
Romans, the theological emphases of Calvins treatment of the doctrine of

the twofold grace of God are already present in his Romans commentary.
Calvins decision to reverse the sequence illustrates that many of his spe
cific decisions about the placement of topics derive from distinct polemi
cal and contextual considerations. Within the broader framework of
Calvins use of the fourfold division of the Apostles Creed and the sequence
of topics in the book of Romans, the arrangement of topics in the Institutes
displays considerable flexibility in the distribution of topics based upon
occasional and polemical concerns.
Third, despite Calvins own explanation of his decision to place the ben
efit of repentance before justification in the exposition of the twofold
grace of God, interpreters of Calvins theology have often been tempted to
appeal to it in order to support theological points that wrest Calvins theol
ogy from its sixteenth-century context. Calvins explanation of his order of
treatment offers no support to inferences that would ascribe undue theo
logical significance to his placing repentance before justification. Calvin
expressly claims that his ordering of the topics serves the purpose of but
tressing the case for the Reformations doctrine of justification by faith
alone.22 In spite of these comments by Calvin, some interpreters have
appealed to his treatment of repentance first as an indication that he
wished to give greater emphasis to repentance as the principal benefit of
the gospel.23 This interpretation hardly seems likely, since Calvin terms
justification the main hinge of the Christian religion. Though Calvin
undoubtedly wants to emphasize the inseparability and simultaneity of
justification and sanctification as the twofold benefit of the believers
union with Christ, he nonetheless views justification to be the first, and
sanctification the second, of these benefits. Other interpreters have
maintained that Calvin treats repentance first as an indication that he
grants no priority to justification in relation to sanctification, as is the
case in the later, orthodox formulations of a Reformed ordo salutis.24
22Cf. Albrecht Ritschl, A Critical History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification and
Reconciliation (Clifton: Reference, 1966), 3:185: And yet Calvins doctrinal delineation,
however puzzling may be the sequence of its ideas to him who has been accustomed to the
traditionary doctrine of Luther and Melanchthon, as that is found in certain text-books, is
determined precisely by a chief regard to the original reformation phenomenon of the
subjective consciousness of justification. Ritschl is one of few interpreters who have noted
the importance of Calvins order for underscoring the importance of justification.
23See, e.g., Alfred Ghler, Calvins Lehre von der Heiligung (Mnchen: Chr. Kaiser, 1934),
105; and Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV/1:509511. Both Ghler and Barth interpret this order
as an indication of Calvins primary interest in sanctification.
24See, e.g., Richard B. Gaffin Jr., Biblical Theology and the Westminster Standards, WTJ
65 (2003): 176177; Mark A. Garcia, Life in Christ: Union with Christ and Twofold Grace in
According to these interpreters, Calvin co-ordinates the two benefits of

justification and sanctification, and thereby presents a position at odds
with the later Reformed formulations of the ordo salutis. Unlike later for
mulations of the ordo salutis in the period of orthodoxy, which place justi
fication prior to sanctification in the appropriation of salvation, Calvin
views the relative order of these two benefits as an indifferent matter.
Since Calvin does view both of the benefits of the twofold grace of God
within the more basic context of the believers union with Christ, this
interpretation properly recognizes that Calvins ordo does not exhibit the
kind of precise formulation and linear presentation of the various aspects
of salvation that marked the formulations of the orthodox period.
However, this interpretation tends to over-interpret the significance of
Calvins decision to treat repentance before justification in the sequence
of topics in the Institutes.
And fourth, though Calvins treatment of repentance before justifica
tion in his Institutes may seem to imply a measure of indifference regard
ing the particular order and priority of justification in the appropriation of
salvation, he does exhibit a keen interest throughout his writings in the
way the two benefits of justification and sanctification are interrelated.
For example, I have previously noted that he often speaks of justification
as the first, and of repentance as the second of these two benefits. For
Calvin, the relation of sanctification to justification is like that between
the sun and its heat. In his commentary on Romans 4:6, Calvin notes that
the righteousness of worksis the effect (effectus) of the righteousness of
faith, and the blessedness which arises from works is the effect of the
blessedness which consists in the remission of sins. We should consider
here the order of causes as well as the dispensation of the grace of God.25
As with so many features of Calvins theology, it is not enough to cite
Calvins Institutes alone. The treatment of doctrinal loci communes in the
Institutes, particularly the topic of the relation between justification and
sanctification, must be assessed in terms of the entire corpus of Calvins
writings, including his commentaries and sermons.
Calvins Theology (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2008), 140147, 258264; and Craig B. Carpenter,
A Question of Union with Christ? Calvin and Trent on Justification, WTJ 64 (2002):
381385.
25Calvin, Romans and Thessalonians, 87. For a further discussion of this point, see my
Accepted and Renewed in Christ: The Twofold Grace of God and the Interpretation of Calvins
Theology (Gttingen: V&R, 2007), 172175.
CALVINS HERMENEUTICS OF THE IMPRECATIONS
OF THE PSALTER
Paul Mpindi
Introduction
Calvins exegesis of the imprecations of the Psalter offers an ideal place

to examine the proposal that Calvins exegetical principles both shared
elements of late medieval hermeneutics and also moved him away from
late-medieval exegesis toward a more direct application of the literal
meaning of the text to his contemporary situation. Not only does Calvin
himself point toward this pattern of interpretation in several prefaces to
his Old Testament commentaries, it is also the case that the imprecations
of the Psalter make heavy demands on the exegete (particularly in terms
of contemporary address or application) and thereby cause him to reveal
his exegetical principles.1
In order to achieve its goal, the present study analyzes Calvins exegesis
of the imprecatory texts of the Psalter both in the light of medieval exege-
sis and in the light of sixteenth-century exegesis of the text. The study is
divided into three sections: the first section provides a short overview of
the exegesis of the imprecations of the Psalter, in the early church, in
medieval times, and in the era of the Reformation. The purpose of the
section is to discover the different hermeneutical trends prior to Calvin
and to develop a paradigm against which Calvins hermeneutics of
the imprecations of the Psalter will be evaluated. The second section ana-
lyzes Calvins exegesis of two key imprecatory passages of the Psalter.
1See Calvins prefaces to his Commentaries on the Psalms, the Mosaic, Joshua and
Romans. John Calvin, lohanllis Calvini Conzmentarius in Librum Psalnzorum (Geneva:
Oliva Roberti Stephani, 1557); lohannis Calvini Commentarius in Librum Psalmorum,
CO:XXXI, cols. 1436; Commentaires de M. leall Calvin sur Ie livre des Pseaumes. Ceste traduc-
tion est tellement reveue, & fidelement conferee sur Ie latin qu on La peutjuger estre nouvelle
(Geneva: C. Badius, 1561), i-vi; Commentaires de Iehan Calvin sur Ie livre des Pseaumes, vol. I
(Paris: Meyrueis, 1859), v-xij; Mosis Libri V, cum lohannis Calvini Commentariis. Genesis seor-
sum: reliqui quatuor infonnam harmoniae digesti (Geneva: Henr. Stephanus, 1563). fols. *iir-
*iiir; *iiiv-*v.v; Commentaires de M.lean Calvin, sur les cinq liures de Moyse. Genesis est mis a
part, les autre quatre liures sont disposez enfonne dHannonie (Geneva: Franois Estienne,
1564), fo1. *ir-*ivv; lohannis Calvini Commentarius in Epistoli Pauli ad Romanos, in
Studies in the History of Christian Thought, vol. XXII, ed. Parker (Leiden: Brill, 1981), 110.
136 paul mpindi
The purpose of the section is not to offer an exhaustive study of each

psalm, but to analyze Calvins hermeneutical patterns in the light of tradi-
tional and sixteenth-century exegesis. The final section concludes the
study by highlighting the characteristics of Calvins hermeneutics of the
imprecations of the Psalter, indicating the elements of continuity and dis-
continuity between Calvin and his predecessors and contemporaries, and
rehearsing the broader question of modern scholarships assessment of
Calvins Old Testament exegesis.
Early Jewish and Christian Interpretation

of the Imprecations of the Psalter
In general, early Jewish exegesis approached the Psalter spiritually and

read it as a prophecy announcing the coming messiah. The Septuagint, the
Targumim, and the Peshitta all follow a future-predictive and messianic
interpretation of the Hebrew Psalter.2 They considered David as a prophet
predicting the arrival of the messianic time. The prayers of the Psalter in
general, and the imprecatory passages in particular, are considered as
prophecies concerning the coming messiah, and the vindication of the
people of God. This was especially true for the Qumran community. Con
fronted with the destruction of the national and spiritual life of the Jewish
nation, the Qumran community emphasized the messianic approach
of the Psalter by accentuating its eschatological scope. According to
Qumrans exegesis, the Psalter announces the coming of the messianic
king who is going to vindicate the community of the righteous. And the
imprecations of the Psalter are but prophecies announcing the destruc-
tion of the enemies of true Israel.
But during the rabbinic period, and the development of the fourfold
methods of biblical interpretation, most Jewish commentators started
reading the Psalter both historically and prophetically.3 Thus, there devel-
oped among Jewish commentators the consensus that the Psalms speak
both of the earthly kingdom of God as experienced by Israel under the
2See J.W. Wevers, The Interpretative Character and Significance of the Septuagint
Version, in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. The History of Its Interpretation, vol. 1. From the
Beginnings to the Middle Ages (Until 1300), ed. Saebo (Gttingen: V&R, 1996), 84107.
3See B.J. Gelles, Peshat and Derash in the Exegesis of Rashi (Leiden: Brill, 1981); D. Weiss
Halivni, Plain Sense and Applied Meaning in Rabbinic Exegesis, in The Return to Scripture
in Judaism and Christianity, ed. Ochs (New York: Paulist, 1993), 107141; and idem, Peshat
and Derash: Plain and Applied Meaning in Rabbinic Exegesis (Oxford: OUP, 1991).
calvins hermeneutics of the imprecations of the psalter 137
leadership of David and his dynasty, and the eschatological kingdom of

God to come during the reign of the messiah.4 Rabbinic exegesis explains
the imprecations of the Psalter, both historically and eschatologically. The
enemies cursed in the Psalms are first identified as Davids historical ene-
mies, then as the enemies of the people of God who would be destroyed by
the messiah in the future.
Following on the footsteps of Jewish exegesis, Christian commentators
adopted the Jewish spiritual reading of the Psalter and profited from the
Jewish historical reading as well.5 Early church fathers, medievals, and
reformers all used Jewish sources to argue that Jesus was the awaited mes-
siah of Israel. This, however, had as a result the shift of Jewish exegesis
toward a more historical reading of the Psalter, which in turn helped many
late-medieval Christians and early reforming interpreters to rediscover
and adopt a literal-historical reading of the text. Jewish literal (historical)
reading of the text explained the Psalter in the light of King David as the
corporate representative of Israel. According to this reading, David was
the paradigm of the believer who in his spiritual life experiences both
Gods grace and his hiddenness.
Christian interpreters of the late medieval and early Reformation
period who adopted a literal-historical reading of the text went beyond
Jewish limitations of the literal meaning of the Psalter to David and their
hesitations concerning the eschatological messiah, and applied it to Christ
both typologically and paraenetically.6 While many exegetes including
Luther and Bucer also argued that messianic Psalms had as their literal
sense Christs incarnation, passion, resurrection, and ascension, Calvin
gave priority to the life of David, resulting in more limited and infrequent
christological interpretation.7 Often with Jewish exegesis in the back-
ground, traditional Christian exegesis of the Psalter offers a reading of the
Psalter that moves from a purely spiritual reading to a more historical-
literal, historical-prophetic and to a purely prophetic reading. And this is
especially true for their interpretation of the imprecations of the Psalter.
In general, most medievals and reformers go beyond, or bypass, Davids
4See J.J. Brierre-Narbonne, Les prophties messianiques de lAncien Testament dans la

literature juive (Paris: Geuthner, 1933); Brierre-Narbonne, Exgse rabbinique des prophties
messianiques, 5 vols. (Paris: Geuthner, 19341938).
5D.C. Mitchell, The Message of the Psalter: An Eschatological Program in the Book of
Psalms (Sheffield: SAP, 1977), 33.
6G. Sujin Pak, The Judaizing Calvin: Sixteenth-Century Debates over the Messianic
Psalms (Oxford: OUP, 2010), 1375.
7Pak, The Judaizing Calvin, 77101.
138 paul mpindi
historical enemies, and apply directly the curses of the Psalter to the ene-
mies of Christ.
Calvins Interpretation of the Imprecations of the Psalter
An overview of Calvins commentary on the Psalter reveals forty instances

where the reformer considered the passages commented upon as impre-
catory.8 Given the large number of the imprecatory passages, the follow-
ing section limits itself to Calvins exegesis of two key imprecatory passages
found in Psalms 109 and 137. To evaluate Calvins exegesis we will give a
brief review of traditional understandings of each psalm, an analysis of
Calvins interpretation in its sixteenth-century setting, and some conclud-
ing remarks on the elements of Calvins hermeneutic in continuity and
discontinuity with previous tradition.9
Psalm 109 (108):620, 29

Most traditional commentators follow the rereading of Psalm 109 (108) by
Peter in Acts 2 and explain it as the prayer of Christ foretelling his persecu-
tion by the Jews and the punishment of Judas who betrayed him.
Traditional exegetes insist on the fact that although harsh, the impreca-
tions voiced against Judas are not evil wishes, but prophecies concerning
the fate of Judas who died by his own hand.10
For the first time, Calvin also agrees that Psalm 109 is not only the prayer
of David, but as he represented another person than himself, the prayer
8Individual Psalms: Psalms 3:8; 5:11; 6:11; 7:11; 9:1618, 2021; 10:15; 11:6; 12:45; 17:1314;
28:45; 31:1819; 35:18, 26; 52:7; 36:1213; 40:1516; 41:11; 54:7; 55:10, 16, 24; 56:8; 58:611; 59:6,
1214; 63:1011; 64:810; 69:2329; 70:34; 70:34; 71:13; 109:620, 29; 139:1922; 140:1012;
141:10; 143:12; 144:58. Communal Psalms: Psalms 68:2024; 74:11; 79:6, 12; 83:1018; 94:12,
23; 135:8; 137:59.
9The following analysis limits the dialogue between Calvins exegesis of the impreca-
tions of the Psalter and the exegesis of Jerome, Augustine, Cassiodorus, Theodoret,
Aquinas, Lyra, Luther, Bucer, and Wolfgang Musculus, when applicable. The preceding
fathers and sixteenth-century commentators have been chosen because they are among
those who could be considered as both representative of traditional and sixteenth-century
exegesis and might have, directly or indirectly, influenced Calvins exegesis.
10St. Jerome, The Homilies of Saint Jerome, vol. 1, trans. Ewald (Washington: CUAP,
1964), 255269; Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on the Book of Psalms, in NPNF1, 8:537538;
A. Cassiodorus, Explanation of the Psalms III, trans. Walsh (N.Y.: Paulist, 1990), 103;
J. Chrysostom, Commentary on the Psalms II, 2 vols., trans. Hill (Brookline: Holy Cross,
1998), 18; Theodoret of Cyrus, Commentary on the Psalms: Psalms 73150 (Washington:
CUAP, 2000), 200201; Nicholas of Lyra, Postilla super totam Bibliam, 4 vols. (Strasburg,
1492: Microform).
voiced in Psalm 109 applies to Christ, the head of the church, and applies
to each believer as a member of the body of Christ.11 Calvin argues that
through his persecution, David is a figure of Christ and a model for the
church, the body of Christ called to complete the suffering of its head, the
Lord Jesus-Christ. But contrary to traditional commentators, Calvin does
not apply the content of the psalm directly to the life and passion of Christ.
Instead, Calvin offers a historical and theological explanation of the psalm
based on the life and trial of David. Thus Calvin reads the imprecations in
verses 6 to 20 in the light of trials experienced by David.
Again, before commenting on the imprecations themselves, Calvin
reminds his readers of the three important hermeneutical rules to follow
in the interpretation and application of the imprecations of the Psalter.
First of all, he argues that the imprecations of the Psalter do not result
from Davids carnal passions; second, David did not call Gods vengeance
in order to defend his personal and private cause; and finally, David did
not utter these imprecations under an excessive zeal. Calvin encourages
believers to avoid misusing the imprecations of the Psalter, as is the case
in Catholic circles, where private citizens hire monks in order to recite
these prayers against their personal enemies.12 Calvin urges believers to
renounce personal vengeance or give way to their carnal passion or exces-
sive zeal.13 To those tempted to use Davids imprecations as an excuse for
personal cause, Calvin cites the words of Christ against his disciples: You
do not know what spirit leads you.14
Now, returning to the words of the imprecations voiced in verses 6 to
20, Calvin argues that David asks God to appoint an evil man as a prosecu-
tor against his enemy, because the enemy lives in contempt of God and
endeavors to find wicked ways to destroy the innocent. Thus he deserves
to suffer the tyranny of another wicked person who would rule over him.
But Calvin quickly contends that believers should guard against being in a
hurry when they pray against their enemies. They should give way to the
grace of God, since by Gods grace, the person who oppresses us today may
become our friend tomorrow. Here Calvin joins traditional exegesis in his
11Calvin, Pseaumes II, 323.

12This is an echo of Luthers exegesis of Psalm 109. Luther, Selected Psalms III, in LW
14:257.
13This also echoes Luther. It is wrong to curse on your own account for personal ven-
geance or some other personal end. Luther, Selected Psalms III, in LW 14:258.
14Calvin, Pseaumes II, 325. Musculus follows a double reading of the text and applies it
to Judas betrayal of Christ as restated by Peter in the book of Acts, W. Musculus, In
Sacrosanctum Davidis Psalterium Commentarii (Basel: Hervagiana, 1551), 13971398.
140 paul mpindi
concern for the conversion of the wicked, but he does so without resorting
to a christological application of the text as found in the fathers and in his
contemporaries.
Returning to the text, Calvin explains the imprecations asking for the
condemnation of the wicked as a judicial procedure in a human court,
where the wicked after due process is found guilty and sentenced accord-
ing to his guilt. But expounding verse 8, where David asks God to reduce
the number of days of the enemy and that his office be given to another
person, Calvin suspends his historical approach and accepts Peters
rereading of the psalm and its application to the plight of Judas.15 Against
Jewish commentators who change the common meaning of the word
office and read it as administration or wife or soul, Calvin indicates
that this is due to their malice. Calvin contends that Jewish commentators
change the text to avoid agreeing with Peters christological application of
the text to Judas.
Another important point holds Calvins attention in Davids prayers
against his enemies. In verses 13 to 15, David asks God to exterminate the
posterity of the wicked and erase their name from the memory of human-
ity. Calvin argues that one should not misunderstand David as asking God
to punish without discrimination the members of the family of the wicked.
Calvin contends that it is contrary to Gods righteous nature to punish the
innocent pesle mesle with the wicked. Instead, David asks God to deprive
the reprobate of his grace and of the light of his Spirit so that they become
the vessels of wrath and left to perdition, even before they are born.16
Now to those who would argue against the harshness of Davids impre-
cations, Calvin argues that the enemies are actually the ones to blame
since their cruelty toward the innocent is unspeakable. They oppress the
weak with such cruelty as if they were beating on a dead dog! Calvin sees
an antithesis between the unrestrained cruelty of the enemies against the
weak and Gods rigorous and irrevocable judgment against them.
But to avoid any triumphalism or misuse of these imprecations by
believers, Calvin revisits the subject and argues that believers should be
patient with those who oppress them, since they are still unable to distin-
guish in this life between the elect and the reprobate.17 Calvin encourages
15Musculus, In sacrosanctum Davidis Psalterium Commentarii, 13971398.

16Calvin, Pseaumes II, 328. Calvin, Institution, III.xxiv.12 (Benot, 1541).
17See Calvins treatment of the punishment of the reprobate (enemies) in the light of
the doctrine of predestination in Calvins Institutes. Calvin, Institution, III.xxi, xxii, xxiii,
xxiv. See the discussion on Calvins doctrine of divine predestination in Franois Wendel,
Calvin: Origins and Development of His Religious Thought, trans. Philip Mairet (New York:
believers to pray for their salvation. Notice here that Calvin joins tradi-
tional exegesis on the tropological level. He too shares their concern for
the salvation of the wicked. Traditional exegetes reach their conclusion
from a spiritual and christological level and Calvin reaches his conclusion
from a theological and practical level. Calvins doctrine of double predes-
tination serves as the foundation of his practical application of the impre-
cations of the Psalter in the context of the church. However, this does not
forbid believers, who are innocent and have purified themselves from vin-
dictiveness from calling God to exercise his judgment and vengeance on
their behalf against their enemies. Calvin argues that believers should not
curse their enemies or wish their physical death, although they can pray
God to defend their cause. And since God distinguishes in this life between
the elect and reprobate, he will destroy those of their enemies who are
part of the reprobate, since the reprobate are doomed from eternity.18 In
other words, Calvin sees the possibility of the use of the imprecations by
believers, as long as they limit themselves to calling Gods vengeance
against their enemies and leaving its execution to God. God himself will
choose among their enemies those who are vessels of destruction and
those who are elect and cannot be cursed. Thus the imprecations of the
Psalter were used by David and may be used by believers against the rep-
robate, although only God knows the reprobate and can execute his judg-
ments against them.
It is important to notice that although Calvin agrees with the tradition
that in Psalm 109 David speaks as a figure of Christ and his Church, Christ
himself is completely absent in his treatment of the imprecatory passages,
but in verse 8 where he allows Peters christological rereading of verse 8 in
Acts 1:23 to briefly surface in his historical and theological exposition.
Christ reappears in the concluding section of the psalm, where Calvin
treats David and believers righteousness through Christ and not through
their own works.19
It can be argued that Calvins hermeneutics of the imprecations formu-
lated in Psalm 109 are built around the doctrine of divine predestination.
As believers have been elected by God before the creation of the world
for his glory, in the same way the reprobate have been designated before
the creation of the world to face Gods wrath. Calvin solves the ethical
Harper and Row, 1963), 263284; T.H.L. Parker, Calvin: An Introduction to His Thought
(Louisville: Westminster, 1995), 113121.
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difficulty raised by the harsh imprecations voiced by David in Psalm 109

by identifying the wicked as the reprobate. Again, Calvins hermeneutic of
Psalm 109 is based on a dialogue between his theology (the Institutes) and
his exegesis. His interpretation of Psalm 109 goes beyond the christologi-
cal application followed in traditional exegesis, and beyond the historical-
literal reading followed by his contemporaries. Calvin follows a theological
reading, which without negating the historical and christological dimen-
sions of the text, endeavors to answer the difficult question of the
punishment of the wicked and of his offspring. The doctrine of divine pre-
destination becomes the hermeneutical key that allows Calvin to unlock
the meaning and application of the imprecations of Psalm 109 for
his readers.20
Psalm 137 (136):59

Most traditional commentators agree that the people of Israel prayed
Psalm 137 (136) in captivity in Babylon. However, many exegetes read it
spiritually and apply its content to the struggle that the church (the new
Israel) has to endure in the world (the new Babylon).21 The imprecations
formulated in the psalm are directed against those who persecute the
church. The imprecations do not wish them evil but are prophecies about
Gods judgment against those who will not repent and join the church.22
Lyra however offers a more historical-literal reading of the psalm. He
argues that the psalm was sung by the people of God exiled in Babylon and
explains the harshness of the imprecations formulated in verses 59 as
pertaining to the language of war and as prophecies forecasting the
destruction of the Babylonians.23 Similarly, Theodoret argues, In other
words, since they for their part treated their infants cruelly, the inspired
author prophesied the like punishment for them. Consequently Cyrus is
declared blessed for punishing them and freeing the Jews.24
In his commentary on Psalm 137, Calvin stays very close to the historical
sense of the text. Calvin reads Psalm 137 in the light of the geopolitical
context of the Ancient Near Eastern world and the prophetic literature of
20For a discussion of the subject see H.J. Selderhuis, Calvins Theology of the Psalms
(Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007).
21Augustine, Exposition on the Book of the Psalms, 630632; Cassiodorus, Explanation of
the Psalms III, 359365.
22Cassiodorus, Explanation of the Psalms III, 363.
23Lyra, Postilla super totam Bibliam.
24Theodoret, Psalms 73150, 324325.
the Old Testament. Against those who argue that Psalm 137 is a prophecy
of David foretelling the future exile of Israel and its suffering in Babylon,
Calvin contends that the author of the psalm is unknown. But he argues
that the author, a prophet, wrote a lament on behalf of the people of God
in exile in Babylon to encourage them to cling to the service of the true
God, and hope for their salvation, in spite of the difficulty of their social
and political situation. Calvin indicates also that the mention of the peo-
ples cry and tears is a sign of their repentance and humility before God.
According to Calvin, the prophet and the people exiled in Babylon
acknowledged their past sins and hoped for Gods forgiveness and deliver-
ance. The peoples repentance and hope become the foundation for their
use of the imprecatory prayer against their enemies. Calvin indicates that
the imprecations formulated in Psalm 137:59 target two main enemies of
the people of Israel: the Edomites, the descendants of Esau, and the
Babylonians, the invaders and oppressors. Calvin explains that the psalm-
ist (prophet) calls Gods vengeance against the Edomites, because they
were guilty of treason. They betrayed Israel by siding with the Babylonians
who destroyed the holy nation. Now the prophet is asking God to avenge
the wrong done to his people. Calvin indicates that the psalmist is not
throwing out curses without control. By using imprecations against Edom,
the psalmist acts as Gods trumpet and confirms previous oracles of
destruction made by Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Obadiah against them.25
Calvin argues that Gods judgment against Edom was inevitable as it con-
firmed Israels election against those who would doubt it because of the
exile. Calvin contends that the psalmist is not prophesying Gods judg-
ment against Edom, but rather is asking God to actualize the punishment
he has already promised against Israels unfaithful relative.26 In other
words, according to Calvin, the imprecations formulated by the psalmist
do not forecast Gods punishment of the Edomites, as defended by
Theodoret, but broadcast, announces, as a trumpet what God had
already foretold through his prophets Ezekiel and Obadiah. And Calvin
justifies these imprecations, although gruesome, by returning to the
theme of the reprobate and the elect. He argues that Edom will be pun-
ished because it has not been elected by God and is part of the reprobate.
Again, the doctrine of predestination becomes the foundation of Calvins
justification of the ethical aspect of the imprecations found in Psalm 137.

144 paul mpindi
The second enemies the psalmist prays against are the Babylonians.
Calvin argues that with the eyes of faith, the psalmist sees Gods hidden
judgment against the Babylonians. Calvin insists that the psalmist does
not prophecy, but sees the destruction of the enemies by the eyes of faith
looking into the mirror of the Word, the prophetic Word uttered by God.
Calvin contends that the imprecations asking God to destroy the
Babylonians and to kill their children by striking them against the rock
happened through the military hands of the Persians kings.27 Cyrus and
Darius become Gods hired agents through whom he inflicts judgment
and death against the enemies of his people. Calvin argues that no one
should blame the prophet for the harshness of his imprecations. The
Babylonians must be treated the way they treated the nations they con-
quered. As their soldiers killed Israels children without mercy, in the
same way Cyrus and Darius soldiers should strike their little children.28
Furthermore, Calvin indicates that the psalmist is not speaking from the
movement of his own soul, but is taking words from the mouth of God
himself and is praising his just judgment.29
Thus, following some traditional commentators who read Psalm 137
historically, Calvin provides a historical-literal exegesis of the psalm. But
although he puts Israel in Babylon during the time of his exile, Calvin,
unlike his predecessors, does not consider the imprecations uttered in the
body of the psalm as prophecies concerning the future demise of Israels
traditional enemies (Edom and Babylon). Calvin argues for a more practi-
cal reading of the imprecations formulated in Psalm 137. According to
him, they are but words of faith, uttered by the psalmist in anticipation of
the application of Gods promised judgment against the enemies of his
people.
Calvins Hermeneutics of the Imprecations of the Psalter
To conclude the present section on Calvins exegesis of the imprecations

found in the individual and communal Psalms, it can be argued that
Calvin followed three main hermeneutical principles. First of all, Calvin
read the imprecations of the Psalter historically and literally, i.e., he
explained them in the light of Davids and Israels struggles against

personal and national enemies.30 Calvin acknowledged that the impreca-

tions of the Psalter were directed against Saul and his followers, or against
Absalom and his accomplices (in the individual Psalms), and were
directed against the individuals inside Israel or the nations outside Israel
that threatened the existence of the people of God.
Calvin also read the imprecations of the Psalter theologically. He
endeavored to ground the language and the meaning of the imprecations
of the Psalter in the theological concepts and language already avail
able in his doctrinal writings, namely the Institutes. The doctrines of
divine providence and its corollaries: divine justice, election, judgment,
covenant, become in Calvins exegesis indispensable hermeneutical tools
for unlocking the meaning of the imprecations of the Psalter for his
readers.
Finally, Calvin read the imprecations of the Psalter tropologically.
Calvin used the language of the imprecation of the Psalter and the theol-
ogy he built around it as ground for the practical encouragement for
believers faced with trials and suffering from their enemies in their daily
life. Analysis of these three directions both underlines Calvins connec-
tions with the earlier tradition and demonstrates his individuality as an
interpreter. On the issue of connection and continuity, the historical,
theological or doctrinal, and tropological readings correspond with three
out of the four elements of the quadriga. On the issue of Calvins own indi-
vidual contribution, the historical or literal foundation has become far
more accentuated and of consistently greater importance to the framing
of the doctrinal and moral dimensions than in nearly any one of Calvins
predecessors or contemporaries. The characteristics of Calvins herme-
neutics of the imprecations of the Psalter can now be laid out in dialogue
with traditional and sixteenth-century exegesis in order to establish more
specific elements of continuity and discontinuity.
It was argued in the preceding sections that traditional biblical com-
mentators approached the imprecations of the Psalter in two ways. They
approached them either spiritually or both historically (literally) and spir-
itually. Most fathers could not accept the harshness of the imprecations
of the Psalter on the literal level. Following Augustine, they argued that
the imprecations of the Psalter were not descriptions or prescriptions of
Davids thirst for vengeance against his enemies. Instead, they were
30For example, see Calvins treatment of David in the context of Absaloms rebellion.
146 paul mpindi
prophecies forecasting the eschatological demise and destruction of the

enemies of Christ and of his church.31
Now, read as prophecies forecasting the eschatological destruction of
the enemies of Christ and his church, traditional commentators endeav-
ored to add a second hermeneutical level to the imprecations of the
Psalter in order to completely remove their ethical difficulty. They argued
that although prophecies, the imprecations of the Psalter did not actually
forecast the literal destruction of the enemies of Christ and the church;
instead they forecast their spiritual demise, i.e., their spiritual transforma-
tion. Thus the death wished by the psalmists upon their enemies did not
mean their physical destruction but their spiritual death to the world and
to its pleasures, which implies their conversion to Christ.
In order to achieve this eschatological and christological reading of the
imprecations of the Psalter, traditional commentators had to have
recourse to a hermeneutics of correspondence. Historical events and peo-
ple of the Old Testament were now associated with historical events and
people in the life and ministry of Christ and his church. The historical and
literal David corresponds in traditional exegesis to the historical and lit-
eral Christ. Thus the first tendency in traditional hermeneutics of the
imprecations of the Psalter acknowledges the historical level of the text,
but only as it serves as a springboard that allows the development of the
true meaning of the text, i.e., the eschatological-christological (spiritual)
meaning.
Another important group of traditional commentators accepts the
eschatological and christological reading of the imprecations of the
Psalter, but only in the context of their immediate historical and literal
meaning. Traditional and sixteenth-century biblical commentators like
Theodoret, Aquinas, Lyra, Luther, Bucer, and Musculus acknowledge two
hermeneutical levels to the imprecations of the Psalter: the historical and
the christological (spiritual) levels. Traditional and sixteenth-century
commentators who practice a double reading of the imprecations of the
Psalter argue that the imprecations mean what they state on the literal
level. They argue that the imprecations of the Psalter are meant to foretell
either the disarming or the destruction of Davids or Israels enemies, on
the historical-literal level. Thus David is a prophet who does not describe
his feeling of vengeance against his enemies. Instead, he is a prophet who
31This history is developed in Paul Mpindi, Calvins Hermeneutics of the Imprecations

of the Psalter (Ph.D. diss., Calvin Theological Seminary, 2003), ch. 2.
forecasts Gods personal decision to punish his enemies and the enemies
of his people.32
Now, as our analysis of Calvins exegesis of the imprecations of the
Psalter has shown, the reformer of Geneva shared the same historical-lit-
eral methodology followed by his predecessors. Like his forerunners and
contemporaries, Calvin acknowledges that David voiced the imprecations
of the Psalter in his function as the representative of God and the repre-
sentative of his people, Israel.33 With traditional commentators, Calvin
agrees that the enemies against whom David and Israel are praying are the
historical characters described in the narrative books of the Old Testament.
But Calvin disagrees with traditional commentators on the nature of the
imprecations of the Psalter. According to Calvin, the imprecations of the
Psalter are not prophecies foretelling the future punishment of Davids or
Israels enemies. Calvin contends that it is uncommon to biblical prophe-
cies to forecast future events with such historical accuracy. On the con-
trary, Calvin argues that the imprecations of the Psalter, although harsh
and gruesome, do mean what they say on the historical and literal level.
The imprecations of the Psalter do indeed describe the physical destruc-
tion of the enemies of David and of Israel. Calvin explains that instead of
explaining the imprecations of the Psalter as prophecies that forecast the
future, they ought to be explained and understood as Davids and Israels
confessions of faith that broadcast or anticipate Gods impending judg-
ment against the wicked.34
It is important here to mention the theological difference between the
understanding of the imprecations of the Psalter as prophecies or as con-
fessions of faith. Prophecy, according to traditional commentators, is a
prediction, a foretelling in advance of Gods future action. A confession,
on the contrary, is an utterance based on the faith and understanding of
divine nature and action.35 In other words, traditional commentators see
David as a mystical character that foresees the future and witnesses to
Gods punitive action against his enemies and the enemies of his people.
Calvins David, on the contrary, is a strong believer, a theologian who
understands the nature and action of God on his behalf and on the behalf
of his people based on his past promises and action in history. This opens
32For specific examples see Mpindi, Calvins Hermeneutics, 8097.

33Among many other examples, see Calvins comments on Psalm 3:8.
34For example, Calvin, Pseaumes, 226; and, Calvin, Pseaumes II, 526.
35See Calvins comments on Psalm 139. Pseaumes II, 537538.
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the door to the second characteristic of Calvins hermeneutics of the

imprecations of the Psalter: his theological reading of the text.
Calvins Theological Interpretation of the Imprecations of the Psalter

We argued in the preceding lines that instead of understanding the impre-
cations of the Psalter as prophecies foretelling the future punishment of
Davids enemies or of the enemies of his people, Calvin understood the
imprecations of the Psalter as Davids confession of faith in Gods nature
and action. The preceding exegetical analysis of Calvins interpretation of
the imprecations of the Psalter has shown that Calvins hermeneutics is
based on his doctrinal teaching on divine providence. Throughout his
exegesis Calvin bases his interpretations of the imprecations of the Psalter
on two important aspects of Gods providence: his universal rule and role
as the overseer of human affairs, and his judicial function as the heavenly
judge who saves the innocent (the elect) and punishes the guilty (the
reprobate).
Calvin explains the imprecations of the Psalter as the expression of
Davids faith and understanding of the workings of divine providence as
manifested in his universal rule and his overseeing of human affairs. Over
and over again, Calvin argues that Davids (and Israels) enemies are fool-
ish in their unjustified attacks against him because they fail to acknowl-
edge Gods universal rule and his overseeing activity over human affairs.36
According to Calvin, only the blindness of Davids enemies to divine prov-
idence, to his universal rule, explains their unrelenting attacks and their
unspeakable cruelty against him.
But contrary to the enemies blindness, Calvins David is endowed with
a special vision, the capacity to see with the eyes of faith the heavenly
throne of God, from where he carefully watches and controls both the
course of the universe and the workings of human history. But Davids
providential God does not only oversee human affairs. From heaven, he
acts as the universal judge who discriminates between the innocent (the
elect) and the guilty (the reprobate).37
Here the doctrine of divine election is closely intertwined with the doc-
trine of divine providence in Calvins theological understanding and ethi-
cal justification of the imprecations of the Psalter. Calvin agrees that the
imprecations of the Psalter are harsh and gruesome on the historical and
36Calvin, Pseaumes, 225.

37See, especially, Calvins comments on Psalm 35 and 109.
literal level, however, he maintains that they are both theologically and
ethically sound because they express Gods providence through his judg-
ing activity against the wicked, who are the reprobate, doomed for destruc-
tion. Calvins doctrine of divine predestination as expression of Gods
providence becomes the ground for his ethical justification of the impre-
cations of the Psalter.38 According to him, the imprecations of the Psalter
are theologically and ethically sound because they are but the manifesta-
tion of Davids faith in Gods active discrimination between the elect and
the reprobate in human history. According to Calvin, the imprecations of
the Psalter are the actualization in human history of Gods eternal decree
through which he saved through grace some from the fallen humanity and
passed over some and predestined them for eternal damnation. This
opens the important tropological question concerning Davids capacity to
use the imprecatory language in the Psalter without falling into sin.
Calvins Tropological Interpretation of the Imprecations of the Psalter

In his commentary on the imprecations of the Psalter, two to three times,
Calvin rehearses the difficult ethical questions raised concerning Davids
use of the imprecatory language. In other words, how could David use
such harsh language without falling into sin? Calvin gives three herme-
neutical rules to be followed by those who want to understand the ethical
meaning of the imprecations in the context of the Psalter and in the con-
text of the Christian life.
First of all, Calvin argues that the imprecations of the Psalter do not
result from Davids carnal passions or his personal vindictiveness. Calvin
contends that David was a preudhomme, a godly man, who has shown so
many times that he was incapable of such passions.39 Calvin argues that as
Gods anointed and a type of Christ in the Old Testament, David enjoyed
a special endowment from the grace of Christ that made him incapable of
such negative feelings. Secondly, Calvin argues that Davids imprecations
38The relationship between divine predestination and divine providence in Calvins

ethical justification of the imprecations of the Psalter is a motif already present in Calvins
doctrinal argument. In his 1539, 1543, and 1550 editions of the Institutes as well as in the 1552
treatise Concerning Eternal Predestination Calvin had linked providence and divine pre-
destination. See John Calvin, Institution de la religion chrtienne, vol. 3, ed. Pannier (Paris:
Les belles lettres, 1961), 57131; Calvin, Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, trans.
Reid (London: Clarke, 1961). For the discussion see Wendel, Calvin, 177184; Susan
Schreiner, The Theater of His Glory: The Nature and the Natural Order in the Thought of John
Calvin (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991), 737.
150 paul mpindi
were not caused by his excessive zeal for his personal and private cause,
but only by his zeal for the cause of God. David did not ask God to punish
his enemies because they oppressed him personally, but because by
oppressing him they were calling into question his anointing as Gods ser-
vant.40 Thus they were calling into question Gods divine election. Calvin
explains that David asked God to punish his enemies only because they
were opposing God himself. And finally, Calvin indicates that David used
the imprecations of the Psalter as a representative of the holy nation. He
used the imprecations not for his own sake, but for the sake of the people
of God. In other words, Calvin argues that Davids third use of the impre-
cations is acceptable only because he used them as a representative of the
people of God.41
After laying out the three hermeneutical principles for understanding
Davids use of the imprecations in the Psalter, Calvin lays out three ethical
rules that should guide Christians in their use of the imprecations of the
Psalter. Our exegetical analysis indicated that Calvin acknowledged that
Christians are allowed to use imprecations against their enemies, but only
if they meet the following conditions: First of all, according to Calvin any
believer who wants to use the imprecations of the Psalter or the impreca-
tory language against his enemies must be free of any spirit or feelings of
personal vindictiveness.42 Calvin argues that believers who are led by the
desire for personal vengeance cannot adequately use imprecations against
their enemies without falling into sin. Calvin discourages believers who
are tempted to use the imprecations of the Psalter to defend their per-
sonal and private cause. He argues that as David, believers must always
ask themselves before considering the use of the imprecatory language if
they are facing personal enemies, or are facing enemies who are opposed
to God and to his people. Second, believers can use the imprecations of
the Psalter or the imprecatory language only if they are representatives of
the body of Christ. And third, Calvin explains that even as representatives
of the body of Christ, believers should be careful not to be possessed by an
excessive zeal even for the cause of God. Calvin reminds his readers of
Jesus rebuke against his disciples who were asking the permission to com-
mand fire from heaven to destroy the inhabitant of the Samaritan village
who did not welcome them (Luke 9:55).43

From the preceding conditions it is clear that Calvin acknowledges the

use and applicability of the imprecations of the Psalter and the impreca-
tory language in the context of the church on the theological and theoreti-
cal level only. On the practical level, Calvin agrees that it is almost
impossible for believers to fulfill these moral conditions. Furthermore,
Calvin argues that believers cannot use imprecations indiscriminately
against their enemies since on the theological level, only the reprobate
deserve to be cursed because they have been eternally predestined for
destruction. And Calvin points out that on the human level and in history,
believers are incapable of distinguishing the elect from the reprobate.
Calvin explains that all the enemies of believers are not de facto part of the
reprobate. Some among believers present enemies are part of the elect
who will in the future repent and come to the saving knowledge of Christ.
Calvins concern for the salvation of believers enemies stands in conti-
nuity to traditional commentators practical concern for the salvation of
the enemies of Christ and his church. Although reached from different
starting points, Calvins tropological analysis of the imprecations of the
Psalter locates his exegesis within the moral and spiritual concerns that
guide traditional hermeneutics. With traditional commentators, Calvin
agrees that believers, because of their limited understanding of divine
election, should wish the salvation of their enemies instead of wishing
their destruction as expressed through the imprecations of the Psalter.44
The preceding conclusions about Calvins interpretation of the
imprecations of the Psalter allows us to argue that, in general, Calvins
hermeneutics follows the general framework laid out by traditional com
mentators. In other words, Calvin models his hermeneutics of the impre-
cations of the Psalter according to the three main patterns that govern
traditional exegesis. Like traditional exegesis, Calvins exegesis of the
imprecations of the Psalter is historical-literal, spiritual (theological) and
tropological. On the historical and tropological levels, Calvins hermeneu-
tics of the Psalter is similar to traditional hermeneutics. With traditional
exegesis, Calvin agrees that the imprecations of the Psalter are historical-
literal prayers uttered by David against historical-literal enemies who
threatened his life and the life of the elected nation he represented. With
traditional exegesis, Calvin agrees that on the tropological level believers
should not use the imprecations of the Psalter or the imprecatory
language against their enemies, but exercise patience and pray for their
44See Calvins comments on Psalm 10.

152 paul mpindi
salvation instead. Believers genuine appeal for justice should always be

directed to God, the righteous judge, the only one who can rightly punish
those among their enemies who deserve his punishment.
The only noticeable difference between Calvin and traditional herme-
neutics of the imprecations of the Psalter resides on the spiritual level.
Traditional hermeneutics followed a spiritual reading that was based on
an eschatological-christological understanding of the text. Calvin how-
ever distances himself from the traditional eschatological-christological
reading of the text. Instead, he argues for a theological reading that
emphasizes the historical faith of the psalmist in divine providence as it
manifests itself through Gods judicial function. This explains why in
Calvins hermeneutics, there is no need for a christological reading of the
text.45 Traditional commentators needed a christological reading of the
text in order to base its ethical validity on the life and ministry of Christ.
But Calvin bases the ethical value of the imprecations of the Psalter not on
its eschatological relationship with the life and ministry of Christ, but
instead in its direct relationship to Davids faith in divine providence, i.e.,
his government of human affairs and his judicial function.46
Divine providence becomes the hermeneutical key that allows Calvin
to unlock the meaning of the imprecations of the Psalter both on the his-
torical-literal, theological and tropological levels. David is a mirror for
Calvin and his readers not because through him believers of all time learn
to foresee or foretell the future destruction of their enemies. David is a
mirror for Calvin and his readers only because through him, believers of
all times learn to see, by the eyes of faith, the manifestation of Gods provi-
dence in human history. The enemies, although cruel and seemingly
unstoppable, are not a real threat for believers who cling to Gods provi-
dence. Because through his providence, God not only oversees the uni-
verse, but he intervenes actively in human affairs in order to discriminate
between the innocent and the guilty and to punish the latter. David is a
mirror, because through his faith in Gods providence, he teaches believ-
ers to rise over actual trials and suffering and witness to the impending
judgment of God against their oppressors.
45See Calvins comments on Psalm 28 for example.

46Calvin, Institution, I.xvi; I.xvii; I.xviii; II.iv.67; III.xx.40. See the discussion in Wendel,
Calvin, 177184; Parker, Calvin, 4349; Susan Schreiner, Where Shall Wisdom Be Found:
Calvins Exegesis of Job from Medieval and Modern Perspectives (Chicago: UCP, 1994),
121155.
THE ITALIAN CONVERT:
MARQUIS GALEAZZO CARACCIOLO AND THE ENGLISH PURITANS
Emidio Campi
I am delighted to have been invited to add a little stone to the great mosaic
honoring Richard A. Muller with whom I have had the privilege and the
pleasure to work on a number of projects over the past years. I wish in this
paper to address an intriguing subject that has not until now been thor-
oughly discussed: the impact of Galeazzo Caracciolos conversion narra-
tive on later generations, especially among English Puritans on both sides
of the Atlantic. The name of the Italian marquis who in 1551 left wealth,
property, and family in his country and settled in Geneva as a fully-fledged
Calvinist may not be on everybodys lips today, yet in sixteenth-century
Geneva he was one of the most respected residents, and his personal reli-
gious experience was held up as a model for the Protestant convert in the
Reformation and post-Reformation era.1 It is worth recalling the story not
only for its own sake but also for the benefit of contemporary scholarship
that keenly explores conversion narratives from a variety of disciplinary
perspectives and may not be aware of the existence of Caracciolos
narrative.2
Who was Galeazzo Caracciolo?
Far from being an episode of purely personal significance, the story of

Caracciolos conversion is squarely anchored in the broader context of the
1See Robert M. Kingdon, Adultery and Divorce in Calvins Geneva (Cambridge: HUP,
1995), 143165; Jeannine E. Olson, An Example from the Diaspora of the Italian Evangelicals:
Galeazzo Caracciolo and his Biographies, Reformation 10 (2005): 4576; and Machiel A.
van den Berg, Friends of Calvin (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 196205.
2Research in the area of religious conversion, including anthropological, psychological,
sociological, and literary perspectives, is increasing, but scholars seem to have no knowl-
edge of Caracciolos story. See, e.g., Andrew Buckser and Stephen Glazier, ed., The
Anthropology of Religious Conversion (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003); Hetty Zock,
Paradigms in Psychological Conversion Research: Between Social Science and Literary
Analysis, in Paradigms, Poetics and Politics of Conversion, ed. Bremmer, et al. (Leuven:
Peeters, 2006), 4158; Henri Gooren, Reassessing Conventional Approaches to Conversion:
Toward a New Synthesis, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 46 (2007): 337353;
Lieke Stelling, et al., ed., The Turn of the Soul: Representations of Religious Conversion in
Early Modern Art and Literature (Leiden: Brill, 2012).
154 emidio campi
Italian Reformation. Contact with and reflection on the doctrine of the

so-called spirituali, or spiritual peoplethe circle around the Spanish
exile Juan de Valds in Naples and the English cardinal Reginald Pole in
Viterbowere decisive not only for him, but also for such leading divines
as Bernardino Ochino and Peter Martyr Vermigli, and for such noble-
women as Isabella Brisegna, Giulia Gonzaga, and Vittoria Colonna.3
Galeazzo Caracciolo was born in Naples in January 1517.4 He came from
an old Neapolitan aristocratic family. His father Colantonio distinguished
himself in the service to the Aragonese and the Spanish kings in the war
against the Angevin for possession of the throne of Naples, and had been
rewarded by a variety of honors, the most important of which carried the
title of marquis of Vico. The mother Giulia descended from the prominent
family of the Carafas, which claimed various archbishops and cardinals,
including Galeazzos great-uncle, Giovanni Pietro Carafa, who was elected
pope in 1555, taking the name Paul IV. When he was fifteen-years-old his
fathers influence procured for him the position of page to Charles V, King
of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, then residing in Brussels. At the age of
twenty Galeazzo married the daughter of the wealthy landowner and
Duke of Nocera, Vittoria Carafa, who brought rich possessions to her hus-
band that would further ensure his social status and affluence. This, how-
ever, does not seem to have been just a marriage of convenience, but
rather a harmonious and loving relationship. Over the fourteen years in
which they lived together in great opulence, they had six children (four
sons and two daughters).
A friend, Gian Francesco Alois, introduced Galeazzo in the early 1540s
to the spirituali of Naples. Personal encounters, discussions, and read-
ingof clandestine books led him gradually from criticism of devotional
practices and commands of the church to proper understanding of the
doctrine of justification by grace alone, and to deep commitment to
Christian faith. The more immediate instrument of his conversion was the
abbot of the convent of San Pietro ad Aram, Peter Martyr Vermigli, who
3Massimo Firpo, The Italian Reformation and Juan de Valdes, trans. John Tedeschi,
SCJ 27 (1996): 353364. For fuller bibliography, see John Tedeschi, et al., The Italian
Reformation of the Sixteenth Century and the Diffusion of Renaissance Culture: A Bibliography
of the Secondary Literature, ca. 17501997 (Modena: F.C. Panini; Ferrara: ISR, 2000).
4E. William Monter, Caracciolo Galeazzo, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani
[= DBI], vol. 19 (Rome: Istituto dellEnciclopedia italiana, 1976), 363336; and the brilliant
study by Benedetto Croce, Un calvinista italiano, il marchese di Vico Galeazzo Caracciolo,
La Critica 31 (1933): 84104, 161178, 251265, 321339, repr. in Croce, Vite di avventure, di
fede e di passione (Milan: Adelphi, 1989), 197297.
the italian convert 155
was forced to leave Italy in 1542 and eventually became one of the preemi-
nent Protestant reformers. The particulars of Caracciolos religious experi-
ence are narrated in a work written soon after his death by Niccol
Balbani,minister of the Italian church in Geneva, and then translated into
Latin, French, and English (we shall return to Galeazzos rich literary
afterlife):
At that time Peter Martyr was in hand with Pauls First Epistle to the
Corinthians, and as he was showing the weakness and deceitfulness of the
judgment of mans reason in spiritual things, as likewise the power and effi-
cacy of the Word of God in those men in whom the Lord worketh by His
Spiritamongst other things he used this simile or comparison: If a man,
walking in a large place, see afar off men and women dancing together, and
hear no sound of instrument, he will judge them mad, or at least foolish; but
if he come nearer them, and perceive their order and hear their music, and
mark their measures and their courses, he will then be of another mind, and
not only take delight in seeing them, but feel a desire in himself to bear them
company and dance with them. Even the same (said Martyr) betides many
men, who, when they behold in others a sudden and great change of their
looks, apparel, behavior, and whole course of life, at the first sight they
impute to melancholy, or some other foolish humour; but if they look more
narrowly into the matter, and begin to hear and perceive the harmony and
sweet consent of Gods Spirit, and His word in them (by the joint power of
which two this change was made and wrought, which afore they counted
folly), then they change their opinion of them, and first of all begin to like
them, and that change in them, and afterwards feel in themselves a motion
and desire to imitate them, and to be of the number of such men, who, for-
saking the world and his vanities, do think that they ought to reform their
lives by the rule of the Gospel, that so they may come to true and sound
holiness.
Continuing, the account explains:
This comparison by the grace of Gods Spirit wrought so wonderfully with
Galeacius (as himself hath often told his friends) that from that hour he
resolved with himself more carefully to refrain his affections from following
the world and his pleasures, as before they did, and to let his mind about
seeking out the truth of Religion, and the way to true happiness.5
5[Niccol (Nicolao) Balbani], The Italian convert: news from Italy of a second Moses: or
The life of Galeacius Caracciolus, the noble marquess of Vico. Containing the story of his
admirable conversion from popery, and forsaking of a rich marquesdom for the Gospels sake.
Illustrated with several figures. Written first in Italian, thence translated into Latin by Reverend
Beza; and for the benefit of our people put into English: and now published by W. C. (London:
A. Roper, 1677), 810. Subsequent references in the text refer parenthetically to this
edition.
156 emidio campi
Caracciolos conversion occurred in 1541.6 It was a spiritual experience

that transformed his identity and produced significant lifestyle changes,
but did not correspond with a clear break from the Roman Catholic
Church. Whereas the failure of the religious colloquy of Ratisbon in 1541
coupled with the ensuing reorganization of the Roman Inquisition rein-
forced in some spirituali such as Ochino and Vermigli the conviction to
separate from the church of Rome and induced them to leave Italy for
ever, Caracciolo did not make this dramatic decision until 1551. In the
meantime he continued to serve the Emperor in a number of diplomatic
missions. On 21 March 1551, however, at the age of thirty-four years, he
departed from Naples, as if he had intended going to the Emperors court
in Augsburg, but in fact he left behind wife, children, title, and possessions
to move to Geneva where he was to live the rest of his life.
Having overcome the initial suspicion toward the refugee, Calvin and
the reformers of the Swiss cities were delighted with the conversion of the
Neapolitan marquis. They had high hopes it would help spread their mes-
sage in the multifaceted Italian religious world of the 1550s. Before long,
Caracciolo became one the most respected residents of the city. Whereas
Calvin was not granted citizenship in Geneva until 1559, Caracciolo
became a citizen already in 1555, and so in later years he could take part in
the citys government as member of the Grand Council, and subsequently
of the Small Council. He was instrumental in building up the Italian
Reformed church.7 Calvin dedicated the second edition (1556) of his
Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians to Caracciolo.8
Likewise, the first Italian translation of Calvins Institutes (1557) by Giulio
Cesare Pasc[h]ali was dedicated to him.9
For years Galeazzos relatives made efforts to win him back, but he
opposed an obstinate refusal to recant the new faith, even when they used
the threat of disinheritance as a means of persuasion. Still hopeful, how-
ever, that he could be reunited with his family, he went repeatedly to Italy
to convince his wife to turn Protestant and join him in Geneva. She refused
each time, so in 1569 he petitioned the Consistory for a divorce with the
6[Niccol Balbani], The Italian convert, 10.

7Oscar Grosheintz, LEglise italienne Genve au temps de Calvin (Lausanne: Borgeaud,
1904); E. William Monter, The Italians in Geneva, 15501600: A New Look, in Genve et
lItalie, ed. Monnier and Balmas (Geneva: Droz, 1969), 5377.
8CO 16:1114 (no. 2380). See Mirjam van Veen, In excelso honoris gradu. Johannes
Calvin und Jacques de Falais, Zwingliana 32 (2005): 522.
9Mario Richter, Giulio Cesare Paschali. Attivit e problemi di un poeta italiano nella
Ginevra di Calvino e di Beza, Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa 1 (1965): 228257.
right to remarry. The request was problematic, but was granted after
in-depth discussion which involved also the Swiss Reformed churches,
especially Heinrich Bullinger and Peter Martyr Vermigli on behalf of
theZurich church. Grounds for the annulment were the so-called Pauline
privilege of 1 Corinthians 7:1215, allowing separation from a non-Christian
spouse as a justification for divorce.10 In 1560 Galeazzo married a widow of
French extraction and a religious refugee in Geneva, Anna Framry, whose
modest dowry he may have appreciated, since he had been effectively dis-
inherited. They lived together in apparent contentment for twenty-six
years. Caracciolo died in Geneva in 1586, his wife a year later. By then the
Lord Marquis, as the Genevans affectionately called their honourable
citizen, had become somewhat of a living monument of the city and a
hero within the Reformed world.11
From Historia to News of a Second Moses
Soon after Caracciolos death, Niccol (or Nicolao) Balbani, a close per-
sonal friend and minister of the Italian church in Geneva, wrote the
account of his dramatic life.12 Balbani casts his biography in the classical
encomium mode. It describes only in general terms Caracciolos life, and
pays scant attention to his education, career, personality, or his first mar-
riage. It does not even place emphasis on Galeazzos conversion per se,
which is, however, unequivocally attributed to God, to avoid any miscon-
ceptions about the persons qualities being innate. It is also clear that
the notion of conversion refers to a change from Catholicism to Calvinism
and does not mean just a broad turning to God. Indeed, it presents the
convert as one, who throughout the grievous combats betwixt the flesh
and the Spirit resolved to abandon Popery and to embrace the true
Religion. Balbanis scope is to portray Caracciolo as militant Calvinist
opposed to Nicodemism, that is, the position of those Protestant who in
public conformed to Catholic doctrine and participated in the Catholic
10Kingdon, Adultery, 156163.

11The City minted a medal bearing his portrait in 1556 with the inscription I chose to
sit at the threshold of the house of my God than dwell in the tabernacles of wickedness,
echoing the words of Ps. 84:10. See Eugne Demole, Mdaille indite de Galas Caracciolo,
Revue suisse de numismatique 22 (1920): 8589 and Croce, Vite di avventure, 241.
12[Niccol Balbani], Historia della vita di Galeazzo Caracciolo, chiamato il Signor
Marchese: nella quale si contiene un raro e singolare essempio di costanza e di perseveranza
nella piet e nella vera religione (Geneva: n.p., 1587; repr., Firenze: Tip. Claudiana, 1875). On
Balbani, see Carlo Ginzburg, Balbani, Niccol (Nicolao), in DBI, 5:336342.
158 emidio campi
sacramental system for fear of persecution. The careful choice of docu-

ments makes this evident, for Balbani inserted two letters in the biogra-
phy: one was from Marco Antonio Flaminio (14981550), a renowned
Italian poet who had been part of the circle of the spirituali in Naples, but
for whom a final split from Rome was unbearable; the second letter was
that from Calvin, dedicating to Caracciolo the second edition of his com-
mentary on First Corinthians, in which the reformer praises the strong
coherence of Galeazzos faith and life. In short, more than a biography or
even a panegyric, the writing is a splendid piece of confessional propa-
ganda against Nicodemism.
The Vita was originally composed in Italian and then translated into
Latin, French, and into English.13 Presumably the book would have not
made such a great impact on later generations of English Puritans if
William Crashaw had not given to his English translation the extravagant
and catchy title: Newes from Italy of a second Moses.14 William Crashaw
(15721626) was a Puritan divine, fellow of St. Johns College, Cambridge,
and preacher at the Inner and Middle Temples in London, but above all he
prided himself on being an anti-Catholic controversialist.15 Moreover, he
seems to have organized much of the promotional effort of the Virginia
Company of London which financed the first permanent English settle-
ment in the New World.16 There is a certain irony in the fact that his son,
the poet Richard Crashaw (ca. 16131649), converted from Anglicanism to
Roman Catholicism during the English Civil War, settled in Italy, and
became canon of the Holy House of Loreto, one of the most revered
Marian shrines in the world, where he was buried.
Turning to Crashaws translation, the authors address to the reader
explains that it is based on the Latin version instead of the original Italian
text, and that he has not attempted a literal, but a free rendering into
English. Despite the dubious reliability, the translation is generally solid,
but not without its flaws. Crashaws insertions are only partly identifi-
able because they are not always put in square brackets; it repeats the
13For the full list of translations and English editions see Olson, An Example from the
Diaspora, 7076.
14Newes from Italy of a second Moses or, the life of Galeacius Caracciolus the noble
Marquesse of Vico ([London]: H.B. for Richard Moore, 1608). The 1635 edition and the
subsequent editions changed the book title: The Italian convert: news from Italy of a second
Moses. See note 5.
15Mary Morrissey, Politics and the Pauls Cross Sermons, 15581642 (Oxford: OUP,
2011), 186.
16Andrew Fitzmaurice, American Corruption, in The Monarchical Republic of Early
Modern England, ed. McDiarmid (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 219.
confusions and inaccuracies of the Latin version, particularly with respect

to the names of persons and places. Totally arbitraryalthough under-
standable from a commercial point of viewis the incorrect attribution
of authorship of the Latin translation to Thodore de Bze instead of
Franois Hotman. Furthermore, it is mentioned that the translation was
made divers years ago, and had circulated among private friends before
it was published in 1608.
The dedicatory epistle prefixed to the work demands close attention.
Crashaw dedicated his translation to Lord Edmund SheffieldLady
Dowglass his mother, and Lady Ursula his wife, and to all the vertuous of-
spring. Edmund Sheffield (ca. 15641646) was Lord Lieutenant of Yorkshire
and Lord President of the Council of the North from 1603 to 1619, which
means that he governed the whole of the north of England in the Kings
name. Significantly, Crashaw uses Caracciolos story as a springboard for a
wider discourse on the resurgence across the country of Catholic cultural
influence after James Is accession, and as a powerful weapon in religious
warfare:
If any Papists (musing, as they use and measuring us by themselves) do sus-
pect the story to be some feigned thing, devised to allure & entice the peo-
ples minds, and to set a flourish upon our Religion, as they be a thousand
false and feigned stories and miracles use to do, I answer, first in the general,
far be it from us & our Religion to use such means, either for our selves, or
against our adversaries: no, we are content the Church of Rome have the
glory of that Garland. Popery being a sandy, and a shaken, a rotten & a totter-
ing building, needs such props to under-set it, but truth dare shew herself, &
fears no colours.17
Becoming more specific, he expresses the hope that the book may provide
the additional spiritual fortification to Lord Sheffield to espouse the
Puritan vision of life and church:
Go forward Noble Lord, in the Name of the Lord of host still to honor that
honourable place you hold, still to defeat the vain expectation of Gods ene-
mies, and to satisfie the godly hopes & desires of holy men,still to subplant
Superstition, Popery, Ignorance and wilful blindness: and to plant and dis-
perse true Religion in that City, and these Northern Countries. But all these
means still shewing yourself an holy & zealous Phinehas (under the great
Phinehas our most worthy Soveraign) to execute Gods judgment and to take
vengeance on the Zimri & Cozbi of our Nation:18 namely, on Popery and
Prophaneness, the two great sins which have pulld down Gods plagues on
17Caracciolo, Newes from Italy of a second Moses, A4v.

18See Num. 25:615.
160 emidio campi
our Land, and the due and zealous punishment whereof, will be the means
to remove them.19
The above quotations show a subtle but discernible change in the scope of
the book in its English translation. Caracciolo is no longer the absolutely
uncompromising figure in the Nicodemite controversy which ravaged the
sixteenth-century continental Reformation, but he becomes rather a sym-
bol of the steadfast Puritan critique of the established church hierarchy
and its pro-Catholic attitude in seventeenth-century England. Newes from
Italy of a second Moses is only one of many such conversion accounts cir-
culating in Puritans gathered churches. Although it is not known whether
Crashaw wanted to communicate with this specific audience or a wider
one, the publication of Caracciolos story bears all the earmarks of the
Puritan anti-Catholic controversy, which was to contribute meaningfully
toward the cause of the looming English Civil Wars.20 It is this contempo-
rary ecclesiastical and political environment that helps explain the popu-
larity of Caracciolos biography in England from the beginning of James
Is tenure to the Glorious Revolution.
Of great importance in our considerations is the unexpected, striking
comparison that Crashaw institutes between Moses and the subject of his
narrative:
I may say much rather than JacobFew and evil have my days been; yet in
these few days of mine something have I seen, more have I read, more have
I heard; yet never saw I, heard I, or read I any example (all things laid
together) more nearly seconding the examples of Moses than this of the
most renowned Marquess Galeacius. Moses was the adopted son of a kings
daughter; Galeacius the natural son and heir apparent to a Marquess; Moses
a courtier in the court of Pharaoh, Galeacius in the court of the emperor
Charles the Fifth; Moses by adoption a kin to a Queen; Galeacius by marriage
to a Duke, by blood son to a Marquess, nephew to a Pope; Moses in possibil-
ity of a kingdom, he in possession of a Marquesdome; Moses in his youth
brought up in the heathenism of Egypt, Galeacius noozeled [=schooled] in
the superstition of Popery; Moses at last saw the truth and embraced it, so
did Galeacius; Moses openly fell from the heathenism of Egypt, so did
Galeacius from the superstition of Popery. But all this is nothing to that
which they both suffered for their conscience. What Moses suffered Saint
Paul tells usMoses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son
of Pharoahs daughter, and chose rather to suffer adversities with the people of
19Caracciolo, Newes from Italy of a second Moses, A7r7v.

20Philip Major, Most necessarily to be known: The Conversion Narratives of Samuel
Smith, in The Turn of the Soul, 153175, here 173. See also Olson, An Example from the
Diaspora, 64.
God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the rebuke
of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. Nay, Moses had rather be
a base brick maker amongst the oppressed Israelites, being true Christians,
than to be the son of a kings daughter in the court of Pharaoh amongst
idolaters. In like case noble Galeacius, when he was come to years and
knowledge of Christ, refused to be called son and heir to a Marquesse, cup-
bearer to an Emperor, nephew to a Pope, and chose rather to suffer afflic-
tion, persecution, banishment, loss of lands, livings, wife, children, honours
and preferments, than to enjoy the sinful pleasures of Italy for a season,
esteeming the rebuke of Christ greater riches than the honours of a
Marquesdome without Christ, and therefore, seeing he must either want
Christ or want them, he despoiled himself of all these to gain Christ.
So excellent was the fact of Moses, and so heroical, that the Holy Ghost
vouchsafes it remembrance both in the Old and New Testament, that so the
Church in all ages might know it and admire it, and doth chronicle it in the
epistle to the Hebrews almost two thousand years after it was done. If God
himself did so to Moses, shall not Gods Church be careful to commend to
posterity this second Moses, whose love to Christ Jesus was so zealous, and
so inflamed by the heavenly fire of Gods Spirit, that no earthly temptations
could either quench or abate it; but to win Christ, and to enjoy Him in the
liberty of His Word and Sacraments, he delicately contemned the honours
and pleasures of the Marquesdome of VicumVicum, one of the paradises
of Naples, Naples, the paradise of ItalyItaly of EuropeEurope of the
earth; yet all these paradises were nothing to him in comparison of attaining
the celestial paradise, there to live with Jesus Christ.21
It is not the purpose of this paper either to explain the simile employed by
Crashaw in his dedicatory letter or to grasp the meaning that the scriptural
image of Moses had for the Puritan minister. Hermeneutical study of his
sermons is necessary if we are to appreciate the theological idea set forth
in this comparisonthe contemporaneity of the office of the prophet,
which is not unlike the understanding extant in the writing of the reform-
ers.22 Nevertheless, it would be difficult to resist the conclusion that the
comparison Crashaw makes between Moses and Caracciolo was intended
to the effect of raising the readers estimation of the Italian convert. There
can be no doubt that he succeeded in achieving his goal: Galeazzos biog-
raphy in the translation of Crashaw was printed at least nine times in the
seventeenth century (1608, 1612, 1635, 1639, 1655, 1663, 1668, 1677, and 1689)
in England, and two times in the eighteenth century (1751, 1794) in New
England.
21Caracciolo, Newes from Italy of a second Moses, A3rA4v.

22See, e.g., Jon Balserak, Establishing the Remnant Church in France: Calvins Lectures on
the Minor Prophets, 15561559 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 7791.
162 emidio campi
Caracciolos Literary Afterlife in the New England Colonies
There is evidence that Newes from Italy of a second Moses or rather The
Italian convert, as the book became to be known since the 1635 edition,
circulated not only in England but on both sides of the Atlantic. Jeannine
Olson discovered a copy of the 1612 edition of the Crashaw translation at
the John Carter Brown Library in Providence, Rhode Island.23 A copy of
the 1668 edition of the work belonged to the Harvard College Library when
a major fire in 1764 destroyed almost all books and scientific instru-
ments.The fire, however, spared 400 or so volumes that were on loan to
faculty and students. Among them there was also The Italian convert.24
Furthermore, there is evidence that in 1685 a Boston bookseller in London
bought four copies of the book.25 Finally, a clear indication of the popular-
ity of Galeazzo Caracciolos story in the colonies comes from the most
prominent (and controversial) history of early New England. When at the
dawn of the eighteenth century Cotton Mather in his Magnalia Christi
Americana looks back on the distant story of New England settlement and
celebrates its endurance and cultural richness, to honor the memory of
the first governor of Plymouth, William Bradford, he finds no better epi-
thet for him than Galeacius Secundus.26
After the Glorious Revolution, enthusiasm for new editions of Car
acciolos biography apparently waned in England, but not in the colonies.
Yet colonial booksellers were dependent on London for their commerce
and, of course, operated within a system of privileges and agreements
designed to reduce business risk. When the English offer could no longer
meet the American market demand, local printer-booksellers resolved to
print in 1751 and in 1794 two editions of The Italian convert.27
This is all the more startling since throughout the eighteenth century
not only was very little known in the country concerning Italian works in
the original language, but there was a dearth of American translation of
Italian masterpieces. It seems that the first edition of Dantes Divine
23Olson, An Example from the Diaspora, 67.

24Robert F. Seybolt, Student Libraries at Harvard, 17631764, Publications of the
Colonial Society of Massachusetts 28 (19301933): 449461. Reference: Wing B544 variant.
25Worthington Chauncey Ford, The Boston Book Market 16791700 (Boston: The Club of
Odd Volumes, 1917), 145.
26Magnalia Christi Americana (London: Thomas Parkhurst, 1702), 2:1.
27[Niccol Balbani], The Italian convert (Boston: Thomas Fleet, 1751); The Italian con-
vert ([Boston]: S. Hall, 1794).
Comedy printed in America was Henry Francis Carys translation in 1822,

while the first of the many translations of Boccaccios Decameron was not
seen until 1850. Only three books by Italian authors were translated and
published in America before 1800, and none of the three dealt with litera-
ture. They were in chronological order: Niccol Balbanis The Italian con-
vert (1751), Cesare Beccarias An Essay on Crimes and Punishments (1773),
and Luigi Cornaros The Sure and Certain Method of Attaining a Long and
Healthful Life (1788).28 Cesare Beccaria was a jurist, philosopher, and poli-
tician who in his treatise condemned torture and the death penalty. Luigi
Cornaro (14671566) was a Venetian nobleman who wrote treatises on
dieting, including Discorsi della Vita Sobria (Discourses on the Sober Life).
All in all, Galeazzo Caracciolo could not have agreed more with that
editorial choice.
28Howard R. Marraro, Italian Culture in Eighteenth-Century American Magazines,

Italica 22 (1945): 2131; Giorgio Spini, The New England Puritans and Italy, Storia
Nordamericana 3 (1986): 95105; Center for Migration Studies, Special Issue: Four Centuries
of Italian American History 16 (2000): 143146.
CONFLUENCE AND INFLUENCE: PETER MARTYR VERMIGLI AND
THOMAS AQUINAS ON PREDESTINATION
Frank A. James III
Introduction
In his Paradiso, Dante Alighieri describes predestination as a mystery

whose root lies hidden from the intellect.1 By its very inscrutability, the
idea of predestination has fascinated theologians from Augustine to
Pannenberg.2 It also has been a central dogma, as it were, for Richard A.
Mullers ground-breaking research. When he published his doctoral dis-
sertation over twenty-five years ago, Christ and the Decree, few could have
anticipated that his approach to the development of post-Reformational
theology would have lasting value. His was after all a rather obscure area
of research, which hitherto had been largely the domain of dead-white-
European-males with hard to pronounce names.
From the outset of his career, Muller recognized the historiographical
significance of Peter Martyr Vermigli and the doctrine of predestination.
In Christ and the Decree, Muller made what many considered a rather star-
tling academic judgment:
We must divide the laurels between Calvin and Vermigli in judging the
influence of their respective doctrines of predestination. Whereas Calvins
basic structure and definition, which designates election and reprobation as
almost coordinate halves of the decree, had more impact[it was Vermiglis
conception of predestination that] would eventually be enunciated as the
confessional norm of Reformed theology.3
1Divine Comedy, Paradisio, Canto XX: O Predestination! How remote and dim, Thy root
lies hidden from the intellect which only glimpses the First Cause Supreme! And you, ye
mortals, keep your judgment checked, since we, who see God, have not therefore skill To
know yet all the number of the elect, And such defective sight is sweet for us, Because our
good is refined by this good, That which God wills we also will.
2Wolfhart Pannenbergs dissertation: Die prdestinationslehre des Duns Skotus in
Zusammenhang der scholastischen Lehrntwicklung (Gttingen: V&R, 1954).
3Muller, Decree, 7071. Cf. Charles Schmidt, Peter Martyr Vermigli, Leben und aus-
gewhlte Schriften nach handschriftlichen und gleichzeitigen Quellen (Elberfeld: R.L.
Friderichs, 1858), 106: Da Martyr, neben Calvin, am meisten zur Feststellung dieser Lehre
beigetragen hat, so ist wichtig, seiner Entwicklung derselben nachzugehen.
166 frank a. james iii
This essay will focus on this important dead-white-European-male codi-

fier of Reformed theology Peter Martyr Vermigli and his doctrine of
predestination.
Among Vermigli scholars, one of the central historiographical issues
centers on the question of Thomistic influence.4 It has been argued that
Vermigli embraced essential aspects of Thomistic theology, under whose
influence Vermigli became a harbinger of Reformed scholasticism. It was
Brian Armstrong who set in motion what has become the dominant
interpretation of Vermigli. He promoted the thesis that the prime source
of this new trend toward Aristotle and eventually Protestant scholasticism
was the Italian Aristotelians.5 Armstrong identified the villainous trium-
virate of Peter Martyr Vermigli, Theodore Beza, and Girolamo Zanchi
as the three early reformers who most evidently inclined toward the
budding Protestant scholasticism.6 Of these three, Vermigli and Zanchi
provided the Italian connection, and of the two Italians, it was Vermigli
who prepared the way for Zanchi to follow.7 Thus, if one follows Arm
strongs analysis, Vermigli emerges from the scholastic troika as the inau-
gurator of Reformed scholasticism. Subsequently, and with more caution,
both John Patrick Donnelly8 and J.C. McLelland9 noted echoes of
Thomas in Vermiglis theological outlook. This essay proposes to address
this historiographical question of Thomistic influence by comparing
Vermigli and Aquinas with respect to the mysterious doctrine of
predestination.
Encountering the Doctor Angelicus
Josiah Simler, Vermiglis contemporary and earliest biographer in his

Oratio, specifically identifies Thomas as a theological influence: he
[Vermigli] had hitherto devoted himself chiefly to Thomas and [Gregory
4Cf. J.C. McLelland, ed., Peter Martyr Vermigli and Italian Reform (Waterloo: Wilfred
Laurier, 1980); J.P. Donnelly, Calvinism and Scholasticism in Vermiglis Doctrine of Man and
Grace (Leiden: Brill, 1976); and Muller, Decree.
5Brian G. Armstrong, Calvinism and the Amyraut Heresy: Protestant Scholasticism
and Humanism in Seventeenth-Century France (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1969), 38.
6Armstrong, Calvinism, 87.
7Armstrong, Calvinism, 131.
8Donnelly, Calvinism, 207.
9J.C. McLelland, Scholastic or Humanist? in Peter Martyr Vermigli and Italian Reform,
141151. He states that Vermigli made full use of Aristotelian-Thomistic form and content
148.
confluence and influence 167
of] Rimini as was the custom in the schools.10 Vermiglis first encounter
with Aquinas occurred at the University of Padua in its famous Universitas
theologorum.11 The faculty of theology had the authority to examine can-
didates and to grant degrees, but the responsibility for the actual teaching
of theology was delegated to the two dominant mendicant orders: the
Ordo Praedicatorum and the Ordo Fratrum Minorum.12 The Dominicans
had responsibility to teach theology according to the via Thomae, and the
Franciscans according to the via Scoti.13 As Antonino Poppi states, theol-
ogy in Padua finds its splendid origins in the monasteries of the Dominicans
and Franciscans.14 However, participation in the faculty of theology at
Padua was not exclusive to these two orders. Like most Italian university
towns, the studia monastica of other leading religious orders also partici-
pated in theological education.15
Simler again provides specific information that Vermigli studied with
two Dominicans identified as Gaspare Mansuetti da Perugia and Alberto
Pascaleo da Udine.16 Vermigli was neither a Dominican nor a Franciscan,
but as a member of the Studium at S. Giovanni di Verdara of the Canons
Regular of St. Augustine, he fully participated in the theological faculty of
the University. Mansuetti in particular had published a volume on Thomas
and had an excellent reputation as a scholar, proponent and disciple of
Thomas.17 In all likelihood it was Mansuetti who gave Vermigli his first
taste of the Summa Theologiae.
To determine the continuities and discontinuities we will examine
Thomas Aquinas definitive exposition on predestination in the Summa
10Josiah Simler, Oratio de vita et obitu viri optimi, praestantissimi Theologi D. Petri
Martyris Vermilii (Zrich: Christophorum Froschouerum Iuniorem, 1563), 4. Cf. Donnelly,
ed., Life, Letters, and Sermons (Kirksville: TSUP, 1999), 17.
11Antonino Poppi, La Teologia nellUniversita e nelle Scuole, in Storiae Cultura al
Santo di Padova: Fra Il XIII e Il XX Secolo, ed. Antonino Poppi (Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 1976),
3:6, gives the exact date: 15 April 1363.
12David Knowles, The Evolution of Medieval Thought (New York: Vintage, 1962), 161.
13Giovanni Brotto and Gasparo Zonta, La facolt teologica dellUniversit di Padova
(Padua: Tip. del Seminario, 1922), 129131. The chair of metaphysics was established some-
time around 1442 and was entrusted to the Dominicans rinforzare la posizione del
tomismo. As of 1490, Dominicans held a chair in Metaphysics and in Theology, as did the
Franciscans.
14Poppi, La Teologia, 3.
15Paul F. Grendler, The Universities of the Italian Renaissance (Baltimore: JHUP, 2004),
366370.
16Oratio, 3. Cf. Philip McNair, Peter Martyr in Italy: An Anatomy of Apostasy (Oxford:
OUP, 1967), 103106.
17Mansuettis volume was titled, Dichiarazione di due opuscoli di San Tommaso
(Exposition of Two Opusculae of Saint Thomas). Cf. McNair, Peter Martyr, 103.
Theologiae, Ia.23, under eight articles.18 As for Vermigli we will consider

his two main loci on predestination from his early commentary on Genesis
composed in 15431544 and his Romans locus derived from his lectures in
Oxford (15501552).19
Juxtaposing Predestinarian Schemes
Vermiglis first concentrated exposition of the doctrine of predestination

in his Genesis locus refers favorably to Thomas by name.20 In order to gain
insight into the predestinarian predilections of Thomas and Vermigli, we
will examine four theological concepts: pradestinatio, meritum, praescen-
tia, and reprobatio. While this is not an exhaustive comparison, it will
nevertheless explore constitutive elements in their respective views on
predestination.
Praedestinatio ad vitam
As has been generally recognized, the governing principle of Thomas con-
ception of predestination is that it is pars providentiae. For him every-
thing falls under His [Gods] providence, including predestination.21 As a
sub-category of divine providence, predestination is treated as a part of
the doctrine of God.22 This is especially significant, for it established the
normative late medieval approach to predestination. From the Middle
Ages to the Reformation, predestination was understood to belong to the-
ology proper rather than to soteriology.23
Not only is predestination pars providentiae but it has exclusive refer-
ence to eternal salvation. Thomas defines predestination as the planned
sending of rational creatures to the end which is eternal life [which] is
termed predestination, for to predestine is to send.24 Following Aristotle,
18Thomas had earlier taken up the question of predestination in his Quaestiones dispu-
tate de Veritate, Quaestio 6 (composed 12561259), but his definitive thought is found in the
Summa Theologiae.
19For background, see F.A. James, Peter Martyr Vermigli and Predestination: The
Augustinian Heritage of an Italian Reformer (Oxford: OUP, 1998), 4149.
20Peter Martyr Vermigli, In Primum Librum Mosis, qui vulgo Genesis dicitur Commentarii
doctissimi (Zrich, 1569), fol. 100r.
21Thomas Aquinas, ST, 60 vols. (London: Blackfriars, 19641966), Ia.23.1.
22ST, Ia.23.1.
23Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, trans. Bromiley et al. (Edinburgh: TTC, 1957), II/2:78.
24ST, Ia.23.1. For a general conceptual parallel with Vermigli, see his In Epistolam S.
Pauli ad Romanos commentarij (Basel: Petrum Pernam, 1558), 412: Imo nemo praedesti-
natur nisi ad id, ut efficiatur membrum Christi.
Thomas sees God as the First Cause, who moves all secondary causes to a
predetermined end. In the case of predestination, the end is eternal life.
As Thomas conceives predestination, it does not have reference to repro-
bation. For him, predestination has to do with that part of providence
which entails only the positive goal of salvation, namely praedestinatio ad
vitam.25
In striking contrast, nowhere in his formal discussion does Vermigli
describe predestination as pars providentiae.26 Vermigli certainly read
Thomas, but he did not follow his lead on this point. His orientation to
predestination is determined in large part by locating his discussion of the
subject in a biblical context in which soteriological concerns are para-
mount. The locus on predestination is strategically placed at the end of the
ninth chapter of Romans where Vermigli is convinced predestination is a
primary concern of St. Paul. Indeed, for him the placement of predestina-
tion originates from his conviction that this doctrine derives directly from
Romans 8 and 9. He briefly touches on the relationship between provi-
dence and predestination, but his stress is on their differences not their
unity.27 Providence, as he articulates it, has a broader vista having to do
25ST, Ia.23.1.
26The only exception I have found where predestination is brought into close relation
with providence is a tract, whose authorship is disputedDe providentia et praedestina-
tione. There is a notable history of debate about the authorship of this treatise, which was
discovered by Rudolph Gualter along with two other tracts, and included in his 1580
edition of Vermiglis Loci Communes. See Alexander Schweizer, Die protestantischen
Centraldogmen in ihrer Entwicklung innerhalb der reformierten Kirche, 2 vols. (Zurich:
Orell, Fssli, 1853), 1:267, 285; Otto Ritschl, Dogmengeschichte des Protestantismus, 4 vols.
(Gttingen: V&R, 19081927), 3:249; and Charles Schmidt, Leben, 107, 215, 216, all concluded
that Heinrich Bullinger was the author. Peter Walser, Die Prdestination bei Heinrich
Bullinger im Zusammenhand mit seiner Gotteslehre (Zrich: Zwingli Verlag, 1957), 201210,
disputed Bullingers authorship and pointed to Vermigli. Joachim Staedtke, Drei umstrit-
tene Traktate Peter Martyr Vermiglis, Zwingliana 11 (1962): 553554, concluded that
authorship was irresolvable. John Patrick Donnelly, Three Disputed Vermigli Tracts, in
Essays Presented to Myron P. Gilmore, ed. Sergio Bertelli and Gloria Ramakus, 2 vols.
(Florence: Nuova Italia, 1978), 1:3746, raised the question again and reached the conclu-
sion that Vermigli almost certainly wrote the three tracts. However, there are two undis-
puted facts. First, the manuscript is unsigned. Second, the text is definitely not in Vermiglis
handwriting. In the final analysis, authorship cannot be determined without additional
evidence. Because of the disputed nature of this treatise, we have not taken it into consid-
eration in our analysis.
27Romanos, 410. Specifically, Vermigli points out that providence differs from predesti-
nation in two primary ways. (1): providentia omnes creaturas complectitur: praedestina-
tio autem, quemadmodum nos de ea loquimur, sanctis tantum et electis convenit. (2):
Deinde providentia dirigit res ad naturales fines: praedestinatio autem ducit ad ea, quae
naturam superant: quale est, adoptari in filium Dei, regenerari, imbui gratia recte vivendi,
postremo pervenire ad gloriam.
with Gods governance and administration of His creation.28 In contrast,

predestination has an exclusively soteriological focus, which is clearly
exhibited in Vermiglis formal definition of predestination:
Predestination is the most wise purpose of God by which He has decreed
firmly from before all eternity, to call those whom He has loved in Christ to
the adoption of sons, to be justified by faith, and subsequently to glorify
through good works, those who shall be conformed to the image of the Son
of God, that in them the glory and mercy of the Creator might be declared.29
At the outset of his treatment of this subject in the Romans locus, Vermigli
carefully distinguishes between predestination as commonly understood
(praedestinatio communiter) and predestination as properly understood
(praedestinatio proprie).30 He acknowledges that some theologians speak
broadly of an all-encompassing doctrine of predestination, in which both
the elect and the reprobate are referenced.31 However, Vermigli adds that
the Scriptures do not often use predestination in this sense, and hence
he concludes that properly speaking predestination (praedestinatio prop-
rie) refers to the elect only.32 At this point, Peter Martyr agrees with
Thomas, albeit for different reasons.
Vermiglis locus on predestination in his commentary on Genesis is
revealing. His point of departure for his discussion is the story of Jacob and
Esau in Genesis 25. From the outset, Vermigli appeals to Romans 9 for
theological guidance in interpreting the Old Testament story of Jacob and
Esau. To Vermiglis mind, the story of Jacob and Esau orbits around Pauls
exposition of Romans 9.33 He rejects out of hand any interpretation of this
passage which sees it merely in terms of a temporal blessing of the poster-
ity of one and not the other. For Vermigli, this is a soteriological discussion
28Romanos, 410. Providence is defined as, Dei ordinata, immobilis, et perpetua univer-
sarum rerum adminsitratio. Vermigli offers another abbreviated definition of providence
as, dirigit res ad naturales fines. This abbreviated definition is similar to the one he gave
in the 1543 Genesis commentary: Esse rationem, qua Deus utitur in rebus dirigendis ad
suos fines. See Genesis, fol. 115v.
29Romanos, 411. Precisely the same soteriological orientation is evident in his earlier
Genesis locus on predestination, where Vermigli interpreted the Old Testament story of
Jacob and Esau within a soteriological framework. Cf. Genesis, fol. 100v.
30Romanos, 409.
31Romanos, 409. Referring to praedestinatio communiter, he writes, Hac ratione nec
impij, nec Diabolus ipse, neque peccata excludi possunt a praedestinatione.
32Romanos, 410. Alluding to praedestinatio proprie, he states, Neque aliud ista vox sig-
nificabit, quam Dei de creaturis suis aeternam dispositionem ad usum aliquem suum.
Caeterum sacrae litterae hanc vocem non facile usurpant, nisi de electis. Cf. Muller,
Decree, 6364.
33Genesis, fol. 100r.
of things divine and celestial.34 He gives separate attention to the topic

of divine providence, but it is located in another locus from this same com-
mentary.35 This is important because it demonstrates that even in these
early Protestant years (15431544) he treats predestination in its own right
rather than as a sub-category of providence. While Thomas and Vermigli
differ on the relationship of providence to predestination, they agree that
predestination has exclusive reference to divine election.
Thomas and Vermigli have another predestinatrian convergence, not
often noted. The Doctor Angelicus identifies a rather precise schema in
which predestination finds its ultimate source in the love of God: I answer
that, Predestination logically presupposes election; and election presup-
poses love.36
Construed logically, the starting point is Gods unfathomable love
(dilectio). This is an unconditional love that issues from the pure and mys-
terious goodness of God. The second component is election (electio).
Moved by His unfathomable love, God chooses or elects some creatures
(humans or angels) for eternal blessing.37 When Thomas speaks of predes-
tination (praedestinatio), he distinguishes between the end and the
means. Issuing from Gods unfathomable love (dilectio), he chooses (elec-
tio) to rescue some and then charts (or determines) their course (praedes-
tinatio) toward the final outcome for the chosen loved one which he calls
praedestinatio ad gloriam (predestination to glory).38 The pre-ordained
means by which the end will be secured is called praedestinatio ad gra-
tiam (predestination to grace).39
Clearly drawing from Thomas, Vermigli has a predestinarian scheme
that aligns precisely with Thomas. He states, We also should remember
what we have taught at other times, namely that love, election, and the
predestination of God are ordered in such a way that they logically follow

35In the Genesis locus on Providence (fols. 115v-116r), Vermigli does not identify predes-
tination in terms of providence, as Thomas does. Characteristically, providence is
described by Vermigli in terms of God as Ruler and Governor of the world or Gods care
and government over the world. It has a creational orientation, whereas predestination
has a soteriological orientation. Only in the broadest sense are providence and predestina-
tion linked, and that is simply because they both issue from the one sovereign will of God.
Vermiglis aim in his discussion of providence is to counter the notion of chance rather
than to build a doctrine of predestination upon the edifice of providence.
36ST, IIIa.23.4.
37ST, Ia.23.4. Thomas makes this point repeatedly.
38ST, Ia.23.3.
39ST, Ia.23.3.
the other.40 Vermigli draws attention to the same three components:

dilectio, electio, and praedestinatio. There is a difference in that Vermigli
identifies election and predestination while Thomas distinguishes them.
Although this predestinarian schema does not receive the same level of
attention, it is clear that his three-fold sequence owes something to
Thomas, at least in part. That Gods love is the starting point of predestina-
tion is reflected as well in Vermiglis formal definition: Predestination is
the most wise purpose of God by which He has decreed firmly from before
all eternity, to call those whom He has loved.41
One of the key concerns of Muller in his first book was the role of Christ
in predestination. Thomas Gilby, editor of the Blackfriars critical edition
of the Summa Theologiae, observed that Thomas formal discussion of
predestination (Ia.23) says little about our predestination in Christ.42
However, it is clear that Thomas saved this discussion for a later section of
the Summa where he explicitly asserts that predestination includes, not
only the final goal of eternal salvation for the elect, but also the temporal
means by which predestination is secured, namely, the atoning work of
Christ on the cross:
for God, by predestinating from eternity, so decreed our salvation, that it
should be achieved through Jesus Christ. For eternal predestination covers
not only that which is to be accomplished in time, but also the mode and
order in which it is to be accomplished in time.43
In Vermiglis understanding, the role of Christ in predestination is much
more highly developed, but follows a similar trajectory. For him, the will
of God is active and effectual in predestination, but it is not a direct unme-
diated act of the Father. God the Father accomplishes his will by means
of the incarnation and redemptive work of Christ, who implements the
will of the Father. As mediator, Christ is the guarantor and connecting
link between the eternal choosing and temporal implementation. As he
develops the role of Christ in election, he makes an important distinction.
When speaking of the mysterious purposes of God ab aeterno, Vermigli
employs the unqualified designation God, indicating the entire Godhead
is in view without any distinction of the divine persons or their func-
tions.44 However, when the focus is more specifically on predestination,
40Romanos, 411.
41Romanos, 411.
42ST, Blackfriars Edition, XXX, 107n.
43ST, IIIa.24.4. I should note that that this observation clarifies my previous analysis in
Peter Martyr Vermigli and Predestination, 124.
44Genesis, fol. 100v.
there is a pronounced christological orientation. The mediatorial role of

Christ in predestination is stressed: Christ is the prince and the head of all
the predestined.45 In his soteriological vision, Christ is the exclusive
mediator through whom all of the soteric effects of predestination come
to the elect, namely vocation, justification, and glorification.
Praescientia Dei
One of the perennial questions revolving around the doctrine of predesti-
nation is the role of divine foreknowledge (praescientia): is divine predes-
tination based on foreknowledge? Thomas approaches this question by
addressing whether predestination is based on anything in the one pre-
destined, in the course of which he addresses the matter of foreknowl-
edge. He is unequivocal: since predestination is in the one who predestines
and not in the one predestined, therefore foreknowledge is not in the
things foreknown, but in the One who foreknows them.46
Medieval theologians had given a great deal of attention to foreknowl-
edge in an effort to soften the harshness of Augustines doctrine of predes-
tination.47 It is perhaps surprising that Vermiglis formal definition of
predestination ignores foreknowledge. This is noteworthy since he does in
fact understand the ordo salutis (Romans 8:2930) as a causal sequence
which would logically mean that foreknowledge is the cause of predesti-
nation. Vermigli resolves the tension by arguing that praescientia (even
though it is prior in the soteric sequence) functions conjunctively not
causally.48 When joined (coniuncta) to predestination, praescientia refers
to divine omniscience in general. On the other hand, predestination prop-
erly pertains to the divine will. His reasoning here is that divine knowl-
edge of future events is logically dependent upon a prior divine will to
create such future events. Therefore, although fundamentally joined
together in the ordo salutis, praedestinatio is logically prior to praescientia.
But there is no mistaking the fact that Vermigli renounces all attempts to
make predestination conditioned on foreknowledge. To do so is Pelagian.49
45Romanos, 412.
46ST, Ia.23.2.
47Duns Scotus for example, while affirming that predestination is not based on fore-
knowledge but on the divine will alone, nevertheless insists that reprobation is based on
foreknowledge of sin (Opus Oxoniense I dist. xl q. unica n.2). Cf. Pannenberg, Die prdesti-
nationslehre des Duns Skotus, 95100.
48Romanos, 410.
49See F.A. James, ed. and trans., Predestination and Justification (Kirksville: TSUP,
2003), xxvi-xxviii.
Eternal salvation does not depend on human temporal good works, but
like everything else depends on the will of God.50
Meritum
One of the most highly charged theological issues of the Reformation
period was the proper understanding of merit. Augustine set the theologi-
cal trajectory with his famous maxim: God crowns your merits not as
your merits, but as His own gifts.51 Thomas develops a rather ingenious
approach which combines merit and predestination. He affirms that God
pre-ordains that He will give glory because of merit. In other words, God
creates a soteric system in which human merit is an intermediate cause of
predestination to final glory. However, Thomas then moves one step back
on the soteric chain of cause and effect and points out that the final cause
of that human merit is nothing but the grace of God, who also pre-ordains
that He will give grace to a person in order to merit glory. In the final
analysis, God is the sovereign first cause of predestination, although
Thomas admits an intermediate meritorious cause in the service of and in
consequence of the divine First Cause. Accordingly, all elements in his
doctrine of predestination are sovereign acts of God, willed uncondition-
ally and without consideration to foreseen works or merits.52 God is
moved to predestine some to eternal life by nothing other than His myste-
rious and groundless love (dilectio). Meritorious good works therefore are
the effect not the cause of predestination. Vermigli is in accord with the
general proposition of Thomas that merit is not a cause of predestination,
but he emphatically departs from Thomas suggestion that human merit is
an intermediate cause. Vermigli asserts unequivocally: those who are pre-
destined to salvation are elected without reference to merit.53 Neither
directly nor indirectly do meritum de condigno (condign merit) or meritum
de congruo (congruent merit) figure in Vermiglis understanding of human
good works as a possible cause for predestination. According to Vermigli,
all human works, because they issue from corrupt hearts, are utterly with-
out merit. All positive references to merit are related directly and exclu-
sively to Christ, whose works alone are meritorious.54 One finds precisely
the same dismissive view of human merit in the earlier Genesis locus.55
50Romanos, 414.
51Augustine, De gratia et libero arbitrio, xv.
52ST, Ia.23.5.
53Romanos, 414.
54Romanos, 420421.
Reprobatio
Throughout most of church history, the real problem inherent in the doc-
trine of predestination is its dark corollaryreprobation. Thomas defines
reprobation as that part [of divine providence] which relates to those
who fall short of the goal of eternal life.56 He cannot escape the hard logic
that by electing some, God did not elect others.57 When he asks, Why
does He [God] choose some to glory while others He reprobates? he can
only reply, His will is the only ground.58 According to Thomas, those
who have been overlooked by divine election are permitted to fall into
sin in time. His language here is important. Earlier, when he wanted to
communicate divine causality in election, he employed the terminology
of divine volition.59 However, when speaking of reprobation, he consis-
tently couches it in terms of permission rather than the more causal
divine willing, following Augustine. This is precisely because he wanted to
avoid the suggestion that divine reprobation is in some sense the cause of
the human fall into sin. If God is not the cause of this fall, how then does
Thomas explain it?
To explain the divine permission for some to fall short of eternal life,
Thomas appeals to a rather vague and ethereal moral balance of the uni-
verse. He puts the case as follows: for the sake of the completeness of
the universe diverse grades of beings are required, some of high degree
and some of humble. In order to maintain multiformity of real values, God
permits evils to happen, lestmany goods be hindered.60 For proper
symmetry, the universe requires that the good cannot exist except over
against its obverse.61 Thomas does not address why this is so. This natural
state of affairs is a presupposition which provides the only explanation of
the divine permission for some to fall short.
The reprobated are left in their sins and therefore liable to punishment.
Reprobation, declares Thomas, is the cause why we shall meet our des-
erts in the future, namely eternal punishment.62 Those non-elect who fall
into sin by Gods permission are then justly punished for their sins.
Thomas is unambiguous about the origin of human sin: man himself is
56ST, Ia.23.3.
57ST, Ia.23.4.
58ST, Ia.23.5.
59ST, Ia.23.5. Cf. Ia.23.3.
60ST, Ia.23.5.
61Cf. ST, Ia.22.2.
62ST, Ia.23.3.
the exclusive cause. God is neither the cause of human sin nor is he unjust
in permitting it: Although one whom God reprobates cannot gain grace,
nevertheless the fact that he flounders in this or that sin happens of his
own responsibility.63 Thomas therefore will not allow the reprobate to
lay a claim against God: He who grants by grace can give freely as He wills,
be it more or less, without prejudice to justice, provided He deprives no
one of what is owing.64
Aquinas points out that there is a clear causal asymmetry between pre-
destination and reprobation. Whereas predestination can be said to cause
both the means and the end for eternal salvation, reprobation can only be
said to have a causal reference to the end, where sins are justly punished.
Thomas is adamant that reprobation be completely disassociated from
any causal link to the instrumentality of human sin.65 Yet there is also a
kind of symmetry to his understanding of reprobation. On the one hand,
he stressed love (dilectio) as the ultimate cause of predestination.
Surprisingly, he also speaks of God hating the reprobate. He states, In so
far as He [God] does not will this particular blessing of eternal life, He is
said to hate (odio) or reprobate them.66 Although Thomas logic compels
him to admit this divine hatred, he does not develop this any further.
Vermigli follows closely in Thomas footsteps: God delivers some out of
this misery; those he is said to love (diligere). Others he passes over and
these is he said to hate (odisse).67 He too decides not to expand further on
this divine hatred.
Considered in itself, the idea of predestination to eternal life is unre-
markable in late medieval thought. Some medieval theologians had clearly
articulated a praedestinatio ad vitam aeternam based solely on the sover-
eign mercy of God.68 However, many other late medieval theologians
nuanced the doctrine of predestination in such a way as to stress the
efficacy of the human will, which was indicative of the late medieval
drift toward semiPelagianism.69 Vermiglis treatment of reprobation
63ST, Ia.23.3.
64ST, Ia.23.5.
65ST, Ia.23.3.
66ST, Ia.23.3. Thomas comment here is no doubt derived from his preceding citation of
Malachi 1:23 where God says: Jacob I loved but Esau I hated.
67Romanos, 413. Vermigli did not venture so boldly in the Genesis locus to speak of
divine hatred.
68See for example, Adolar Zumkeller, The Augustinian Theologian Konrad Treger (ca.
14801542) and his Disputation Theses of May 5, 1521, in Via Augustini, ed. Oberman and
James (Leiden: Brill, 1991), 130141.
69Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine
(Chicago: UCP, 1984), 4:10ff.
represented a substantial rebuttal to this trend. His definition of reproba-

tion is the obverse of his definition of predestination.
We may define reprobation as the most wise purpose of God, whereby He
has before all eternity constantly decreed, without any injustice, not to have
mercy on those whom He has not loved, but passes over, that by their just
condemnation, he might declare his wrath toward sins and also declare his
glory.70
Many late medieval divines and even some early Protestant theologians
exhibited a certain reticence when it came to the doctrine of reprobation,
especially where it touched on the matter of divine causality.71 Vermigli
manifests none of this reticence. He is unequivocal in his Romans locus, as
he was in the Genesis locus, in asserting that reprobation issues from the
sovereign free will of God:72 By reprobation we understand the purpose
of God not to have mercy. Indeed, that purpose is no less free than the
other purpose of showing mercy.73 For Vermigli, reprobation is viewed as
the sovereign prerogative as the potter over his clay vessels.
The imagery of the potter and the clay in Romans 9 is theologically for-
mative. This follows the same line of thought as the Genesis locus, that
God has the sovereign right of the Creator to do as he pleases with his
creation. According to the Romans locus, God is a potter who has the
right to make from the same lump of clay one vessel for honor and another
for dishonor.74 This echoes his earlier statement that God chose one and
cast away another, as in the example he (Paul) adduces ofvessels which
God, in the manner of a potter can prepare for himself, some for honor,
some for reproach.75 God acts in absolute freedom. Just as the potter
fashions the clay without any external consideration beyond his own
purposes, so the sovereign will of God in eternity is free to elect Jacob and
70Romanos, 413.
71Vermiglis colleague at Zurich, Heinrich Bullinger, is an example of a leading reformer
who did not articulate a doctrine of reprobation. See J. Wayne Baker, Heinrich Bullinger
and the Covenant (Athens: Ohio University, 1980), 2754.
73Romanos, 414415.
74Romanos, 412. Although he offers no formal definition in the Genesis locus, predesti-
narian parallels with the Romans locus abound. The most notable parallel is the identifica-
tion of the cause of predestination with the propositum Dei. Cf. Genesis, fol. 100r-v.
75Romanos, 413: This term poteste connotes not only power but the right or prerogative
to exercise that power. Vermigli cites with particular gusto the words of Christ from
Matthew 20:15: Is it not lawful for me to do with my own what I will? and then adds: The
same thing is taught by Paul in Romans ix.23 when he talks about the power of the potter.
Cf. Genesis, fol. 100r.
to reject Esau without considering their future good deeds or mitigating

circumstances.76 Although Gods will is absolutely sovereign and free, God
wields it passively in reprobation. By passive willing, Vermigli means
something more than mere permission, but less than an active willing.77
For Vermigli, God is not to be pictured as sitting back and permitting mat-
ters to take their course. Rather, God engineers and orchestrates men and
events without coercion in order to produce his predetermined soteric
result. To reprobate is characteristically described as not to have mercy
or passing over.78 It would appear that the language is intended to avoid
the terrible image of a dispassionate deity arbitrarily hurling helpless vic-
tims into a lake of fire. His vision of election and reprobation is more com-
plicated; it portrays God as actively rescuing some sinners, but deliberately
and mysteriously by-passing others. Although more developed, this idea is
reflective of his earlier locus.79 Furthermore, this sovereign will of God in
eternity is also absolutely immutable.80 Because God is the divine potter,
his will cannot be altered. Vermigli further adds that the propositum Dei is
efficacious.81 It is a powerful will in which intention and accomplishment
are indistinguishable. What the divine potter wills cannot fail to be real-
ized in precisely the manner intended.
As mentioned earlier in this essay, Vermigli specifically mentions
Thomas in his Genesis locus. There he borrows an analogy from the Doctor
Angelicus to explain the divine will in election and reprobation:
Thomas Aquinas has a wonderful analogy. When a builder builds a house,
he has in front of him bricks of exactly the same shape and quality and will
be able to give a general reason as to why he places some of them on the
highest part, but others on the lowest part. Because when he builds a house
he must lay a foundation, then put on the gable and roof. But if you were to
ask him, Why do you put that stone on the foundation but another on the
top? he would doubtless be able to give you no other answer than that it
was according to the judgment of his will.82
Vermigli appreciates this analogy because it underscores his own theo-
logical conviction that all explanations for predestination ultimately find
their resolution in the sovereign will of God. The divine will is absolutely
76Romanos, 417.
77Romanos, 37, 381, 480. Cf. Donnelly, Calvinism, 118.
78Romanos, 430. Cf. Romanos, 413.
79Genesis, fols. 100r-v.
80Romanos, 411.
81Romanos, 411.
82Genesis, fol. 100v. The reference to Thomas is found in ST, Ia.23.5.
free and absolutely just. There is nothing in man which could compel
God into such a plan of predestining us.83 Like the master builder in
Thomas analogy, God the Creator has the inherent sovereign right to cre-
ate his universe in any way that seems right to him.
Vermigli is not satisfied simply to state the matter positively, but, in
addition, delineates what is not the cause of reprobation. Since it was
commonplace in medieval theology to ascribe the cause of reprobation to
foreseen sins, Vermigli rebuts this viewpoint. Predictably he reasserts his
view that it is the sovereign free will of God (propositum Dei) which is the
ultimate and exclusive cause of reprobation. Therefore, one cannot admit
that foreseen sins are the cause of mans reprobation. Sins do not cause
God to purpose that He will not have mercy.84 With a hint of Augustinian
sarcasm Vermigli reasons, if sin were the true cause of reprobation, then
no one would be elect.85
The matter of divine reprobation naturally gives rise to the even more
perplexing question of Gods relationship to human sin. Standing on the
razors edge, Vermigli affirms both the sovereignty of God and human
responsibility. His logic is much more candid, and he does not side-step
the stark conclusions.86 He acknowledges that, in some sense, God is the
cause of sin. With Romans chapter 9 as his theological reference, Vermigli
concludes, it cannot be denied, but that God in a sense willssin.87
Undergirding this conclusion is his assumption that all things derive their
existence and sustenance from the Deity. In his conception of divine cau-
sality, sin is therefore linked to God as the ultimate ground of existence.
God, as the Creator and conservator of all things, is the cause of all human
actions, including sins. According to Vermigli, God is the cause of sin in
the sense that he creates and governs all that comes to pass, including
actions of sinful men. There can be nothing, asserts Vermigli, except
that which God wills to be.88 At certain points in his locus, Vermigli
employs language which goes beyond governance. Sins may be inflicted
(infliguntur) or imposed upon men by God as divine punishment for
prior sins.89 With striking directness, Vermigli writes, He [God] is the

84Romanos, 413.
85Romanos, 426.
86Romanos, 436.
87Romanos, 423. Cf. Donnelly, Calvinism, 118.
88Romanos, 436.
89Romanos, 413. Vermigli uses such terms as gubernatione ac regimineinfliguntur
impulsuinclinat
cause of those actions which in us are sins. In so far as those actions are of
God, they are just, for God punishes sins by sins. Therefore sins as punish-
ment are inflicted upon men by God as a just judge.90 The infliction of
additional sins upon sinners is an expression of divine justice. Vermigli
does not specifically address the question of whether this is a harsh jus-
tice. But sin for him, because of its heinous nature, is inherently deserving
of the severest justice. Harsh or not, imposing sin as a punishment for sin
is just. God is not only the divine potter; he is also the divine judge.
God does not pour into us any new malice (malitia).91 For Vermigli,
the divine governance of sins is simply an acknowledgment that the provi-
dence of God encompasses not only good works but also human sin. In
sum, God is the author of sinful acts, but not their sinfulness: [Gods] pre-
destination is the cause of all good works done by the elect and in the
elect. But sins, although in a sense subject to the will of God, yet they
are not produced by Gods will as good works are.92 There is, for Vermigli,
a divine asymmetry in the relation of God to the production of good
and bad acts. With respect to good acts, God not only creates and sustains
the act itself, but actively moves the will to do good acts. However, Gods
relationship to evil acts is different. Divine causality is limited to the
existence and maintenance of the act itself and does not include the doing
of evil.93
Vermiglis treatment of Gods role in Adams sin is especially poignant.
Adams fall did not catch God unawares, for as Vermigli observes, God
knew that Adam would fall if not confirmed by the Spirit and granted
more grace and yet God did not help him or stop him from falling. It was
within Gods power to prevent Adams fall, but God did not.94 Vermigli
cannot claim to provide an explanation as to why God did not help Adam,
he only defers to the sovereign prerogative of the Creator to do as He
wishes in accord with his hidden and unspeakable wisdom.95 Neither
does Vermigli shy away from the logical conclusion of his analysis, for he
states, God in a sense willed that first sin and was in a sense the author.96
Even more striking is the threepronged assertion that God presented
Adam with the opportunity to sin, a wife who enticed him to sin, and
90Romanos, 413.
91Romanos, 413.
92Romanos, 436.
93Romanos, 423.
94Romanos, 427.
95Romanos, 431.
96Romanos, 427.
finally, the act of disobedience itself could not have occurred without the
power of God.97
As was the case in his earlier locus, there remains a concern to protect
the judicialethical integrity of the divine will.98 He insists in both loci
that the divine will is just in condemnation as well as in reprobation. In
condemnation, Gods will exercises a forensic justice. God holds man
accountable for his violations of divine standards and is just in condemn-
ing all sins, whether original or actual.99 It must be recognized that divine
punishment is designed for the guilty only. Vermiglis conception of origi-
nal sin means that those who suffer eternal punishment get what they
deserve. Gods actions in this instance are therefore perfectly just.
Gemina Praedestinatio
It would appear that Thomas view of predestination is something more
than single predestination, but less than double predestination. Even
when he finds himself perilously close to the precipice of gemina praedes-
tinatio, he seems to stop short. He seeks to preserve the sovereignty of God
in salvific matters, yet at the same time to grant man the ability to merit
eternal life. All predestinarian enigmas are ultimately reconciled in the
unfathomable providence of God. Providence allows Thomas a measure
of latitude by subordinating soteriology to the infinite mysteries and para-
doxes of theology proper.
From the preceding analysis it should be obvious that Vermigli taught a
thoroughgoing doctrine of gemina praedestinatio. It qualifies as double in
view of his teaching that both election and reprobation issue from the one
will of God. Moreover, it is clear that he taught the doctrine of gemina
praedestinatio throughout his Protestant career from Strasbourg to Zurich.
Insofar as it concerns the ultimate purposes of God, there is an absolute
causal symmetry in election and reprobation. Gods relationship to the
one is precisely the same as it is to the other. Both the ends and the means
of election and reprobation are comprehended under the purpose of God
(Dei proposito).100 With the image of Jacob and Esau dancing in his
head, Vermigli declares that one of the two brothers was taken and the
other rejected only by the will of God.101 If there is an eternal choosing of
97Romanos, 427.
99Romanos, 441. Cf. Genesis, fol. 100v.
100Romanos, 425.
101Romanos, 417.
undeserving people in election, there is also an eternal rejecting of other

undeserving persons in reprobation. There are two different soteric desti-
nations, but one divine point of departure. Not once does he offer a quali-
fication to this fundamental assertion: God reprobates some from sheer
free will. He argues that the purposes of God are not tyrannical, irrational,
or capricious, even if they are mysterious. Against such notions, Vermigli
insists that the purposes of God are not motivated by a cruel enjoyment of
punishment. God is not cruel.102 The ultimate design of reprobation is
rather to display divine justice, and that is good.
Concluding Postulations
The convergences and divergences between Vermigli and Thomas on the

doctrine of predestination leave little doubt that Vermiglis doctrine of
predestination was informed by Thomas. However, acknowledging this is
not to suggest that Vermigli simply replicates Thomas. He clearly departs
from Thomas in important ways. St. Paul, Augustine, and Gregory of
Rimini were more important influences on Vermiglis thought, as I have
argued elsewhere.103
We will conclude with several observations. First, the Thomas of the
Summa Theologiae was a dedicated follower of Augustine who sought to
utilize Aristotelian methodology in order to articulate better that theo-
logical outlook. It is notable that Thomas incessantly cites the anti-
Pelagian writings of Augustine in the Summa Theologiae on predestina-
tion. This is in contrast to his earlier treatment of predestination in his
Quaestiones disputatae de Veritate (12561259), where Augustine is occa-
sionally mentioned. This is because Augustines anti-Pelagian writings
were not accessible to Thomas until later. Joseph Wawrykow suggests that
Aquinas doctrine of predestination was significantly impacted by reading
Augustines late works on grace, of which Thomas was unaware until he
discovered them at the papal court in the 1260s.104 It has been well recog-
nized that the mature Thomas self-consciously sought to reflect the theol-
ogy of Augustine.105 M.-D. Chenu underscores this: Aquinas inherits from
102Romanos, 423.
103James, Peter Martyr Vermigli, 93150.
104Joseph P. Wawrykow, Gods Grace and Human Action: Merit in the Theology of
Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame: UNDP, 1995), 266276.
105Michael Dauphinais, et al., ed., Aquinas the Augustinian (Washington: CUAP, 2007),
xi-xiii.
Augustine a theological and philosophical patrimony outside of which it

is impossible to conceive a Saint Thomas.106
Second, Vermigli found Thomas theology in the Summa Theologiae
especially congenial because it was Augustines theology. As a deeply
committed Augustinian, he would have found a natural affinity with
Thomas the Augustinian. This is not to take something away from the
genius of Thomas, rather it is to appreciate the deeper theological forces
at work. It takes an Augustinian to know an Augustinian.
Third, Vermigli found Thomas methodology in the Summa Theologiae
especially effective because it was articulated through a methodology
derived from Aristotle. In his Oratio, Josiah Simler makes the important
observation about Vermiglis studies at the University of Padua, namely
that he had a particular appreciation of Aristotelian methodology.107 An
Augustinian theology framed within an Aristotelian methodology would
have been quite alluring to an Augustinian like Vermigli who also had a
special fondness for clear-headed and logical methodology.
Finally, the theological-methodological matrix of Augustine and
Aristotle in Thomas doctrine of predestination elucidates Vermiglis con-
tribution to Reformed orthodoxy. His Thomistic merger of Augustinian
theological orientation with Aristotelian methodology was one of the
shaping influences on emerging Reformed orthodoxy. Of course, as one of
the primary theological conduits to the next generation of Reformed theo-
logians, Vermigli was no mere epigone of Thomas or even Augustine; he
contributed his own theological nuances as well as his own scriptural and
exegetical insights garnered from the dynamic paradigm shift that was the
Reformation. But does his important role as the theological ringleader of
Armstrongs villainous triumvirate make Vermigli a villain? Richard
Muller would no doubt remind us that one mans villain is another mans
codifer of Reformed theology.
106M.-D. Chenu, Toward Understanding Saint Aquinas, trans. Landry and Hughes
(Chicago: Henry Regenery, 1963), 151. Cf. Jean-Pierre Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, trans.
Robert Royal (Washington: CUAP, 19962003), 1:264.
107Simler, Oratio, 3.
PETER MARTYR VERMIGLI, SCHOLASTICISM, AND
AQUINAS JUSTICE OF WAR DOCTRINE
Mark J. Larson
A renewed interest in Thomist theology arose in the sixteenth century.

Catholic Thomists included Cardinal Cajetan, Sylvester of Ferrara,
Francesco Vittoria, and Domingo Baez. A Thomist revival occurred even
within Protestantism. John Patrick Donnelly has given significant atten-
tion to this phenomenon in the thought of Jerome Zanchi.1 He also draws
attention to the fact that Thomistic elements are to be found in the teach-
ing of the Italian Reformed theologian Peter Martyr Vermigli, but he does
not develop this argument at any length.2 The purpose of this essay is to
expand upon Donnellys thesis and thereby to underscore its legitimacy
with respect to the theology of Vermigli.
Vermigli (14991562) was trained in scholastic theology in general and
in Thomist theology in particular.3 He entered the University of Padua at
the age of nineteen, and he received his doctorate in theology, probably at
the age of twenty-six.4 While at Padua, Vermigli studied the theology of
Thomas Aquinas in depth.5
This essay will argue the thesis that in Vermiglis treatise Of War he not
only reflected the methodological style of medieval scholastic theology,
but he also made a deliberate attempt to reproduce the actual substance
of Aquinas teaching on the just war.6 This is noteworthy in light of the
1J.P. Donnelly, Calvinist Thomism, Viator 7 (1976): 441455. His Italian Influences in
the Development of Calvinist Scholasticism, SCJ 7 (1976): 81101, is also helpful.
2Torrance Kirby, From Florence to Zurich via Strasbourg and Oxford: The International
Career of Peter Martyr Vermigli (14991562), in Bewegung Und Beharrung: Aspekte Des
Reformierten Protestantismus, 15201650, ed. Moser and Opitz (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 135.
3Frank A. James, Peter Martyr Vermigli: At the Crossroads of Late Medieval
Scholasticism, Christian Humanism and Resurgent Augustinianism, in PS, 63.
4Philip McNair, Peter Martyr in Italy: An Anatomy of Apostasy (Oxford: OUP, 1967), 116117.
5Donnelly, Calvinist Thomism, 442443. Cf. Robert M. Kingdon, The Function of
Law in the Political Thought of Peter Martyr Vermigli, in Reformatio Perrennis: Essays on
Calvin and the Reformation, ed. Brian A. Gerrish (Pittsburgh: Pickwick, 1981), 166.
6Alister E. McGrath, Protestant Orthodoxy, in The Science of Theology, ed. Avis (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 154, makes the unqualified declaration that the first phase of the
Reformation witnessed intense hostility towards scholastic method. A more nuanced
position is reflected in Jason Zuidema, Peter Martyr Vermigli (14991562) and the Outward
Instruments of Divine Grace (Gttingen: V&R, 2008), 2627.
186 mark j. larson
observation made by Richard Muller that the absence of clear or direct

citation of medieval sources is, it ought to be noted, quite typical of
Protestant theology and philosophy.7 This is also striking due to the fact
that in a typical political locus in his Common Places, his arguments, as
Robert Kingdon notes, are often explicitly anti-Catholic.8 Frank James
more specifically states, Vermigli was quite sweeping in his criticism of
the theological ideas of the leading late medieval scholastic theologians.
He says of Lombard, Thomas, Scotus or Ockhamthey filled everything
with darkness.9
For Vermigli to reproduce the teaching of Aquinas on the just war is also
interesting when one considers that Vermigli tended to quote from
Augustine with great frequency.10 It would have been easy for him to set
forth his just war teaching by completely bypassing Aquinas, positioning
himself completely within the Augustinian tradition on the doctrine of
the just war.
Holy War Context
Before we proceed to an examination of the position of Aquinas and

Vermigli on the subject of the justice of war, we shall briefly consider the
historical setting in which Vermigli articulated his teaching. For the sake
of comparison and contrast, we shall also at this point reflect upon the
approach of Martin Luther in setting forth classical just war ideas in oppo-
sition to holy war practice in the sixteenth century.
Vermigli expounded his just war doctrine against the background of
holy war practice both on the part of the Roman Catholic Church and
theOttoman Turks. While Vermigli insisted that a just war must only be
authorized by the proper civil authority, the Catholic Church and the
Ottoman Empire undertook wars under the leadership of religious fig-
urespopes on the one hand and sultans on the other.11
7Muller, Arminius, 37.

8Kingdon, The Function of Law, 161162.
9James, Peter Martyr Vermigli, 66. Donnelly, Calvinist Thomism, 442, draws atten-
tion to Vermiglis frequent disagreements with Aquinas.
10Kingdon, The Function of Law, 163. F.A. James, Vermigli, Peter Martyr, in
Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters, ed. McKim and Peabody (Downers Grove: IVP,
2007), 1008.
11James Turner Johnson, The Holy War Idea in Western and Islamic Traditions (University
Park: Pennsylvania State University, 1997), 3738.
aquinas justice of war doctrine 187
Holy war advocates within the Christian political tradition had long
believed that the church had the authority to declare war. The First
Crusade had been proclaimed by Urban II in 1095 to liberate Jerusalem from
Muslim control and oppression. The crusade mentality continued into the
sixteenth century. A crusade leagueincluding Spain, Venice, and the
papacydefeated the Turks in the Battle of Lepanto on 7 October 1571.
The Ottoman Turks were likewise proponents of holy war in sixteenth-
century Europe. Sultan Suleyman regarded himself as being a central
religious figure in world history. Like Mohammed, the founder of the
Islamic religion, he prosecuted holy war with a vengeance in the Balkans.12
The history of Islam from the time of Mohammed in the seventh cen-
tury to the Reformation era in the sixteenth century was one of holy war,13
conquest in the name of Allah.14 Indeed, the future territorial integrity
of the European heartland looked ominous as the 1520s were drawing to
a close.15 The Turks appeared to be invincible; no one had been able to
stop them.16 Before the forces of Suleyman, two citadels had fallen in
succession, Belgrade (1520) and Rhodes (1521). The Hungarians had been
massacred at Mohacs (1526).17 When Luther penned his treatise On War
against the Turk (1529), Suleymanthe religious head of the Islamic
worldwas poised to strike again. Luther wrote, It is a fact that the Turk
is at our throat.18
While Vermigli provided for the Protestant world a positive restate-
ment of Aquinas teaching on the justice of war, Luther expended his
energies in repudiating holy war ideas as practiced by the Catholic and
Islamic communities. He simply assumed the long-standing medieval just
12Robert Irwin, Islam and the Crusades, 10961699, in The Oxford History of the
Crusades, ed. Riley-Smith (Oxford: OUP, 2002), 221.
13Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror (N.Y.: Random House,
2003), 37.
14Thomas Munck, Seventeenth Century Europe: State, Conflict and the Social Order in
Europe, 15981700 (London: Macmillan, 1990), 367.
15Paul K. Davis, Encyclopedia of Invasions and Conquests from Ancient Times to the
Present (New York: Norton, 1996), 150; Eugene F. Rice and Anthony Grafton, The Foundations
of Early Modern Europe, 14601559, 2nd ed. (New York: Norton, 1994), 11.
16Gregory J. Miller, Luther on the Turks and Islam, in Harvesting Martin Luthers
Reflections on Theology, Ethics, and the Church, ed. Wengert (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2003), 193.
17Hugo Hantsch, Zum ungarisch-trkischen Problem in der allgemeinen Politik Karls
V, in Festschrift Karl Eder zum Siebzigsten Geburtstag, ed. Mezler-Andelberg (Innsbruck:
Universittsverlag Wagner, 1959), 58.
18Martin Luther, On War against the Turk (LW 46:204).
188 mark j. larson
war tradition19although he never conceded any legitimacy to any ele-

ment of the political theology of Aquinas.20
Luther spoke strongly against the holy war tradition in the church.21
The pope and the bishops, he said, would be destroying their calling
and office to fight with the sword against flesh and blood.22 He added,
They are not commanded to do this; it is forbidden.23 He also focused
upon the head of the Catholic Church: It is not right for the popeto lead
a church army.24 Luther had no use for the crusade ideology in which
the pope, along with his followers, wages war.25
Luther was equally vehement in his denunciations of Islamparticu-
larly due to the fact that Suleyman and his predecessors waged war with-
out a just cause. Anyone can easily see, he added, that Mohammed is
a destroyer of our Lord Christ and his kingdom.26 He contended,
The Turks Koran or creed teaches him to destroythe Christian faith.27
The Turks themselves were nothing but the army of the devil.28 Luther
forcefully stated, When the spirit of lies had taken possession of
Mohammed, and the devil had murdered mens souls with his Koran and
had destroyed the faith of Christians, he had to go and take the sword and
set about to murder their bodies.29
Thus, while Luther reflected his dismay with Catholic neglect of the
justice of war category of the proper civil authority for the prosecution of
war, he affirmed his outrage at the Islamic disregard for the justice of war
constituent of the necessity of a just cause. With respect to Christian
Europe, Luther insisted that the civil magistrate alone is authorized by
God to make war. In his piece Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes
of Peasants (1525), he went so far as to chastise the emperor for his inactiv-
ity pertaining to the threat of Suleyman and his Turkish horde. It is not
difficult to show, Luther complained, that up to now the banner has been
19Gregory J. Miller, Fighting Like a Christian: The Ottoman Advance and the
Development of Luthers Doctrine of the Just War, in Caritas Et Reformatio, ed. Whitford
(St. Louis: Concordia, 2002), 44.
20Roland H. Bainton, Christian Attitudes toward War and Peace: A Historical Survey and
Christian Re-evaluation (New York: Abingdon, 1960), 136140.
21Miller, Fighting Like a Christian, 48.
22LW 46:165.
23LW 46:165.
24LW 46:168.
25LW 46:180.
26LW 46:177.
27LW 46:178.
28LW 46:193.
29LW 46:179.
regarded as a mere piece of silk, for otherwise the emperor would long ago
have unfurled it, the princes would have followed it, and the Turks would
not have become so mighty.30 With respect to the Islamic Turks, on the
other hand, Luther referred to them as a wild and barbarous people.
Their lifestyle was carnal and dissolute.31 Their warfare did not meet
the jus in bello criteria. Their wars were therefore nothing more than
robbing and murdering, devouring and destroying more and more of
those that are around them.32
Vermigli contrasts then with Luther in the manner in which he pre-
sented his just war position. While Luther assumed the legitimacy of the
classical Augustinian just war doctrine and castigated others for their
deviations from it, Vermigli self-consciously reproduced the Thomist
tradition. He worried less about the refutation of erroneous contempora-
neous practices, choosing instead to present positive instruction on the
classical justice of war doctrine for the benefit of the Reformed churches
of his own time.
Aquinas and the Augustinian Tradition
Before we examine Vermiglis exposition, let us briefly consider Aquinas

essay Of War.33 In this famous discussion, Aquinas stated, In order for a
war to be just, three things are necessary.34 He then mentioned the first
of three necessary constituents that must be included in a war that is just:
First, the authority of the sovereign by whose command the war is to be
waged. He stated, For it is not the business of a private individual to
declare war, because he can seek for redress of his rights from the tribunal
of his superior.35
Aquinas discussion in the thirteenth century was certainly nothing
new. The same three elements of a just war were found in the teaching of
Augustine of Hippo. It seems evident that Aquinas moved the discussion
30LW 46:190.
31Luther, On War against the Turk, 175.
32Luther, On War against the Turk, 178. Cf. Rice and Grafton, The Foundations of Early
Modern Europe, 137.
33Aquinas influential treatment of the just war doctrine is presented in ST,
IIaIIae.40.14.
34ST, IIaIIae.40.1. All quotations from Aquinas essay Of War, q. 40, are from the five-
volume English translation Summa Theologica (Allen: Christian Classics, 1948).
35ST, IIaIIae.40.1.
190 mark j. larson
back to the patristic framework after other medieval thinkers developed

more complex discussions of what a just war actually is.36
In his classic treatment in Reply to Faustus, Augustine affirmed that the
justice or injustice of a particular war depended upon certain factors,
which he then went on to develop.37 In one sentence, he specified the
three constituents that Aquinas would later include as being the three
necessary things for a war to be just. Augustine wrote, A great deal
depends on the causes for which men undertake wars, and on the author-
ity they have for doing so; for the natural order which seeks the peace of
mankind, ordains that the monarch should have the power of undertaking
war if he thinks it advisable, and that the soldiers should perform their
military duties in behalf of the peace and safety of the community
(XXII.75).38
Augustine here presented the crucial elements to which Aquinas would
later appeal. While Aquinas would mention the authority of the sovereign,
Augustine spoke about how the natural order ordained that the monarch
had the authority to make war.39 While Aquinas discussed the necessity of
a just cause, Augustine referred to the importance of the causes for which
wars were undertaken.40 While Aquinas stressed that there had to be a
rightful intention, Augustine wrote about seeking the peace of mankind
and prosecuting a war in behalf of peace.41
There can be little doubt that the Augustinian just war trajectory gained
additional momentum when it was promulgated once again by Aquinas
in the thirteenth century.42 We may also draw the conclusion that the
Thomist approach to just war thinking gained credence within the
Reformed community after it was staunchly advocated by Peter Martyr
Vermigli in the sixteenth century. We now turn our attention to a consid-
eration of his locus on the subject of war.
36Frederick H. Russell, The Just War in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: CUP, 1975),
220, 269.
37Henrik Syse, Augustine and Just War: Between Virtue and Duties, in Ethics,
Nationalism, and Just War: Medieval and Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Syse and Reichberg
(Washington: CUAP, 2007), 36.
38Augustine of Hippo, Reply to Faustus the Manichaean, in NPNF1, 4:301.
39David A. Lenihan, The Just War Theory in the Work of Saint Augustine, Augustinian
Studies 19 (1988): 5657.
40ST, IIaIIae.40.1.
41ST, IIaIIae.40.1.
42Gregory M. Reichberg, Is There a Presumption against War in Aquinas Ethics?
in Ethics, Nationalism, and Just War, 76.
Scholastic Methodology
Vermiglis theological excursus on war originally appeared at the end of

his biblical commentary on 2 Samuel 2.43 The structure of his commentar-
ies was to include theological loci at strategic places in the midst of his
running commentary on the biblical text.44 After Vermigli died, the doctri-
nal loci which were scattered throughout his biblical commentaries were
abstracted from their original setting, gathered together, and arranged in
a format resembling Calvins Institutes.45 The essay De bello was removed
from its place at the end of his exposition on 2 Samuel 2, and it was placed
in the fourth part of what became The Common Places. The locus on war is
presented in chapter seventeen, and it consists of thirty-three sections.
Of Warthe locus that Vermigli wrote on the doctrine of warimme-
diately presents the characteristic medieval order of teaching. With
respect to the topic of war, Vermigli from the outset seems to be providing
answers to the three traditional questions that the medieval mind would
ask concerning any subject of discussion.46
As to the first questionDoes it exist?Vermigli seems to have been
answering it by way of the opening statement in the locus (IV.17.1):
Because in the holie Historie, there is often mention made of war:
I thought good to speake somewhat of that matter.47 The simple point
43Frank A. James, Peter Martyr Vermigli: Probing His Puritan Influence, in The
Practical Calvinist, ed. Lillback (Fram: Christian Focus, 2002), 150151.
44John L. Thompson, The Survival of Allegorical Argumentation in Peter Martyr
Vermiglis Old Testament Exegesis, in Biblical Interpretation in the Era of the Reformation,
ed. Muller and Thompson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 256. Cf. Robert M. Kingdon,
The Political Thought of Peter Martyr Vermigli, in Peter Martyr Vermigli and Italian
Reform, ed. McLelland (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier, 1980), 123.
45Robert M. Kingdon, Peter Martyr Vermigli and the Marks of the True Church,
in Continuity and Discontinuity in Church History, ed. Church and George (Leiden: Brill,
1979), 203204. Cf. Luca Baschera, Independent Yet Harmonious: Some Remarks on the
Relationship between the Theology of Peter Martyr Vermigli (14991562) and John Calvin,
CHRC 91.12 (2011): 46.
46A proper teaching procedure in the scholastic mentality asked these questions in the
following order: Does it exist (an sit)? What is it (quid sit)? Of what sort is it (quia sit)?
47Peter Martyr Vermigli, Of Warre or Battell, in The Political Thought of Peter Martyr
Vermigli, ed. Kingdon (Geneva: Droz, 1980), 61. The locus provided by Kingdon in this
volume presents paragraphs one through twenty of Vermiglis full locus of thirty-three
paragraphs in The Common Places, trans. Marten (London, 1583). Most of the citations in
this paper are from the more readily available edition prepared by Kingdon. I appeal in
these instances to page numbers in Of Warre or Battell. Any citations from paragraphs
twenty-one through thirty-three are referred to the page numbers in the sixteenth-century
edition The Common Places [hereafter CP], along with the book, chapter, and paragraph.
192 mark j. larson
that he was making is that wars do exist. The second question of the medi-
eval studentWhat is it?was likewise answered in the opening section
(IV.17.1): And just warre maie thus not unaptly be defined. It is an Hostile
dissention whereby through the Princes edict mischiefes are repressed
by force and Armes, to the intent that men may peaceably and quietly live
by justice and godlinesse.48 The answer to the third questionOf what
sort is it?was likewise addressed in due order (IV.17.2). Vermigli wrote,
Hereof are gathered those three properties which commonly are ascribed
unto right warfaring. He then specified, First, that there is required the
authoritie of the Prince: Secondly, an honest cause, to wit, that peace be
sought for: Lastly that it be done with a good mind.49
This then is how Vermigli proceeded. He provided the answers to the
customary questions that would be raised in a scholarly setting. His years
of training in scholastic theology at the University of Padua had decisively
shaped his approach to theological reasoning.50
Another methodological approach of the medieval schools appears
throughout the locus on warthe introduction of the quaestio, followed
by the disputatio. The first of these questions which is raised concerns
whether or not it is lawful to wage war. The question and the disputation
begin in section three. The second issue raised by Vermigli relates to
the question of godly nations forming military alliances with the ungodly.
The question and the disputation begin in section twenty-four. The third
matter that is approached by this method concerns whether treason is
ever lawful. This question and disputation begins in section twenty-nine.
The style used by Vermigli closely resembles the approach that Aquinas
employed.51
By way of example, let us observe Vermiglis first quaestio and dispu
tatio. After dealing with the existence, nature, and qualities of war in
IV.17.12, Vermigli expanded upon the subject of war by posing a question,
and then following it with a disputation. The question at hand in IV.17.3, as
it has already been stated, is whether or not it is lawful to wage war.
Vermigli initiated this debate with the statement: Now come I to the
Question.52 The actual disputation begins with a presentation of the
48Of Warre, 61.

49Of Warre, 62.
50As James notes, Peter Martyr Vermigli: At the Crossroads of Late Medieval
Scholasticism, Christian Humanism and Resurgent Augustinianism, 67, Vermigli was a
scholastic with respect to his methodology.
51Marvin W. Anderson, Vermigli, Peter Martyr, in OER, 1996.
52Of Warre, 63.
objections to war posed by the Anabaptists, identified as the furies and

plagues of our time.53 Vermigli then moved from the objectio in IV.17.3 to
his responsio in IV.17.413. Sounding very much like Aquinas, Vermigli
began this section with the statement: But on the contrarie part, that it is
lawfull to make warre, it may be proved by most strong Arguments.54
Finally, having given a positive presentation of the doctrine of war, he in
the style of Aquinas provided a direct rebuttal to the arguments used by
the Anabaptists (IV.17.1420).
Thomist Doctrine
There is no question that Vermigli engaged in the writing of his theological

essays in a style that is reminiscent of Aquinas himself. It is also quite clear
that the substance of his just war doctrinepertaining to the category of
the jus ad bellumwas heavily informed by Aquinas. This conclusion is
more than probable even though he did not quote Aquinas by name in his
locus on war, and even while the essay is replete with explicit references to
Augustine by name.
There are two pieces of evidence that suggest that Vermigli framed his
discussion on just war against the background of his training in Thomist
doctrine. In the first place, Aquinas was the medieval theologian who
pared down the requirements of a just war to three things. Vermigli was
no doubt referring to this Thomistic conception in his statement
that there are three properties which commonly are ascribed unto right
warfaring.55
In the second place, Vermiglis one-sentence definition of what a just
war actually is follows the very order of Aquinas delineation of the three
things that are necessary for a just warthe authority of the sovereign, a
just cause (specifically, that there is some fault in those that are attacked),
and a rightful intention (namely, the advancement of the good). The just
war, Vermigli contended, may be defined in this way: It is an hostile
dissension whereby through the Princes edict mischiefes are repressed by
force and Armes, to the intent that men may peaceably and quietly live by
justice and godlinesse (IV.17.1).56
53Of Warre, 63.

54Of Warre, 64. Emphasis added.
55Of Warre, 62.
56Of Warre, 6162.
194 mark j. larson
This statement shows that Vermigli did not embrace the holy war
doctrine that the church has the authority to initiate armed conflict.
He maintained the classic position of the just war tradition that the civil
magistrate alone has the right given to him by God to declare and prose-
cute war when there is a just cause. Although the papacy continued to
embrace the crusade ideologythat it is legitimate for a bishop, includ-
ing the pope, to wage warsuch a holy war perspective found no
advocate in the thinking of Vermigli.
Before we consider in more detail Vermiglis teaching on the subject of
a legitimate cause for war, let us reflect briefly upon the position of
Aquinas on the same issue. Aquinas had laid down the general principle
that those who are attacked, should be attacked because they deserve
it on account of some fault.57 Aquinas alluded to a specific fault when
he referred to that which a nation had seized unjustly.58 This was
obviously a reference to an invasion, the naked aggression of one nation
against another. It was an issue which he elaborated upon in his discus-
sion of warfare and holy days. He argued from the lesser to the greater
in his contention that there are times when fighting must occur on such
days. He observed, Physicians may lawfully attend to their patients
on holy days.59 He affirmed, Now there is much more reason for safe-
guarding the common weal (whereby many are saved from being slain,
and innumerable evils both temporal and spiritual are prevented), than
the bodily safety of an individual.60 He then drew this conclusion:
Therefore, for the purpose of safeguarding the common weal of the faith-
ful, it is lawful to carry on a war on holy days, provided there be need
for doing so.61
It is true that Aquinas saw the just war as a defense of the commu-
nity.62 It should also be noted though that Aquinas referred in this
passage to safeguarding the common weal of the faithfulprotecting
the reipublicae fidelium.63 Obviously, to defend the commonwealth of
the faithful, which is one of the bases for a just war, necessarily
entailed the defense of the freedom to practice the Christian religion in
57ST, IIaIIae.40.1.
58ST, IIaIIae.40.1.
59ST, IIaIIae.40.4.
60ST, IIaIIae.40.4.
61ST, IIaIIae.40.4.
62Russell, The Just War in the Middle Ages, 290.
63The Latin text of this passage is provided in St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae,
vol. 35 (London: Blackfriars, 1972), 92.
public. Every defensive war is in fact a safeguarding of all the fundamental

constituents of libertywhich includes the right to practice the true reli-
gion in its purity.
Vermigli sounded virtually an identical note on these issues regarding
the constituents of a just war. As we have seen, Vermigli defined war as
a state of hostilities instigated by the civil magistrate whereby mischiefes
are repressed by force and Armes. He then went on to unpack this
definition in terms of Aristotles four-fold causality.64 Here have we com-
prehended the foure kindes of causes, he noted.65 He then gave these
specifics: The forme, is hostile dissention: the matter are the mischiefes
which ought to be repressed: the efficient cause is the Magistrate: the ende
is, that wee maie live justly and godly.66
While Aquinas concentrated upon some fault which brought on a
deserved attack,67 Vermigli similarly focused upon the existence of
mischiefes which ought to be repressed.68 Faults, mischiefs, and things
that are amiss are the causes for a just war. But a just war is also defensive,
both in relationship to the commonwealth and the true religion.
The necessity for defending the commonwealth, Vermigli contended,
is rooted in natural law. Generally speaking, natural law teaches that
good men should be holpen, and evill men repressed.69 Later, in the
same locus on war, Vermigli provided more information as to what he
regarded the content of natural law to be. Contextually, he was dealing
with subject of treason. He made the statement that the Citizens are
sworn unto the Magistrates, to defend the Citie or publike weale when
need shall require.70 He added, And though they were not sworne, yet
the naturall and common law requireth the same of them.71 He then
drew an analogy by directing attention at how a human being protects
his or her own body: And this doe the members of all living things
testifie, which doe willingly and most readily indanger themselves for
the body, and for the nobler parts thereof, I mean the head or heart.72 The
point that he was making was simply this; The verie which thing Citizens
64John Patrick Donnelly, Peter Martyr Vermiglis Political Ethics, in Peter Martyr
Vermigli: Humanism, Republicanism, Reformation, ed. Campi (Geneva: Droz, 2002), 61.
65Of Warre, 62.
66Of Warre, 62.
67ST, IIaIIae.40.1.
68Of Warre, 62.
69Of Warre, 67.
70CP, IV.17.30, 298.
71CP, IV.17.30, 298.
72CP, IV.17.30, 298.
196 mark j. larson
are by the lawes of nature bound to doe for their countrie, if it be in

daunger.73
Nature itself teaches that a citizen must rise to the defense of his
country. What about a minister? At this point, we should point out that
Vermigli dissented somewhat from Aquinas. The great Dominican theolo-
gian had maintained that for bishops and clerics it was not lawful for
them to fight.74 In fact, it was not only unbecoming for them to slay or
shed blood, but they should be ready to shed their own blood for Christ,
so as to imitate in deed what they portray in their ministry.75 Vermigli
agreed that generally speaking for the Ministers of the Church to beare
armes was not lawful.76 He did, however, contemplate the possibility
of an exception to this general rule. What should a minister do if an
enemie upon the sudden besiege the Citie, and hath even now laide siege
to the walles?77 Vermigli took this position: The Minister of the Church
may rightly take Armes and repell violence, and doe that which becom-
meth a good Citizen.78 He did, however, set down this qualification:
Notwithstanding when other souldiers shall come, he must retire him-
selfe to his office.79
Standing in both the Thomist and the Reformed tradition, Vermigli
believed that the magistrate was to defend the commonwealth and the
true religion, the Commonweale and the ordinaunce of God.80 Reflecting
upon the prince and his duty, Vermigli affirmed, He ought in no wise to
seeke his owne but the glorie of God and safetie of the Church: and espe-
cially if the enemie be such, as mindeth either to destroy or pervert the
worshipping of God.81
A just war in the Thomist tradition necessitated not only the
proper civil authority and a just cause, but it also required a right inten-
tion. Aquinas explained a rightful intention in terms of seeking the
advancement of good, as having the object of securing peace.82 The
advancement of goodnamely, the securing of peacewas an indis-
pensable element in the teaching of Vermigli concerning the justice of
73CP, IV.17.30, 298.

74ST, IIaIIae.40.2.
75ST, IIaIIae.40.2.
76Of Warre, 71.
77Of Warre, 72.
78Of Warre, 72.
79Of Warre, 72.
80Of Warre, 70.
81Of Warre, 70.
82ST, IIaIIae.40.1.
war. Vermigli announced the object of a just war in his initial definition of
war. A war is prosecuted to the intent that men may peaceably and qui-
etly live by justice and godlinesse.83 Later, in the same locus, he provided
some elaboration: Neither can a warre be justlie enough made, unlesse it
be taken in hand for an other thing. And that other thing is, that safe peace
may be kept.84 He then gave a memorable antithetical statement:
Insomuch as peace is not ordained for warre sake, but warre is taken in
hand for peace sake.85
Conclusion
Peter Martyr Vermigli gave significant attention to the development

of Reformed political thought in the sixteenth century. He showed a
willingness to draw upon the methodology and even the substance of
Aquinas theology at various points. He demonstrates that the Protes
tant Reformation did not hasten the disappearance of scholasticism.86
A rebirth of Thomist theology occurred even among the Reformed.
83Of Warre, 62.

84CP, IV.17.21, 293.
85CP, IV.17.21, 293.
86Donnelly, Calvinist Thomism, 454.
MORAL PHILOSOPHY AND MORAL THEOLOGY IN VERMIGLI
Sebastian Rehnman
Introduction
This essay aims to explicate the relation between moral philosophy and
moral theology in Reformed orthodoxy by analysis of the early and influ-
ential Protestant reformer Pietro Martire Vermigli (14991562).1 It
attempts to make a contribution to the more basic issue of the relation
between faith and reason in Reformed orthodoxy and to solve contradic-
tory interpretations. For claims of ethical knowledge on the basis of
human reason on the one hand and claims of ethical knowledge on the
basis of divine revelation on the other, raise the issue of the relation
between reason and faith. For the claim that there are two kinds of moral
truths assumes that some truths are discoverable by human understand-
ing and some are not. Granted that there are two kinds of moral truths,
the question arises as to how (if at all) moral truths that are above and
beyond the comprehension of reason are related to moral truths that are
within the comprehension of reason. In short, how, if at all, are moral phi-
losophy and moral theology related?
Contradictory Interpretations
In the secondary literature there are contradictory interpretations of the

early Reformed orthodox view of the relation between moral philosophy
and moral theology. This entails that at least one of these interpretations
cannot be true.
On the one hand, Servais Pinckaers claims that Protestant thought
always maintained a basic opposition between the Gospel and philoso-
phy.2 This opposition between moral philosophy and moral theology is
1This essay is primarily based on Vermiglis In primum, secundum et initium tertii libri
Ethicorum Aristotelis ad Nicomachum commentarius, ed. Guilio Santerenziano, et al.
(Leiden: Brill, 2011 [1563]). All page references are to the 1563 Froschauer edition although
the critical edition has been used, since the 1563 edition is readily available on the Internet
and the critical edition has its pagination in the margin. Hereafter Ethicorum.
2Servais Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, trans. Noble, 3rd ed. (Edinburgh:
TTC, 1995), 204, similarly 286, 288 and 290291.
200 sebastian rehnman
found, according to Jill Kraye, in Vermigli.3 However, Vermigli maintains

that the relation between theology and philosophy is a congruent one. For
throughout his commentary on Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics there is an
emphasis on the compatibility and complementarity of reason and faith,
moral philosophy and moral theology.4 In the few places where he
expresses disagreement, he also explains that this is due to the inaccessi-
bility of revelation to Aristotle.5 Vermigli moreover explicitly denies
incompatibility:
Let us return to that from which we digressed, namely whether this disci-
pline [facultas] is incompatible with religion [pietas]. I maintain that it is no
more against it than the study of the heavenly bodies, the art of navigation,
war, fishing, hunting and indeed the prudence of human law (which every-
one understands is necessary for public administration). What can be
nobler than to know oneself and this we know chiefly from this source [of
moral philosophy]? There is not little delight in knowing this demonstra-
tive discourse [scientia], within whose confines the light of nature should
sustain itself and to which it may itself be able to proceed in its own right.
3Jill Kraye, Renaissance Commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics, in Vocabulary of

Teaching and Research between Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. Weijers (Turnhout:
Brepols, 1995), 106108.
4Ethicorum, 10, 22, 37, 4344, 6869, 9192, 109110, 118119, 122, 135, 137, 180, 200201,
209, 211, 220221, 227, 239, 257258, 292295, 319, 325, 330, 332333, 338339, 346347, 364,
385, 392393, 397, 400401, 421426. Usually Martyr finds the two [Aristotle and Scripture]
in agreement. J.P. Donnelly, Calvinism and Scholasticism in Vermiglis Doctrine of Man and
Grace (Leiden: Brill, 1976), 47, similarly Luca Baschera, Tugend und Rechtfertigung: Peter
Martyr Vermiglis Kommentar zur Nikomachischen Ethik im Spannungsfeld von Philosophie
und Theologie (Zrich: Theologischer Verlag, 2008), 124, 134135, 154, 240.
5Sometimes Vermigli expresses a difference between himself and Aristotle in terms of
ambiguity and emphasis (Ethicorum, 236237). Although Vermigli argues that Aristotle
should have borrowed first principles from metaphysics concerning God, he could not
know from philosophy that there is a divinely given happiness since it is only revealed by
God (224; similarly on this naturally unknowable happiness 201, 224, 239, 257, 261262, 294
and 308). This happiness of justification by Christ through faith Aristotle did not know
(200, 309). This is softened though with the remark that Aristotle may have had an aware-
ness of ignorance about what remains after death (263). Vermigli also distances himself
from Aristotle on the mortality of the soul (238239), but argues elsewhere that the nature
of the human mind cannot be known in this life (82, 83). Vermigli argues similarly concern-
ing Aristotles ignorance of the doctrine of sin. For he did not see the corruption of the
mind; hence he speaks in this way (294; similarly 227, 258, 294). However, Aristotle could
not see this corruption of our nature, since he was destitute of faith and the light of the
divine scriptures (309; Cf. 294, 422, 425). Yet, we see that philosophers acknowledged
the disease and vice of nature (389). Likewise, according to Vermigli, Scripture agrees in
the main with Aristotle over virtue towards friends and relatives, but he could not know
that there is the divinely infused virtue of charity that extends even to enemies (264). Cf.
In this work the Philosopher speaks of happiness as it can be held in this life. For the hap-
piness of the other life exceeds every investigation of reason. Thomas Aquinas, Sententia
libri Ethicorum, I l.9n.11 (par. 113) (Opera, 47.1).
moral philosophy and moral theology in vermigli 201
Christian religion is moreover strongly kindled by attention to pagan ethics.

For we understand by comparison how far those things delivered in the
divine scriptures surpass those in philosophy. It is a common saying that
when differences [opposita] are compared with one another they become
clearer. Nor can mistakes be easily avoided unless they are first known.
Therefore, whoever knows both disciplines [facultas] will more easily avoid
the mistakes of human philosophy, especially when properly demonstrated
in their places.6
From this it is clear that moral philosophy and moral theology are com-
patible and complementary. Although moral theology greatly excels and
occasionally corrects moral philosophy, they are not opposed to each
other. For this reason the study of moral philosophy is encouraged:
In short, who would not altogether defer to learned and distinguished phi-
losophers? They are not wrongly thought to have discovered truth. They
labored mightily and diligently, inquiring into it night and day. From this we
learn that their books and writings should not be rejected without fear but
should rather be read carefully, since from them we will acquire something
of the truth, as we should not easily believe that their authors erred in every
way.7
It would be dangerous to reject moral philosophy, because it discovers

truth and should therefore be carefully studied. So, it is clear both that
Vermigli endorsed a view that philosophical and theological discourses
about morality can be compatible and complementary, and that Pinckaers
and Kraye are mistaken in their interpretations.8
On the other hand, Joseph McLelland claims that Peter Martyrs intro-
duction to his commentary on Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics provides an
excellent statement of his position on the classic question of the relation-
ship of reason and revelation.9 It is a weighty discourse on the relation
between philosophy and theology and in particular the relation between
philosophical and theological ethics.10 According to this account, the
6Ethicorum, 910.
7Ethicorum, 206. All that I have said is true and of orthodox faith, so that it agrees
[congruo] easily with what Aristotle says here. The papistsare most severely pressed not
only by the oracles of the divine scriptures but also by the authority of Aristotle. Ethicorum,
265.
8Anyone knowledgeable about Protestant confessions and recent research into late
medieval and renaissance thought must be astounded by Pinckaers polemical compari-
son of papal and evangelical moral theology for which he does not refer to one source.
9Joseph C. McLelland, Translators Introduction, in Vermigli, Philosophical Works:
On the Relation of Philosophy to Theology, ed. McLelland (Kirksville: TSUP, 1996), 3.
10Joseph C. McLelland, Introduction, in Vermigli, NE, xvi, xxi.
two systems of morality agree.11 However, nowhere in Vermiglis com-

mentary can an explicit and systematic treatment of the harmonious rela-
tion between reason and faith, philosophy and theology, moral philosophy
and moral theology be found. Such accounts are, of course, to be found in
other authors.12 Nevertheless, McLelland must believe that some account
can be found in Vermigli of the relation between philosophical and theo-
logical ethics. He claims that a reverse order is significant for the strong
difference between the two disciplines. For he maintains that according
to Vermigli, action precedes contemplation in philosophy but contem-
plation precedes action in theology.13 However, Vermigli explicitly rejects
the attempt to distinguish demonstrative discourses (scientiae) on the
basis of the operations of intellect and will.14 Nor does McLellands refer-
ence to Vermigli support his case, since Vermigli there merely claims that
one has to be moderate for serious studies and hints at his endorsement of
the traditional distinction between acquired and infused virtue.15 The
assertion that action can take precedence over knowledge is also contrary
to Vermiglis anthropology: No one is ignorant that knowledge comes
before [will and tendency], since we cannot love the unknown. Indeed,
we see certainly two operations in the human being. For it understands
and thereon acts.16 Thus action always follows some knowledge whether
11McLelland, Translators Introduction, 3.

12There are, for example, weighty discourses and excellent statements of the relation
between reason and revelation, philosophy and theology in, say, Thomas Aquinas, Super
Bothium De Trinitate, q. II.24 (Opera, 50); Aquinas, Liber de veritate catholicae fidei contra
errores infidelium seu Summa contra Gentiles, ed. P. Marc, et al. (Taurini/Romae: Marietti,
1961), I.38, Bartholomaeus Keckermann, Systema ethica (London: Norton, 1607) 211,
Turretin, Institutio, I.viii-xiii, and Voetius, SDT, 1:3. Donnelly writes: Martyr never wrote a
treatise on the proper relation of philosophy and theology and the role that reason is to
play in theology. So, his teaching on reason and revelation and on theological methodol-
ogy must be culled from his scattered remarks and from his actual practice. Donnelly,
Calvinism and Scholasticism, 42, 43. On the relation of philosophy and theology in Reformed
orthodoxy generally, see the magisterial Muller, PRRD, 1:360405.
13McLelland, Introduction, xxiv.
14Ethicorum, 2.
15The cause of this difference is that human contemplation is acquired by study and
diligent reflection; and therefore moderation of the affections is required. But what we
hold on faith is received by the breath [afflatus] of God. Therefore, preparations are not
necessary. Ethicorum, 8, Cf. 56, 319. In Ethicorum Vermigli seems only to use the expres-
sion imparted virtues (virtutes inspirata), whereas in his commentary on the epistle to the
Romans (P.M. Vermigli, In epistolam S. Pauli apostoli ad Romanos (Basel: Petrus Perna,
1560) he appears mainly to use the phrase infused virtues (virtutes infusa).
16Ethicorum, 2 and 19 respectively, and similarly in P.M. Vermigli, De libero arbitrio,
in Loci communes ed. Massonius (London: Vautrollerius, 1583), 971. Elsewhere Vermigli
writes that we first know and then desire (Ethicorum 397) and that there are first opinions
and then affections (435).
of faith or reason. So, Vermigli provides no explicit and comprehensive

statement of the relation between moral philosophy and moral theology,
and McLelland is mistaken in interpreting him as propounding a reversed
relation between knowledge and action in moral philosophy and moral
theology.
Here it may even be said that both interpretations above are mistaken
because they assume an explicit distinction between moral philosophy
and moral theology, whereas Vermigli never uses the phrase moral theol-
ogy or theological ethics in his commentary.17 However, this is because
he does not consider himself there primarily as a theologianI am now
acting as a philosopher18and the distinction is theological, because it
supposes that there is a divine revelation while (arguably) theology but
not philosophy supposes revelation. Yet, the commentary may contain
the concept of moral theology although not the phrase, since Vermigli
continuously compares the teachings of Holy Scripture and those of the
Nicomachean Ethics. Still, there seem to be two problems in talking about
moral theology with reference to Vermiglis commentary. First, it is prob-
lematic to talk about moral theology, because there Vermigli only speaks
about theology as theoretical (and not practical) and about philosophy as
(partly) practical,19 and therefore seems to exclude a practical discourse of
moral theology. Second, it is problematic to talk about moral theology in
connection with this commentary, because here Vermigli only talks about
the art or skill (ars et facultas) in Holy Scripture on the one hand and the
demonstrative discourse (scientia) of moral philosophy on the other.20
However, these problems can easily be solved. First, Vermigli denies in
one passage that theology is practical because we cannot do or make God
and affirms that theology is theoretical because we can know God. Yet
throughout his commentary he expresses what he (purportedly) knows
from revelation about action and a practical demonstrative discourse
expresses what it knows in action.21 Thus he uses a concept of moral theol-
ogy as the practical subject that expresses what it knows from revelation
in action. Second, he contends that the cause of the supernatural human
17The closest formulation is this: Discrimen hic mihi notetur inter philosophiam
moralem atque nostra theologia. Ethicorum, 215.
18Ethicorum, 51; Cf. 136. In digressing theologically, Vermigli seems sometimes impa-
tient to return to philosophy: Let us return to Aristotle. 225.
19Ethicorum, 3, 8. Vermigli die Theologie den theoretischen Wissenschaften zuord-
net. Baschera, Tugend und Rechtfertigung, 132 n. 42.
20Cf. Ethicorum, 43 and 10, 311.
21Cf. Ethicorum, 23, 8, 47.
end of human action can be demonstrated in this life from its effects22 and
this implies that there is a demonstrative discourse of moral theology.
Moral theology would then be that part of theology which deals with
human acts as they are supernaturally ordered to God. However, some-
thing more explicit is needed to decide Vermiglis view of the relation
between moral philosophy and moral theology.
The Differences and Agreement between Moral

Philosophy and Moral Theology
To recapitulate, there are contradictory interpretations of the Reformed
orthodox view of the relation between moral philosophy and moral theol-
ogy. These are mistaken in different ways and can therefore be rejected.
However, to decide the relation between moral philosophy and moral the-
ology in Reformed orthodoxy some positive evidence is needed and this
will be given in this section.
There appears to be only one passage where Vermigli explicitly treats
the differences and agreement between divine scripture on the one hand
and human philosophy on the other:
The end of philosophy is that we reach that beatitude or happiness that can
be acquired here by human powers. The end of Christian religion is that in
us that image is renewed to which we are made in righteousness and holi-
ness of truth, so that we grow daily in the knowledge of God until we are led
to see him (as it were) with face uncovered. From the Nicomachean Ethics
we will not hear about the remission of sins, about fear and faith towards
God, nor justification through faith, Christ and similar things. For these are
disclosed by Gods will and cannot be elicited from the natural knowledge of
any creatures. We do not deny that often the same things happen to be
praised in the Nicomachean Ethics and taught by God in Holy Scripture. But
then the matter is the same, although not the form, properties and princi-
ples. For in these the reason is different and the properties diverse; nor are
the principles the same. Thus what Christians do, is done by the impact
of the Spirit of God. What philosophers do according to ethical directions,
they do under the lead of human reason. They are incited to what is to be
done from what they thus judge to be honourable and right, but Christians
from what God thus deems. The former think that one ought so to act to
accomplish and complete oneself; the latter that one ought to be obedient
to the divine. The former believe in themselves; the latter in God and the
words of the law that he himself gave. The former labour from self-love; the
latter are driven by the love of the one God. From these many differences it
22Cf. Ethicorum, 83 and 31, 7779, 82, 90.

happens that the same thing with respect to the matter pleases God and is
condemned by his judgment. So much for the differences and agreement
between divine scripture on the one hand and human philosophy on the
other.23
This passage makes it clear that moral philosophy and moral theology
agree on matter but differ on ends, forms, reasons, properties and princi-
ples. Vermigli uses difference (differentia) here for the specific character-
istic that distinguishes what one thing is from what another thing is, and
thus for an essential or formal difference and not an accidental or material
one.24 He uses agreement (consensus) for affirmations of both discourses
that are consistent.25 But what is the end (finis), why is happiness
(beatitudo seu felicitas) specified, what is the matter (materia), what are
the different form (forma), reason (ratio), properties (proprietas) and
principles (principia)? Vermigli does not say. Clearly he assumes some
account of the unity and distinction between the two moral discourses
here, and perhaps his listeners understood the many assumptions for such
an account. But even so there appears to be an abundance of terms for a
hylemorphist such as Vermigli, for whom every created thing is composed
of the potentiality of matter and the actuality of form. Thus his account of
the unity and distinction between moral philosophy and moral theology
needs to be explicated.
To begin with, Vermigli is not here concerned with the differences and
agreement between a particular act of reason and a particular act of faith
in a given action, but with philosophy and Christian religion.26 These
terms stand for the parts of his most basic epistemological division: All
our knowledge is either revealed or acquired; the first branch [membrum]
is theology and the other is philosophy.27 Unlike brutes, humans can dis-
course about the object of their knowledge and say something universal
about something particular. Such language-use occurs
when the reason and form is designated without particular conditions. For
instance, when we say the human being is rational, where the expression is
not concerning this or that particular human, but concerning the common
23Ethicorum, 89.
24Cf. Rudolphus Goclenius, Lexicon philosophicum (Frankfurt: Becker, 1613), 532535.
25Cf. Goclenius, Lexicon, 451.
26The term pietas is here translated religion, since piety and devotion carry wrong
connotations (especially in connection with philosophia) and religio is synonymous with
pietas. Similarly Ethicorum, 10.
27Ethicorum, 1.
nature or form of which it is determined and of which Socrates, Plato, and

other individuals participate.28
The most perfect kind of discourse is demonstrative discourse (scientia),
since it produces perfect knowledge of the cause or reason why an object
cannot be otherwise than it is.29 Such discourses differ over whether their
end is knowledge or action and over whether their object can or cannot be
construed.30 Demonstrative discourses about practice differ in turn as to
their end and object.31 So Vermigli is here concerned with the differences
and agreement between two demonstrative discourses that produces
perfect knowledge of why some activity cannot be other than moral or
immoral.
In philosophical and theological discourse about morality the matter
is the same. The term matter is in this passage repeatedly connected
with the phrase same thing, namely mind-independent entities, singu-
lars, or particulars.32 Just as the water from rain and from a spring is the
same matter while its powers, properties, and principles are very differ-
ent.33 The real thing we talk about in morality is the human act, since the
matter consists of human actions.34 For it is possible to discourse
demonstratively about the subject human act despite its changeability
and variety.35 For the nature of the human power (facultas) of acting can
be demonstrated from the kind of demonstration that is from effects
(commonly called a posteriori).36 Thus human action depends on and
is ruled by choice and it is the operation of the intellect that rules choice:
There is choice when we prefer one of two propositions.37 In other
28Ethicorum, 15.
29Ethicorum, 38, 53, 90, 245, 311, 433.
30Ethicorum, 2, 58, 276, 309310, 311312.
31Materia itaque ac res est eadem [in politica et ethica] non sane quod materia
variet, sed quia extensio non est eadem. [] fines politices vel ethices non re, sed tantum
ratione differre Ethicorum, 42.
32Ethicorum, 46.
33Ethicorum, 9.
34Ethicorum, 312.
35Ethicorum, 314, 4546.
36Ethicorum, 31; Cf. 7779, 82, 90.
37Ethicorum, 13. Cf. Thus it is clear that there is free choice [liberum arbitrium] when a
tendency [appetitus] is brought forth by what intelligence or the power of knowledge has
declaredThus we can define free choice as some power of volition that follows the cogni-
tive part while it rejects or desires something beyond. Vermigli, De libero arbitrio, 971. It
is generic natural science (including generic anthropology) that clarifies and demonstrates
that human acts are voluntary acts informed by understanding. Cf. Ethicorum, 229230,
195, 4; Aristotle, De anima, ed. Ross (Oxford: Clarendon, 1961) 434a521; and Thomas
Aquinas, Sententia libri De anima, in Opera omnia, 45.1:61145 (840846).
words, some end is set before [praestitutus] human activity [humanis

rebus].38 But demonstrative moral discourse is not merely descriptive but
prescriptive of the human act, since it establishes the end to which human
action should be ordered:
It should argue about actions. First, since this demonstrative discourse
[scientia] is not ordered to knowledge, but constantly looks at the actions
themselves. For we learn it not to discourse demonstratively [sciamus], but
truly to become good. Since this skill [facultas] has this scope, it is fitting
that it dwells especially on the actions themselves. It includes indeed
knowledge, but that is not its principal end. The second reason is that
this demonstrative discourse of happiness and virtues should chiefly con-
sider the particular kind [of action] that contains and produces these
dispositions.39
Demonstrative discourse about morality is ordered to humans becoming
good. The sense of good is that which according to its nature should be
desired or (as is said) is desirable.40 So, humans become good by pursuing
what should be desired or is desirable according to human nature. Moral
discourse is moreover discourse of happiness, because as completion
(perfectio) of human nature happiness is the ultimate end and highest
good of human action.41 For happiness is desired for itself and everything
else is desired for the sake of happiness42 and there must be an ultimate
human end from the absurdity of its denial: unless we want to proceed
infinitely and make our tendency utterly vain, there is one end above all in
human things.43 Moral discourse focuses furthermore on the kind of
action that contains and produces virtue, because virtue is the comple-
tion of nature44 and the necessary means of happiness.45 Happiness
and virtue are wholly united to one another, since happiness is either the
effect or cause of virtue. It is effect as it depends upon it as its end, but it is
38Ethicorum, 11.
39Ethicorum, 311.
40Ethicorum, 14. I analyse Vermiglis metaphysics of goodness in a forthcoming paper.
41Ethicorum, 75.
42Happinessis never desired on account of something else. Happiness is sufficient
in itself in regard simply to the person whom we call happy. Ethicorum, 178; similarly 174.
Happiness is the highest good. Ethicorum, 96, 99, 200. However, almost everyone agrees
about the name happiness, although they disagree about the thing by which it may be
constituted. Ethicorum, 71, similarly 16.
43Ethicorum, 32.
44Ethicorum, 358.
45Ethicorum, 272; similarly 93, 274. Virtues are not only means, but are indeed good in
themselves (51, 102). Vermiglis account of virtue is analysed in Sebastian Rehnman,
Virtue and grace, Studies in Christian Ethics, 25.4 (2012), 472493.
cause since it brings about virtue in us.46 Thus moral philosophy and
moral theology agree in that the matter is deliberate action for the ulti-
mate human end of happiness.
What about the end and form of moral discourse? It is here that the dif-
ferences between moral philosophy and moral theology begin to appear.
For everything is what it is by its form: All things are first in matter (which
is the great mother of everything), since they are elicited from it when
they come into being. Before, they are thus (as the philosophers say)
potential.47 It is form that actualizes or brings about what something is.
Matter has the propensity in itself to receive it [form], but it requires an
efficient cause.48 Now, only forms bespoken out of matter (abstractio)
can enter into demonstrative discourse, because everything becomes
known by its form.49 Thus form is the specific description/prescription
under which the human act is known and that for the sake of which the
human act is undertaken. The matter of the human act has propensity to
receive form from either moral philosophy or moral theology. Moral phi-
losophy and moral theology are what they are by their forms and form
each in turn the matter of the human act into existence. Since moreover
it is the power of intelligence or reason that expresses itself in moral
discourse, Vermigli uses the words form and reason interchangeably
in this passage.50 In any human act what is performed is expressible in
a statement as it is a judgment that determines choice and thus a human
must have (implicitly or explicitly) a reason (ratio) for acting.51 Thus
moral philosophy informs the human act under the lead of human
reason, whereas moral theology informs it from what God judges.
46Ethicorum, 297.
47Ethicorum, 143.
48Ethicorum, 302.
49Ethicorum, 148, Cf. Aristotle, De anima, 424a18; Aquinas, Sentencia libri De anima, II
l.24n.1875 (551554).
50The second sentence repeats the words properties and principles but exchanges
forma for ratio. These words are also connected in Ethicorum, 15, 16. Compare: At quan-
doque fit, ut idem sit subiectum ac materia, quia tum non eadem est forma et ratio doctri-
nae seu methodus, deo perfectio et exquisita tractatio non eadem requiritur. Ethicorum,
194. In the introduction Vermigli outlines his reason and form of interpretation
(Ethicorum, 7), namely specifies or determines his whole commentary. Similarly artifacts
have their own qualitates, formas & proprietates 341.
51Vermigli sets out the relation between form, artist and artifact in the following way:
the known form contains the concept [ratio] of efficient [cause], since it moves the
mind as object. The very external thing is the final cause as it contains the concept
[ratio] of good and completes either the agent or his action (Ethicorum, 29). In the case of
ethics, however, finality remains in the agent or the action.
Philosophy gathers knowledge from created things, whereas theology

from revealed things.52 The goal of moral discourse is to make humans
good whether by human or divine reason.53 Thus the human act is consid-
ered either under the form of human reason in moral philosophy or the
form of divine reason in moral theology.
Moreover, form and end are closely related as the end is contained in
the form. For form is a cause in the sense of a final cause.54 Humans act
for deliberate ends and the known form or intention specifies the end of
the respective discourses about the human act. Recall that happiness is
the ultimate end of human action:
happiness is a first principle and a cause of goods, and not just whatever
cause but a final. This kind of cause is surely the highest. For matter depends
upon form, and form is indeed given by the efficient cause, but the end
excites the agent cause and there cannot be something beyond the end by
which it is moved.55
The ultimate end of happiness is the final cause of action as it (apparently
or really) contains the concept of good and (apparently or really) com-
pletes the agent with the goods of virtue. But the human being has a two-
fold happiness.56 There is the end of moral philosophy whose object is
the humanly acquirable happiness and there is the end of moral theology
whose object is the divinely graced happiness:
This lies between us and philosophers that they propose that the ultimate
end should be acquired by ones own virtues and diligence, whereas we
think from the divine scriptures that this peculiar good cannot be obtained
unless we are helped by the Spirit and grace of Christ.57
527. Cf. For wisdom is twofold, namely earthly wisdom called philosophy, which con-
siders the lower causes (namely caused causes) and bases its judgements on them; and
divine wisdom or theology, which considers the higher (that is, the divine) causes and
judges according to them. The higher causes are the divine attributes, such as divine wis-
dom, goodness, will and the like. Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae de potentia, ed.
P.M. Pession, 10th ed. (Taurini-Romae: Marietti, 1965) q. 1.4co, and Aquinas, Super Bothium
De Trinitate, q. 2.2c.
53Cf. Since all legislators, who have strived to make humans good, belong to this cat-
egory, it makes no difference whether they have applied divine or human reasons to this,
273 (erroneously paginated 274).
54Aristotle, Physics, ed. Ross (Oxford: Clarendon, 1936), 199a33.
55Ethicorum, 270. He continues: In Physics, book 2, therefore, Aristotle quite rightly
declared that the end is the cause of causes.
56Ethicorum, 2.
57Ethicorum, 36. Notice here how Vermigli uses the words end and good
interchangeably.
The matter of moral philosophy and moral theology is the ultimate end of
the human act, but the form is either acquired by human reason or gifted
by grace. For the natural end that philosophers have established is that
humans should live from reason according to excellent virtue.58 Yet,
the gospels set forth [that ] in this life the ultimate end and highest good is
that we are justified by Christ, received into grace of the eternal Father to
whose wrath we are liable from birth. Indeed, the highest good of this life
is no other than that which we will have later and the only difference is a
degree of perfection.59
Moral philosophy discourses about the human act as it is ordered to its
ultimate natural end, whereas moral theology discourses about the human
act as it is ordered to its ultimate supernatural end. The end of moral phi-
losophy can be elicited (just like form out of matter) from the natural
knowledge of creation under the lead of human reason, whereas the end
of moral theology is disclosed by Gods will in Holy Scripture. The end of
moral philosophy is formed by human power, whereas the end of moral
theology is formed by divine grace. The natural human end is to live by
reason according to acquired virtue while the supernatural human end is
to live by faith according to infused virtue.
This leads us to the different properties of moral philosophy and of
moral theology. For these belong to their different forms, since matter and
principles do not strictly have properties. Rather properties derive from
the form, since they coincide properly with the essence of a substance or
thing and the essence is experienced through its properties.60 Vermigli
writes for example: There are of course two properties of our nature. For
nature herself has made us both intelligent and social.61 We perceive that
humans regularly behave intelligently and socially, and can demonstrate
that these properties are entailed by rationality. The predicate is rational
then makes explicit what we generally perceive of the vague subject
human (being). Likewise the properties of moral philosophy and of
moral theology derive from their different forms. Vermigli seems to sug-
gest perishability and imperishability here:
58Vermigli, De libero arbitrio, 973.

59Ethicorum, 77.
60Cf. proprium enim non est de essentia rei, sed ex principiis essentialibus speciei
causatur, unde medium est inter essentiam et accidens sic dictum. Aquinas, ST, 22nd ed.,
6 vols. (Taurini/Romae: Marietti, 1940) Ia.77.1ad5.
61Ethicorum, 181.
In the coming age this happiness [of justification by faith] will be complete,
uninterrupted and one continuous act, while Aristotles happiness (as his
definition suggests) often perishes. He wants the activity by which a human
is happy to flow from outstanding virtue and we too deem that, since we say
that the actions of the faithful are not right and pleasing to God unless they
are seeds of faith, hope and charity (which we hold to be the outstanding
virtues). We agree likewise about the long duration of time, since while we
live here we need perseverance, but in our homeland we believe that happi-
ness is everlasting. Only in this last difference there is disagreement between
Aristotle and us, since he requires worldly goods and we contend that here
on earth these are not necessary for a Christian to be happy.62
Although natural happiness could be imperishable, good dispositions and
material conditions often perish. Elsewhere Vermigli writes that super-
natural happiness is safe, secure and cannot be altered while natural
happiness is unsafe, unsecure and can be altered.63 These properties fol-
low their respective standards (regula):
Here I may note a difference between moral philosophy and our theology:
the former makes an analysis of the judgement of wise and good humans
and the latter of the laws and words of God. Can it be doubted which speaks
more truly? Do you prefer to bring the trial of human action to the wise and
honest who sometimes err so much, or rather to defer to the supreme judg-
ment of God who always speaks the truth? Surely the latter must be a firm
and certain standard. Therefore, when falsehood and fickleness is inborn in
a human by inherent corruption, such standing [dignitas] cannot be con-
ceded on this issue.64
Divine as well as human reason can then inform the human act of the
ultimate end of happiness, but the judgement of human wisdom is fallible,
fickle, frail and uncertain while the judgment of divine wisdom is infalli-
ble, firm and certain. Elsewhere Vermigli similarly writes that divine rea-
son is constant, certain and unchangeable whereas human reason is
inconstant, uncertain and changeable,65 and that divine and human
words differ in strength and power to change humans.66
Last, there are the different principles of moral philosophy and moral
theology. Philosophy and theology are demonstrative discourses since
they argue from principles. For demonstrative discourse about morality
has to begin somewhere, in something that cannot be demonstrated by
62Ethicorum, 200201; Cf. 309.

63Ethicorum, 257258.
64Ethicorum, 215.
65Ethicorum, 54.
66Ethicorum, 69.
that discourse, and thus assume a beginning from which everything else
in that discourse derives. Such starting-points are called principles or
first principles, where the predicate contains the reason why it exists in
the subject.67 Demonstrative discourse about practice pursues truth in
order to get something done and an end informs the doing of something.
Hence ethics has to begin with establishing its first principle about the
ultimate human end, whether philosophical or theological. Whereas
demonstrative discourse about nature shows that the human being acts
for an ultimate end on account of free judgments, such discourse about
morality acquires that end. If the first principle is that happiness is the
ultimate human end, then demonstrative moral discourse starts with
inductively and dialectically establishing what constitutes happiness and
that the ultimate human end is included in happiness. Vermigli demon-
strates dialectically that there must be an ultimate human end from the
absurdity of its denial, because the starting point of ethics can only be
proven by showing that its opposite is contradictory.68 Now, it is this ulti-
mate human end that yields a moral discourse its principle. The end of
moral philosophy is the natural ultimate end and therefore the principles
of moral philosophy are known by reason through experience. The end of
moral theology is the supernatural ultimate end and therefore the princi-
ples of moral theology are accepted by faith in revelation. Thus moral phi-
losophy and moral theology differ over whether their principles are from
reason or from faith.
Conclusion
This essay has explicated the relation of moral philosophy and moral the-
ology in Vermigli. In the secondary literature there are contradictory
interpretations of the Reformed orthodox view of this relation. According
to one interpretation there is opposition between moral philosophy and
moral theology, and according to another there is agreement between
these demonstrative discourses. At least one of these interpretations of
Reformed orthodoxy cannot be true. On the one hand, this essay has
exposed the mistake in interpreting Vermigli as propounding a relation of
opposition, since he clearly contends that philosophical and theological
67Ethicorum, 38, 53, 199.

68in rebus humanis finis est quidam supremus omnium, nisi velimus in immensum
progredi et appetitum nostrum facere prorsus inanem. Ethicorum, 32.
discourses about morality can be compatible and complementary. On the

other hand, this essay has shown the mistake in claiming that there is an
explicit and systematic account of the agreement of moral philosophy and
moral theology, since Vermigli plainly did not write such a treatise. Thus
both interpretations of the Reformed orthodox view of ethics are
mistaken.
However, Vermigli obliquely claims that in moral philosophy and moral
theology the matter is the same but not the end, form, reason,
properties and principles. This suggests that philosophical and theologi-
cal discourses about morality are consistent in their affirmations about
the matter but that their specific ends, forms, reasons properties and prin-
ciples are distinctive. This essay has established what Vermiglis statement
implies. Moral philosophy and moral theology agree in that the matter is
deliberate action for the ultimate human end of happiness. They differ
primarily by form, reason, and end. Form is the specific description/pre-
scription under which the human act is known and that for the sake of
which the human act is undertaken. In other words, the known form is the
reason for acting. But the human act is considered either under the form
of human reason in moral philosophy or under the form of divine reason
in moral theology. For the matter of the human act has propensity to
receive form either from moral philosophy or from moral theology. Forms
and ends are moreover closely related as the known forms specify the
deliberate ends of the human act. According to the form of human reason
in moral philosophy, the ultimate end of human action is completion of
self. According to the form of divine reason in moral theology, the ulti-
mate end of human action is communion with God. The ultimate natural
human end of moral philosophy is to live by reason according to acquired
virtue, while the ultimate supernatural human end of moral theology is to
live by faith according to infused virtue. In other words, the end of moral
philosophy is the happiness acquirable by human powers, whereas the
end of moral theology is the happiness gifted by divine grace. Furthermore,
from the form of natural happiness derives the property of perishability,
and from the form of supernatural happiness derives the property of
imperishability. Last, the principles of moral philosophy are known by
reason through experience, whereas the principles of moral theology are
known by revelation through faith.
Thus, since deliberate action for the ultimate human end of happiness
can be informed both by philosophy and theology, there is, according to
Vermigli, a relation of compatibility and complementarity between moral
philosophy and moral theology. He can affirm both moral philosophy and
moral theology, because he affirms not only one matter but also two
forms, reasons, ends, properties and principles. This accounts for the two
discourses being united while still being distinct. Moral philosophy does
not exclude nor compete with moral theology, and moral theology does
not abolish but completes moral philosophy.69
69I thank the editors for comments on the penultimate version of this essay.
WORD AND SPIRIT IN THE PIETY OF PETER MARTYR VERMIGLI AS
SEEN IN HIS COMMENTARY ON 1 CORINTHIANS
Jason Zuidema
Introduction
Though Peter Martyr is well known as a schoolman, he is not necessarily

known for his contributions to worship or to discussions of Christian
piety. At first glance, most of his comments seem concerned principally
with questions of philology or theologya confirmation that he was a
scholastic theologian that helped impose Aristotle on the biblical piety
of the earliest reformers.1 Yet, such an opinion would not be reflective
of his thought or contributions to the efforts for reform across Western
Europe. Some scholars have presented nuanced and helpful examinations
of individual works of Vermigli like the collection of his public prayers
on the Psalms, but a wider view of his thought on Christian worship
and life of merits study.2 Such a study would not be designed to repristi-
nate Vermiglis thought to address our contemporary ecclesiological
challenges, but, rather, to understand a neglected, important aspect of
Vermiglis contribution to the efforts for reform in his own time.
1Understanding the scholasticism (among other isms) of Vermigli has been a con-
cern of a great deal of recent scholarship. For the most recent bibliography of Vermigli
studies literature see my Vermigli Studies Bibliography, in A Companion to Peter Martyr
Vermigli, ed. Kirby et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 499518. Since the time that bibliography
was published, several fine studies, all by researchers affiliated with the Institut fr
Schweizerische Reformationsgeschichte, must be added: Luca Baschera, Tugend und
Rechtfertigung: Peter Martyr Vermiglis Kommentar zur Nikomachischen Ethik im
Spannungsfeld von Philosophie und Theologie (Zrich: TVZ, 2008); Luca Baschera and
Christian Moser, ed., Petrus Martyr Vermigli: Kommentar zur Nikomachischen Ethik des
Aristoteles (Leiden: Brill, 2011); Michael Baumann, Petrus Martyr Vermigli in Zrich (1556
1562): dieser Kylchen in der heiligen gschrifft professor und laeser (Zrich: TVZ, 2011);
Christian Moser and Peter Opitz, ed., Bewegung und Beharrung: Aspekte des reformierten
Protestantismus, 15201650 (Leiden: Brill, 2009). For themes related to Vermiglis medieval
theological heritage see: Jason Zuidema, Le rle de la christologie dans la pense de Pierre
Martyr Vermigli (14991562), tudes thologiques et religieuses 84.1 (2009): 8193.
2A modern English translation of Vermiglis collection of prayers with critical notes is
found in J.P. Donnelly, Introduction, in Vermigli, Sacred Prayers drawn from the Psalms of
David (Kirksville: SCES, 1996). For comment on these prayers see Emidio Campi, The
Preces Sacrae of Peter Martyr Vermigli, in Peter Martyr Vermigli and the European
Reformations, ed. James (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 251266.
216 jason zuidema
In conversation with a range of scholars interpreting Vermiglis com-

mentaries and treatises, especially those works on his commentary on 1
Corinthians, this essay will begin to reveal the scope of Vermiglis optic
when thinking about worship, prayer, and the work of the Holy Spirit in
the Christian life. This essay will focus its comments on a key issue in
Vermglis New Testament exegetical workthe practical effects of a
proper understanding of the relationship between Word and Spirit in
worship. Though other passages could be chosen, this relationship is seen
in the preface to Vermiglis 1 Corinthians commentary and exemplified in
comments on chapter 14 of that letter. In this commentary, particularly
when touching on the subject of different or strange languages, Vermiglis
concern for piety is wrapped together with his concern to understand
the proper use of language by the Holy Spirit. His critique focuses on the
improper use of foreign languages by the Roman Catholics, especially
the use of Latin during the Mass. Not surprisingly, Vermigli was engaged
in intense public debate with Catholics in England at the time of these
1 Corinthians lectures. Yet, beyond the critique of Catholicism that
had become predictable in like-minded reformers, we see in Vermiglis
comments an avenue to gather a better sense of the developments in
Reformed liturgy, including prayer, preaching, the sacraments, and sacred
music.
Peter Martyrs Comments on 1 Corinthians
Historical Context
In the year after the death of Henry VIII on 28 January 1547, the Archbishop
of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, sought new ways to bolster the cause
of reform that was now openly promoted under the guidance of the
protectors of the boy-prince Edward VI. Among other solutions, Cranmer
proposed the invitation of several continental theologians to assist in
this task. He explained his rationale in a letter to Albert Hardenberg
in 1548:
For the purpose of carrying this important design into effect we have
thought it necessary to have the assistance of learned men, who, having
compared their opinions together with us, may do away with doctrinal con-
troversies and establish an entire system of true doctrine.3
3Cranmer to Hardenburg, 28 July 1548, in Cranmer, Works, ed. Cox (Cambridge: CUP,
1846), 2:423.
word and spirit in the piety of peter martyr vermigli 217
Though several leading continental scholars were not in a position to

accept the invitation, a number came, including Bernardino Ochino,
Martin Bucer, and Peter Martyr Vermigli.4
Even though Vermigli was no stranger to the pressures of balancing his
comments between religious traditionalists and more radical reformers,
the situation in which he took up his work in England was especially haz-
ardous. Arriving in London on 20 December 1547, he had many deep and
important conversations about the challenges to the Church in England
with Cranmer at his residence in the following months. Indeed, he was
soon deeply involved in promotion of reform in England as he was
assigned to the Regius professorship of Divinity at Oxford University early
in 1548. Oxford proved to be a challenging post: in the first place, his work
was under the disapproving eye of the former Regius Professor, Richard
Smith, a man of unstable character and advocate of conservative theol-
ogy who was recently deprived of the post to make way for Vermigli.5
More, Vermigli arrived in Oxford with his wife, a former nun, Katherine
Dampmartin, causing a significant scandal. Philip McNair sums up well
Oxfords reaction to Martyr: outrage. McNair continues, For this quon-
dam Augustinian of the Canons Regular of the Lateran Congregation
possessed one highly equivocal commodity that scandalized the good
Catholics of the English realm more than his doctrine, and that was his
wife For Richard Smith and his fellow Recusants it was axiomatic
that sin-in-the-head sprang from sin-in-the-bed.6 Unlike Cambridge
University which since the early 1520s had known the hotter type of
reformers like the recently relicensed preacher Hugh Latimer (ca. 1485
1555), Oxford had not yet really encountered them.7
As Cranmer and Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector
of England during the minority of Edward VI, began legislating reform,
particularly in the Royal Injunctions of 1547, the necessity of teachers who
4On Vermigli in England during the reign of Edward VI see Philip McNair, Peter
Martyr in England, in Peter Martyr Vermigli and Italian Reform, ed. McLelland (Waterloo:
WLU, 1980), 85106; M. Anne Overell, Peter Martyr in England 15471553: An Alternative
View, SCJ 15.1 (1984): 87104; Overell, Italian Reform and English Reformations, c. 15351585
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), chs. 45; Peter Ackroyd, The Unwelcome Bridle; Peter Martyr
Vermigli, the Doctrine of the Church and the English Reformation (PhD diss., Edinburgh
University, 2002).
5Overell, Peter Martyr, 87.
6McNair, Peter Martyr in England, 96 and 99.
7For comparison see, Alec Ryrie, The Gospel and Henry VIII: Evangelicals in the Early
English Reformation (Cambridge: CUP, 2003), ch. 5; and also Charlotte Methuen, Oxford:
Reading Scripture in the University, in A Companion to Peter Martyr Vermigli, 7194.
218 jason zuidema
could articulate these positions from Scripture and the history of theology
was evident. These Injunctions, focused on a revival of preaching, Scripture
reading in the vernacular, support for clergy, and the reform of all Roman
Catholic fantasies and idolatry, were met with opposition in many
places in Edward VIs kingdom.8 Nonetheless, the cause of reform pro-
gressed with a Book of Homilies, a revision of the Book of Common Prayer,
and various revisions of doctrinal and canonical standards for the English
Church.9
Vermigli thought it wise to lecture on key Pauline Epistles as Regius
professor. His comments on the weighty texts of 1 Corinthians 10 and 11,
now much studied in Vermigli scholarship, provoked outrage from some
auditors and inspired a treatise and public debate on the meaning of
Christs presence in the Eucharist.10 Scholarly analyses of Vermiglis theol-
ogy in England have mostly focused on the text of that debate and its
echoes in the Corinthians commentary. Interestingly, until recently little
has been written about the rest of the Corinthians commentary.11
The 1 Corinthians lectures were given over two years at the beginning of
Vermiglis tenure which commenced at Oxford in March 1548.12 The lec-
tures of the second year were more heated as he approached the contro-
versial chapters on the Eucharist and the related debates and publications.
In March 1550 he began his comments on Pauls Letter to the Romans.
Vermiglis commentary on Corinthians, his first major printed commen-
tary, was soon revised and published in 1551 by Christopher Froschauer,
8Felicity Heal, Reformation in Britain and Ireland (Oxford: OUP, 2003), 15766. Such is
also the central thesis of Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in
England, 15001580 (New Haven: YUP, 1992).
9On Vermiglis participation in or influence on these events, see McNair, Peter
Martyr, 8689; John F. Jackson, Law and Order: Vermigli and the Reform of Ecclesiastical
Laws in England, in Peter Martyr Vermigli and the European Reformation, 267290;
Torrance Kirby, The Zurich Connection and Tudor Political Theology (Leiden: Brill, 2007);
Diarmaid MacCulloch, Peter Martyr Vermigli and Thomas Cranmer, in Peter Martyr
Vermigli: Humanism, Republicanism, Reformation, ed. Campi, et al. (Geneva: Droz, 2002),
173201; Methuen, Oxford: Reading Scripture in the University, 7194.
10Vermigli, Tractatio de sacramento eucharistiae (London, 1549). A modern English
edition with critical notes on Vermiglis sources is Vermigli, The Oxford Treatise and
Disputation on the Eucharist, 1549, trans. and ed. McLelland (Kirksville: TSUP, 2000).
11On Vermiglis introduction to his commentary see Methuen, Oxford: Reading
Scripture in the University, 8590 and Zuidema, The Primacy of Scripture in Peter
Martyr Vermiglis Understanding of Theological Education, in Konfession, Migration
und Elitenbildung, ed. Selderhuis and Wriedt (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 99108. On the whole 1
Corinthians commentary see Jon Balserak, I Corinthians Commentary: Exegetical
Tradition, in A Companion to Peter Martyr Vermigli, 283304.
12See McLellands introductory comments in Oxford Treatise, xixxx.
the same Zurich printer that would take on a number of the Italians other
major manuscripts.13
Analysis
Any reading of Vermiglis commentary is aided by his preface to the com-
mentary in which he speaks of his hermeneutical principles.14 In this pref-
ace he speaks of the dignity and profit of Scripture, the authority of
Scripture, and a method for preparing to study Scripture.15 Like other
Reformed theologians, Vermigli talks of Scriptures authority in relation to
the ChristScripture is the audible words of the one Incarnate Word.16
Those in positions of authority in the Church only have real authority
insofar as they properly use Scripture.17 To live by its authority one must
understand that Scripture is affirmed by the Holy Spirit and by its own
testimonyit is superior to the opinions of any Church leader or council
(the critique of a Roman Catholic understanding of the authority of the
Magisterium is made clear here). Vermigli writes, For it is not permitted
either to a council or to the Church to interpret the Scriptures according
to its own will, for that would be to lord it over the faith of the faithful.18
Yet, it is not just a me-and-my-Bible type of religious authority. Rather,
Vermigli argues for a proper study and spiritual disposition. In an impor-
tant passage for our purposes, Vermigli writes:
From these things we can conclude that those who fall into error in their
interpretation of Scripture strive against their own sin, because they have
not prayed enough, nor have they sufficiently delved into the study of them.
The one who is inexperienced and uneducated in the word of the divine
scriptures must not discourage any from this beautiful exercise. Just as, for
instance, the pearl lies hidden in the worthless oyster, or as grain is shaken
loose from the husks, so also the shining and gleaming truth is drawn
out from the simple Word of the Holy Scriptures. Moreover, we should
13Vermigli, In Selectissimam D. Pauli Priorem ad Corinth. epistolamCommentarii

(Zurich: Froschauer, 1551). I have used the 1572 second edition for this essay. Hereafter
Corinth.
14A modern English translation of the Introduction to Vermiglis 1 Corinthians com-
mentary is found as Vermigli, The Authority of Scripture, in The Peter Martyr Reader, ed.
J.P. Donnelly, et al. (Kirksville: TSUP, 1999), 6780.
15See Zuidema, The Primacy of Scripture, passim., and chapter 4 of Zuidema, Peter
Martyr Vermigli (14991562) and the Outward Instruments of Divine Grace (Gottingen: V&R,
2008).
16Vermigli, Corinth. 1r.
17Vermigli, Corinth., 1v.
18Vermigli, The Authority, 74 (Corinth., 2r).
220 jason zuidema
especially guard against undertaking to read those things while still stuck
in our prejudices. You should distinguish the moods: I came that you may
learn, not that you may drag the Scriptures somehow or other (which the
heretics do) into your way of thinking.19
The link for our study on Vermiglis piety is this: the proper reading of
Scripture takes a great deal of time and prayer. This is especially true for
church leaders, as their main task should be reading and applying
Scripture. The implications of Vermiglis hermeneutic require, it would
seem, a substantial reorganization of any ministers time. That is, the
scholarly life and the ministerial life are not that differentboth require
prayer and significant study of the text of Scripture.
This hermeneutical assumption is underlined repeatedly throughout
the commentary. As one example among many, consider his comments
on 1 Corinthians 14, one of the chapters in which the Apostle discusses
spiritual gifts.20 After the challenges of defending his reading of 1
Corinthians 10 and 11, Vermigli continued his push for a proper under-
standing of how language and the words of God actually work in the
Christian life. A number of verses in this chapter prompt Vermigli to dis-
cuss the use of foreign languages in Church. As Paul, in Vermiglis reading,
says that foreign languages do not build up others, so Vermigli explains
that these languages communicate nothing from the mind of the speaker
to the mind of the hearer. Any language that is not understood by the
hearer is entirely useless for corporate Christian worship.21 This critique
is leveled not only at the use of Latin by Roman Catholics in the Mass,
but also at the overly complicated rhetoric by preachers using the
vernacular:
But in an unknowen toong, the remembrance is no whit renewed; but rather
buried. There is heard a sound, a singing, and a muttering, but there is in a
maner nothing of the words perceiued: yea and sometimes there be sermons
made so intricate and difficult, that they can be understood but euen of a
verie few.22
If worshippers are supposed to say Amen to the various parts of the
liturgy, they must be able to understand what they are affirming.23
19Vermigli, The Authority, 76 (Corinth., 3r).

20An English translation of Vermiglis comments on 1 Corinthians 14 is found in The
Common Places ofPeter Martyr, trans. Marten (London, 1583), III.13.1923. Hereafter CP.
21CP, III.13.19.
22CP, III.13.20.
23CP, III.13.21.
Vermiglis critique of the conservative clergy is made clear in his argu-

ment that the intention of holiness does not guarantee true holiness:
I maruell at them which babble, that a good intent (as they speake) of prais-
ing God, of giuing thanks, and of praieng, dooth suffice: and that it is not
required, that the words, whereby these things are doone, should be knowen
unto them that stand by. This is a pernicious deuise: for it affirmeth onelie a
sincere purpose (which we also require) to be sufficient; and it taketh awaie
from the people of God, the manifold and sundrie fruits, which the holie
spirit is woont to bring foorth, through knowledge of holie words.24
A couple of important details are emphasized here: first, that sincere pur-
pose is not enough to produce true spirituality. Vermigli highlights a com-
mon concern of most reformers.25 Like many other reforming theologians,
Vermigli commonly accused the conservatives of replacing true piety with
human-made traditions that only seemed authentic. Second, improper
use of language in worship deprived the worshippers of the manifold and
sundrie fruits that are done by the Holy Spirit through knowledge of
holie words. That is, Scripture has power to do something positive in the
lives of hearers when used by the Spirit and understood. Since the conser-
vative theologians are fundamentally confused on these points, Vermigli
says, Wherefore this infamie must be removed, with singular indeuor,
from the holie congregations of Christian men.26
The comments on 1 Corinthians 14 agree with many similar ones both
in Vermiglis commentary and in the rest of his extant corpus. What we
see is that his critique of the Roman Catholicism with which he was famil-
iar was not just based on a kind of proof-texting from Scripture, but on
hermeneutical assumptions about the place of Scripture in the divine and
human relationship. Particularly, we note the presumed role of the Holy
Spirit and a proper understanding of the text of Scripture. Without the
power of the Holy Spirit and the active understanding of the reader and
hearer, Scripture cannot bear fruit.
This assumption made an impact in two areas: first, it left Vermigli and
the reformers who argued like him open to the critique by conservative
theologians that they were subjectivising Scripturea very real threat,
given the appeal to the Holy Spirit by the more radical Anabaptists.27
24CP, III.13.23.
25Compare with the conclusions of Jason Zuidema, Calvin as Apologist, in Calvin@500,
ed. Topping and Vissers (Eugene: Pickwick, 2011), 6785.
26CP, III.13.23.
27For a wider perspective on this critique see Brad Gregory, The Unintended Refor
mation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society (Cambridge: HUP, 2012), chapter 4.
222 jason zuidema
Vermiglis hermeneutic (and his sacramental theology with it) was based
primarily on the objective presence of the Holy Spirit. That is, Vermigli
was arguing that in treating Scripture in the right manner, the Holy Spirit
would do his proper work. Yet, how could Vermigli assure his students and
readers that he was truly interpreting Scripture in the right manner? For
many conservative theologians (and even Protestant critics) this seemed
like a circular argument.
Second, it also deeply informed the piety of those who were attracted to
a similar reforming cause. It refocused corporate worship on comprehen-
sion of words, filtering liturgical and sacramental actions through their
comprehension. Vermiglis critique here lined up with the kinds of proj-
ects for reform that would be common in the Edwardian period and, later,
in the reign of Elizabeth.
Comparisons
Vermigli was not alone in connecting the authority of the minister to
larger spiritual realities and the comprehension of the text of Scripture.
No doubt, these same concerns were central to the thought of a number of
other reformers under Edward VI who also considered it their singular
indeuor to remove the infamies argued by more conservative theolo-
gians. Consider, for example, the rhetoric of preachers during the same
period at Pauls Cross, the famous outdoor preaching station outside of
St. Pauls Cathedral in London. In the Edwardian era, as had been the
case before and after, this was a place that attracted large audiences that
wished to hear sermons that often concerned the main points of conten-
tion between church and crown or conservatives and reformers.
While others can be noted, one of the most memorable preachers was
the sometime bishop of Worchester, Hugh Latimer.28 Though he enjoyed
Henry VIIIs favor for several years, Latimer had been silenced for the last
part of the Kings reign as the king was increasingly concerned with the
diversity of doctrine in his realm.29 However, after King Edward was
crowned, Latimer, and many other preachers like him, were encouraged
28On Latimer and Pauls Cross, see Allan G. Chester, Hugh Latimer: Apostle to the
English (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1954); The Works of Hugh Latimer, ed.
George Corrie (Cambridge: CUP, 1844); Susan Wabuda, Preaching During the English
Reformation (Cambridge: CUP, 2002); Millar MacLure, The Pauls Cross Sermons, 15341642
(Toronto: UofT, 1958); Mary Morrissey, Politics and the Pauls Cross Sermons, 15581642
(Oxford: OUP, 2011); See also my essay on Latimer in A Companion to Pauls Cross, ed.
W.J. Torrance Kirby (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming).
29Lucy Wooding, Henry VIII (London: Routledge, 2009), 250257.
to preach for reform. Testifying to the importance of Latimers voice, he

was asked to be one of the first major reforming voices to preach at Pauls
Cross. Though he preached perhaps as many as eight times in early 1548
from the open air pulpit, he is best remembered for the only extant ser-
mon, one named the Sermon on the Plougher in later literature.30
Latimers call in this sermon is to make all prelates, those with any
spirituall charge from country priest to city bishop, to be diligent plow-
men of Scripture.31 That is, rather than have undue concern for liturgical
actions, administration or politics, as Latimer thinks many conservatives
theologians have, all priests should show primary concern for preaching
that feeds hearers.32 In an oft-quoted phrase, Latimer argues that these
kinds of preachers should be promoted by a reforming church:
Great is theyr busines, and therefore greate should be theyre hyre. They
have great laboures and therfore they ought to have good liuinges, that they
maye comodiously seade theyr flocke, for the preachynge of the worde
of God unto the people is called meat. Not strauberies, that come but once
a yeare and tary not longe, but are sone gone: but it is meat. It is no
deynties.33
The renewed emphasis on preaching, especially the kind of preaching that

was understood by the hearers present, is clear in Latimers argument. But
he also argues for the importance of a proper spiritual presence, albeit in
a roundabout manner. His argument is that when no legitimate preaching
of Scripture is done, there is still a spiritual presence among the people:
the Devil is at work. Probably shocking to some in his audience, Latimer
argued that the Devil was the most active bishop in England.34 Indeed,
Latimer was concerned that proper preaching of Gods word be based on
Gods Word and led by his Spirit, lest that evil spirit take over.35 These
comments by Latimer at Pauls Cross help us contextualize the promotion
of what the reformers considered a proper relationship between Word
and Spirit that would be again highlighted in the following year in
Vermiglis lectures on 1 Corinthians.
30The first edition is: [Hugh Latimer], A notable sermo[n] of ye reuerende father Maister
Hughe Latemer, whiche he preached in ye Shrouds at paules churche in Londo[n], on the. xviii.
daye of Ianuary, 1548 (London: John Day and William Seres, 1548), [STC 15292a]. Hereafter
Sermon.
31Sermon, B.iii.recto.
32Sermon, A.iv.verso and B.iv.verso.
33Sermon, A.vi.recto.
34Sermon, C.ii.recto.
35Compare with comments in Susan Wabuda, Latimer, Hugh, in ODNB.
224 jason zuidema
Conclusions
A study of Vermiglis piety and its echoes in other English reformers dur-
ing the reign of Edward VI does more than just humanize the Florentine
reformer. In fact, such efforts at making a reformer directly relevant to the
piety of a contemporary strand of Christianity usually says more about the
reader than Vermigli himself. As a point of comparison, consider the vari-
ous attempts to attribute some humanit to John Calvin in the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries.36 Though certain aspects of those studies help-
fully reorient earlier scholarship, they can also be seen as presenting
accommodations of Calvin to their times.37 In like manner, a study of
Vermiglis theology runs the risk of misunderstanding its original context
and impact.
However, a study of Vermiglis piety, especially his contributions to an
understanding of corporate Christian worship and the Christian life, are
not topics that should be avoided in Reformation scholarship. A scholarly
understanding of Vermiglis life must note that Vermigli was not simply a
systematic or scholastic theologian, by definition of those words in the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Rather, he was a student of Scripture
that sought to make his work relevant to other domains of thought and to
the life of the Church and individual Christians in the successive cities in
which he taught. In particular, his understanding of the practical role of
the Holy Spirit and diligent study, helps nuance portraits of his theology
that would focus too much on his philological or philosophical concerns.
The practical impact of the piety of this Italian exile is seen in England.
Our study situated Vermiglis thought in his years as Regius Professor of
Divinity at Oxford University. Understanding the challenge of reform in
that period and hearing echoes in his contemporaries, we can better
understand the reasons for which he was compelled to comment on 1
Corinthians and support the efforts for reform of the English Church
under Edward VI. Though his time in England would be cut short by
Edwards death and Marys accession to the throne, Vermigli was one who
was instrumental in shaping both the thought and the piety of the exiles
who returned to remodel the Church of England in the reign of Elizabeth.38
36See, for example, Richard Stauffer, Lhumanit de Calvin (Paris: Delachaux et Niestl,
1964).
37See also Muller, UC.
38See especially, Kirby, Zurich Connection, chs. 45.
PART THREE
EARLY ORTHODOXY (ca. 15651640)

THE MAN IN THE BLACK HAT: THEODORE BEZA AND THE
REORIENTATION OF EARLY REFORMED HISTORIOGRAPHY
Raymond A. Blacketer
The Five Points of Reassessing Calvinism
When Richard A. Muller published Christ and the Decree in 1986, it fell like
a bomb onto the playground of the neo-orthodox historical theologians.1
The study of Calvin and the Reformed tradition had received a boost from
Barth and his disciples; but now the presuppositions and prejudices
that came to be typical of the field began to face serious and substantial
critique, and not only from one individual or any ostensible school of
thought, or even of any one confessional tradition. Rather, the mythology
about Calvin and Calvinism, created somewhat by Barth but more so by
his ideological heirs, could not bear the scrutiny of scholars actually
reading early Reformed thinkers in their historical contexts rather than
through a modern dogmatic filter.
Mullers study of the relationship between Calvins thought and that
of later Calvinist thinkers began as a doctoral dissertation at Duke
University Divinity School in 1976one that changed the mind of his
mentor David Steinmetz regarding the character of later Reformed think-
ers such as Theodore Beza.2 At around the same time, other scholars were
challenging the received narrative about later Calvinists distorting
the pristine thought of Calvin.3 The older narrative began to crumble, and
further research by numerous scholars over several decades has eroded
the plausibility of pitting Calvin against the (so-called) Calvinists. Certainly
1Karl Adam remarked that Karl Barths Rmerbrief schlugwie eine Bombe auf dem
Spielplatz der Theologen ein. See Die Theologie der Krisis, Hochland 23.2 (1926):
276277.
2Cf. the traditional view of Beza in Steinmetzs Reformers in the Wings (Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1971; repr. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981), 162171, with the substantially revised
second edition (Oxford: OUP, 2001), 114120.
3See, for example, studies of Bezas thought that appeared in the 1970s: Ian McPhee,
Conserver or Transformer of Calvins Theology? A Study of the Origins and Development
of Theodore Bezas Thought, 15501570 (PhD diss., University of Cambridge, 1979);
Jill Raitt, The Eucharistic Theology of Theodore Beza: Development of the Reformed Doctrine
(Chambersburg: American Academy of Religion, 1972); Tadataka Maruyama, The
Ecclesiology of Theodore Beza: The Reform of the True Church (Geneva: Droz, 1978).
228 raymond a. blacketer
there remain those who desperately want to save Calvin for neo-
orthodoxy, to read the Reformation through the Church Dogmatics, but
that enterprise can no longer bear serious historical scrutiny.4 The essays
in this volume not only serve as proof enough of that point, but they
represent the fruit of a turn for the better in the study of Reformation and
post-Reformation thought.
Much has changed since Muller published Christ and the Decree, includ-
ing Mullers own assessment of the historiographical issues.5 This shift
is not the sole result of one mans work, but neither should Mullers
influence be underestimated.6 At the risk of reducing these historiograph-
ical changes to an ill-fitting five-point acronym, there are several changes
that one can observe in the study of the early Reformed tradition.
First, there is a growing, corrective awareness that it is misleading to
refer to the Reformed tradition as Calvinism. John Calvin was an excep-
tionally gifted and important contributor to this theological tradition,
so much so that his name became virtually synonymous with Reformed
thought. But he was neither the founder of that tradition, nor was he
the Reformed churches only formative intellectual leader.7 A corollary
is that Calvins writings are not the sole benchmark for evaluating contri-
butions of other Reformed thinkers, nor does further development
and refinement of theological thought necessarily represent a corruption
or betrayal of some ostensibly pristine revelation that was Calvins sole
possession.
In addition, scholarship has evidenced an increasing awareness that
Reformed theology after Calvin was a diverse, dynamic, and developing
phenomenon. Calvin did not always completely agree with his Reformed
contemporaries: for example, with Bullinger on predestination or with
Wolfgang Musculus on paedocommunion. Later debates about the extent
4An example of this futile enterprise is the doubly-misnamed Evangelical Calvinism,

ed. Habets and Grow (Eugene: Pickwick, 2012).
5See R.A. Muller, Predestination and Christology in Sixteenth Century Reformed
Theology (PhD diss., Duke University, 1976); and cf. the first edition of Muller, Decree, with
the reprint and Mullers methodological preface (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008).
6Nor should this historiographical shift be reduced to the Muller thesis, as does
Martin I. Klauber, Continuity and Discontinuity in Post-Reformation Reformed Theology:
An Evaluation of the Muller Thesis, JETS 33 (1990): 467475. Mullers contribution has
more to do with historiographical method than ones conclusions.
7See, e.g. Emidio Campi, Calvin, the Swiss Reformed Churches, and European
Reformation, in Calvin and His Influence, 15092009, ed. Backus and Benedict (New York:
OUP, 2011):119143; Donald W. Sinnema, Calvin and the Canons of Dordt (1619), CHRC
91.12 (2011): 87103.
the man in the black hat 229
of Christs redemption also illustrate how this tradition encompassed a

diversity of viewpoints within a clearly identifiable theological trajectory.8
Confessional consolidation, the teaching of Reformed theology, the
training of pastors, and the ongoing apologetic task required adaptability.
The churches of the Reformed fold faced external challenges such as
attacks by fellow Protestants in the Lutheran tradition, who refused to
make common cause with the Reformed, as well as ongoing opposition
from Roman Catholic apologists. Internal conflicts included the Remon
strant controversy, which required further definition and refinement of
Reformed doctrine at the Synod of Dordt and the outright proscription
of Remonstrant opinions, and the lesser controversy surrounding Mose
Amyraut, which did not rise to the level of heresy or formal ecclesiastical
exclusion.9 There is indeed change and development from Calvin (and
others of his generation) to later Reformed thinkers, but contrary to the
older historiographical mythology, there are identifiable patterns of conti-
nuity as well as development and diversity in early Reformed theological
thought.10
Third, the ongoing reassessment by researchers of later Reformed
thinkers and their works is less hostile, prejudicial, and stereotyping
than much scholarship of the mid-twentieth century, which was heavily
influenced by neo-orthodox theological concerns and criteria, as well as
by nineteenth-century assumptions about all-controlling central dogmas.
More scholars are now carefully analyzing these sources in their historical
context, instead of categorizing and pejoratively dismissing these thinkers
and their works as rigid, dry, lifeless, rationalistic, or deductive. As a result,
scholars are now discovering previously unmined veins of Reformed bibli-
cal, pastoral, and theological reflection in later Reformed authors and
similarly overlooked contemporaries of Calvin.
Fourth, researchers have substantially reappraised the nature of
scholasticism among Reformed theologians of the Reformation and
8On this diversity, see R.A. Muller, Calvin and the Reformed Tradition: On the Work
of Christ and the Order of Salvation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012), cited as CRT, and
R.A. Blacketer, Blaming Beza: The Development of Definite Atonement in the Reformed
Tradition, in From Heaven He Came and Sought Her: Definite Atonement in Historical,
Biblical, Theological and Pastoral Perspective, ed. Gibson and Gibson (Wheaton: Crossway,
2013): 119139.
9Contra Brian G. Armstrong, Calvinism and the Amyraut Heresy (Madison: UWP, 1969),
cited as CAH. On the variations of hypothetical universalism, see CRT, ch. 5.
10Note Mullers Reassessing the Relation of Reformation and Orthodoxy:
A Methodological Rejoinder, American Theological Inquiry 4.1 (2011): 312, which counters
oversimplified caricatures of his work and of changing scholarly trends.
post-Reformation eras. Many scholars now recognize that scholastic is

most properly a designation of method, rather than a specific and predict-
able doctrinal content. The term scholastic, as employed in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, is precisely equivalent to the modern term
academic, with all the positive, neutral, and pejorative implications that
its use in a given context might imply. The fact that theologians in the
Reformed tradition resorted to the academic method of making careful
distinctions and definitions, arising (it should be emphasized) from exe-
getical reflection, does not imply, as older scholarship frequently alleged,
that these thinkers abandoned an original and pristine Christ-centered
Biblicism for rationalistic, deductive systems divorced from piety. Scholars
have also come to see the continued use and adaptation of Aristotelian
categories and fourfold causality not as an obvious indication that a
thinker has abandoned the original genius of the Reformation, but as part
and parcel of renaissance humanist dialectic.
The final point is that scholars increasingly realize that no early
Reformed thinkers work is reducible to a central motif, nor can it be
judged according to any modern theological standard, which in any case
would be arbitrary and anachronistic. And this is where Muller himself
has changed. Christ and the Decree still operated with the presupposition
that Reformed thinkers had to measure up to a certain christological crite-
rion; they had to be Christocentric, as neo-orthodoxy had framed the
question. But in fact it would be impossible to find any theologian of the
early modern era who was not in some sense Christocentric, and it would
definitely be impossible to find any who were Christocentric in the same
way that Barth and his epigones were. Even the anti-Trinitarians of
the early modern period focused on Christ as a moral example, if not
the divine Son of God. This trend of evaluating early modern thinkers
according to modern vogues later evolved into the tendency to make the
doctrine of the Trinity the central criterion (or, more recently, union with
Christ).11 But like all of Christendom apart from the aforementioned anti-
Trinitarians, early Reformed thinkers were universally and thoroughly
Trinitarian.
The evolving depiction of Theodore Beza illustrates these historio-
graphical shifts.
11See Muller, PRRD, 4:71, and CRT, esp. chs. 1 and 5.

Beza as Villain
A 1597 portrait of an aging Thodore de Bze, in which Calvins successor

in Geneva dons a black hat, hangs in the La Socit de lHistoire du
Protestantisme Franais in Paris.12 The narrative in which Theodore Beza
plays the villain who ruined Reformed theology has been current since at
least the mid-seventeenth century, when Mose Amyraut sought to iden-
tify his own speculative schema of decrees with the primordial thought of
Calvin and to drive a wedge between the teachings of Calvin and Beza in
order to further his own theological agenda, thus presaging the historio-
graphic mythology that pitted Calvin against the Calvinists.13
The thesis that Beza transformed Calvins humanistic, biblical thought
into a deductive, rationalistic system prevailed in the mid-twentieth
century and was largely shaped by modern theological agendas.14 This
was not always the case. The Edinburgh historical theologian William
Cunningham (18051861) more accurately perceived that Bezas mature
thought was a development, not a desertion, of Reformed doctrine:
the points of alleged difference between [Calvin and Beza] in matters of
doctrine, respect chiefly topics on which Calvin was not led to give
any very formal or explicit deliverance, because they were not at the time
subjects of discussion, or indeed ever present to his thoughts.15
Older theologically-oriented scholarship tended both to produce
caricatures of important figures such as Beza and to ignore the broader
context in which they wrote. But gradual signs of change began to appear
12The portrait can be viewed online: http://www.museeprotestant.org, accessible at

date of publication.
13Amyraut refers to Beza as a great figure, but in the matter of election he employed a
methode particuliere which others were not obliged to follow. See Amyraut, Defense de la
doctrine de Calvin sur le sujet de lelection et de la reprobation (Saumur: I. Desbordes, 1644);
cf. Armstrong, CAH, 159. Muller has demonstrated that Amyraut read his own rather
speculative schema of decrees back into Calvins writings, CRT, ch. 4.
14See, e.g., Hans Emil Weber, Reformation, Orthodoxie und Rationalismus, 2 vols. in 3
(Gtersloh: C. Bertelsmann, 19371951); Edward A. Dowey, The Knowledge of God in Calvins
Theology, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), esp. 218; Armstrong, CAH; Walter Kickel,
Vernunft und Offenbarung bei Theodor Beza: Zum Problem der Verhltnisses von Theologie,
Philosophie und Staat (Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 1967); Johannes Dantine, Das christolo-
gische Problem in Rahmen der Prdestinationslehre von Theodor Beza, ZfK 77 (1966):
8196; and idem, Les Tabelles sur la doctrine de la prdestination par Thodore de Bze,
Revue de thologie et de philosophie 16 (1966): 365377.
15William Cunningham, The Reformers; and the Theology of the Reformation (Edinburgh:
TTC, 1862), 349. Cunninghams analysis of the problem of Calvins view of the extent of
Christs redemption (395402), even after a century and half, is still insightful.
in the 1970s, as new studies of Beza and later Reformed theology emerged
that began to question the received narrative.16 An examination of John
Brays 1971 analysis of Bezas treatise De praedestinationis doctrina will
serve to illustrate this scholarly transition.17
A Document Debated
At the outset one should emphasize that Brays study represents a marked
advance over some previous and particularly hostile examinations of
Bezas thought. Thus Bray, for example, has a somewhat nuanced take
on scholasticism, recognizing its transformation and continuation in the
Renaissance and Reformation, and the continued use and adaptation of
Aristotelian philosophy in that time period. Yet Bray still labors under the
negative stereotypes of scholasticism that characterize it as a rationalistic,
deductive method, and thus a betrayal of Calvins original genius.18
The result is an unresolved tension in Brays study, which represents a
double-exposed snapshot of scholarship in transition. Bray writes:
Although there are strong similarities between the Tabula [Praedestinationis]
of 1555 and Bezas De Praedestinationis doctrina of 1582, the differences are
consistent and significant. By 1582 it appears that the scholastic, rationalistic
tendencies within Beza have come more to the fore. The basic terms used
in both worksdecree, predestination, foreknowledgeare given a more
precise, rationalistic definition. By 1582 Beza has dropped such anthropo-
centric terms as love and hate. There has been an infusion of Thomistic
terminology. And, perhaps most significantly, Bezas earlier strictures which
reminded one of the mystery involved in predestination are almost entirely
absent from this later work. It would appear that now the only mystery
consists of determining who is to be included in the ranks of the reprobate.
In spite of the fact that the lectures upon which De Praedestinationis doc-
trina was based were, ostensibly, an exegesis of Romans 9, in fact, the text of
Romans 9 has been exploited by Beza as an opportunity to expound his
theory of predestination. Thus one discovers that Beza has read into the text
of Romans 9 controversies in which he himself was involved; he has sought
justification in Romans 9 for his own theories concerning predestination;
16E.g. Raitt, The Eucharistic Theology of Theodore Beza; McPhee, Conserver or

Transformer of Calvins Theology?
17De praedestinationis doctrina et vero usu tractatio absolutissima, ed. Raphael Egli, 2nd
ed. (Geneva: E. Vignon, [1582] 1583). This is a corrected reprint of the original 1582 edition.
See Frdric Gardy, Bibliographie des uvres thologiques, littraires, historiques et
juridiques de Thodore de Bze (Geneva: Droz, 1960), 187.
18John S. Bray, Theodore Bezas Doctrine of Predestination (Nieuwkoop: DeGraaf,
1975), 917.
and he has drawn conclusions from the text far beyond what many exegetes
would view as justified. At the same time, one must remember that Romans
had provided an opportunity earlier for Luther and Calvin to expound their
theories of predestination. The difference is that Bezas comments were far
more systematic and scholastic.19
The evidence, however, supports no such conclusions. Moreover, an anal-
ysis of Bezas latter work demonstrates, if anything, far more exegetical
argumentation and humanist analysis of the biblical text than the far
more concise Tabula. But before we get into those details, we should dis-
pense with a number of faulty presuppositions, inherited from a tenden-
tious scholarly tradition, that taint Brays perception of this document.
First, Bray operates with the assumption that scholastic implies ratio-
nalistic, rather than academic. One should not assume that greater con-
ceptual precision and an insistence on conceptual coherence somehow
imply rationalism; otherwise virtually every theologian who engaged in
debate, including Luther and Calvin, would be considered rationalistic.
Leaving aside the patently false contention that Beza has dropped the
terms love and hate from the De praedestinationis doctrina (in fact he
uses these terms scores of times throughout the treatise, particularly in
relation to the exegesis of Gods love of Jacob and hatred of Esau in Romans
9:13, pp. 6273, 8385, much more so than in the Tabula), it is a puzzling
contention that Bezas discussion of divine predestination should some-
how be anthropocentric (Paul speaks of divine love and hate, after all).
Moreover, there is no infusion of Thomistic terminology, and even if
there were, one could not deduce from this that Beza had become addicted
to reasona charge that Beza believes applies to his opponents (e.g. 104).
Beza does cite Aquinas as an example of the exegetical strategy of inter-
preting universal statements of Gods saving will as applying to all classes
of people, and not every individual, but this distinction goes back to
Augustine and is common in the Christian tradition. In fact, Beza cites
Thomas reluctantly and displays an obvious aversion to traditional
scholastic theology. His distaste is for what he considers traditional aca-
demic theologys Pelagian tendencies, not for its rather useful distinctions,
such as that between Gods voluntas signi and voluntas beneplaciti. These
distinctions, despite their medieval academic pedigree, figured in Calvins
understanding of the divine will as well.20 Thus here as in his other
writings on predestination Beza regularly employs his own clarifying
19Bray, Theodore Bezas Doctrine of Predestination, 73.

20De praed. doct., 103. See Blacketer, Blaming Beza, and Muller, CRT, ch. 3.
distinction regarding a divine promise of salvation that is indefinite

rather than universal, since the promise of the gospel does not in fact
come to all persons who ever lived.21 He similarly faults other writers
for failing to distinguish between absolute necessity and necessity of the
consequencean error to which modern interpreters of Beza have
also been liable. Thus Beza can say that persons sin both voluntarily and
necessarily (101).
Second, Brays analysis exhibits an imprecise use of the term scholastic
which was common in the time he was writing, and which he takes over
from dogmatically-oriented writers such as Weber, Armstrong, Dowey,
and Kickel, in addition to the older central dogma theories of scholars
such as Alexander Schweitzer.22 But why should academic lectures not
be scholastic, unless one interprets the term in an arbitrary and highly
subjective manner to mean any doctrine that strikes the reader as cold,
rigid, or overly rational? Of course these lectures are scholastic, that is,
academic. Beza was immersed in the work of training students at the
Academy at Geneva, both as an administrator and as a professor, in addi-
tion to his pastoral duties. In fact, the survival of the Genevan academy
was dependent upon Bezas efforts to keep the institution afloat and to
promote its reputation as a leading center of Reformed learning.23 For
both Calvin and Beza, well-trained pastors and teachers were particularly
crucial to the success of their vision of a Reformed church, which Calvin
likened to the school of God, and in which congregants were not merely
passive observers of priestly rites, but active learners and participants.24
Fourth, Bray mischaracterizes how much continuity in method and
content there is between Bezas Tabula and the De praedestinationis
doctrina, so much so that one wonders how carefully Bray read the latter
document. At the center of both expositions is Bezas crucial distinction
between the decree and its execution, that is, between Gods immutable
will to elect and reject, and the contingent secondary causes that bring
21See Blacketer, Blaming Beza.

22Alexander Schweizer, Die protestantischen Centraldogmen in ihrer Entwicklung inner-
halb der reformierten Kirche, 2 vols. (Zrich: Orell, Fssli und Comp., 18541856). Schweizer
does not posit a radical disjuncture between Calvin and later Reformed thinkers; cf. Muller,
PRRD, 1:124.
23See Karin Maag, Recteur, pasteur et professeur: Thodore de Bze et lducation
Genve, in Thodore de Bze (15191605), ed. Backus (Geneva: Droz, 2007): 2939; and
see also Maag, Seminary or University? The Genevan Academy and Reformed Higher
Education, 15601620 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1995).
24See R.A. Blacketer, The School of God: Pedagogy and Rhetoric in Calvins Interpretation
of Deuteronomy (Dordrecht: Springer, 2006).
about that will. Beza thus can make Gods grace the sole ground for
salvation, while leaving freely-chosen human rebellion the only basis for
condemnation, so that God is not the author of sin nor does he condemn
persons arbitrarily or unjustly (e.g. 99100). Beza insists that God does not
directly cause persons to harden their hearts against him (22, 101), antici-
pating the denial by the Canons of Dordt that reprobation is the cause of
unbelief in the same way (eodem modo) that election is the cause of salva-
tion. Highly misleading, then, is the recent claim that Beza presented
election and reprobation as exactly symmetrical in Gods mind, both con-
stituting a part of his eternal decree.25 Beza also foreshadows Dordts
insistence that Gods call is serious, even for the reprobate (36, 78; cf. CoD
III/IV.8). In addition, while Beza considers newly-raised objections to the
Reformed teaching on predestination (e.g. 7983), the main lines of his
argument mirror those of his other writings on predestination, including
his characteristic distinction between a universal and indefinite salvific
will of God.26 Given this basic similarity between the Tabula and De
praedestinationis doctrina, though the latter document is more copious
and deals with further controversies and objections, it is difficult to find
any basis for Brays contention that Beza has excised the mystery from the
doctrine of predestination. That assertion is itself a mystery.
And then there is the historical context. Bray hardly mentions the stu-
dent who transcribed these classroom lectures at the Genevan Academy,
Raphael Egli (15991622), except to call him Bezas faithful disciple.27
A little further digging would have revealed that Egli was in fact a brilliant
yet highly problematic student who caused Beza significant frustration.
Eglis escapades embarrassed Beza and earned the ire of Bezas counter-
part in Zrich, Rudolph Gwalther.28 Egli would go on to divide his efforts
between theology and alchemy, often publishing alchemical works under
pseudonyms.29 Despite his youthful indiscretions, Egli went on to teach
25Backus and Benedict, Calvin and His Influence, 14. The introduction also gets Calvins
doctrine of predestination completely wrong, claiming that Calvin bases election and
reprobation on foreseen faith or unbelief.
26On this distinction, see Blacketer, Blaming Beza.
27Bray, Theodore Bezas Doctrine of Predestination, 72.
28Correspondance de Thodore de Bze, ed. Alain Dufour et al. (Geneva: Droz, 1960-),
22:xvi, 78, 10. Gwalter was very irritated by Eglis arrogance; Gwalther to Beza, 24 January
1581, Correspondance, 22:25. On Eglis romantic pursuits, see Gwalther to Beza, 10 March
1581, Correspondance, 22:6061.
29See Bruce T. Moran, Alchemy, Prophecy, and the Rosicrucians: Raphael Eglinus and
Mystical Currents of the Early Seventeenth Century, in Alchemy and Chemistry in the 16th
and 17th Centuries, ed. Piyo Rattansi and Antonio Clericuzio (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1994),
103119.
New Testament at Zrich and later theology at Marburg. Egli, who was
fascinated by the Paracelsian idea of a future alchemical messianic figure
known as the Elias Artista, apparently also influenced Johann Heinrich
Alsteds millenarian views.30 Thus the editor of Bezas work is much more
than a faithful student; he is a fascinating subject in his own right, whose
story sheds light on the state of learning and science in the late sixteenth
century. These intellectual connections and contexts, however, were
often overlooked in earlier, dogmatically-oriented studies.
Nor does Bray devote any attention to the fact that Egli dedicated this
work to a fellow student at the Genevan Academy, the Polish nobleman,
Count Nicholas Ostrorog (Mikoaj Ostrorg), Castellan of Belz (15671612).31
The recipient of this dedication points to Bezas role in attempting to
promulgate and establish the Reformed faith well beyond Geneva and
even beyond France and Western Europe.32 The Bohemian Brethren
found a welcome reception in the Ostrorog noble family.33 Nicholas
father Stanislaus Ostrorog was an important figure in the rise of Polish
Protestantism. Nicholas matriculated at the Geneva Academy with his
brother Jan (or Johannes) on 9 April 1581.34 These two Ostrorog brothers
were also the recipients of dedications of learned volumes from Johann
Jacob Grynaeus of Basel,35 Johannes Sturm (edited and dedicated by
Johannes Lobart) of Strassburg,36 and Johann Wolf (edited and dedicated
by Heinrich Wolf) of Zrich.37 Nicholas would go on to establish a
Reformed school in Krylow. The dedication to the Polish count represents
30See Howard Hotson, Paradise Postponed: Johann Heinrich Alsted and the Birth of
Calvinist Millenarianism (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2000), 100104; and Howard Hotson, Johann
Heinrich Alsted, 15881638: Between Renaissance, Reformation, and Universal Reform
(Oxford: Clarendon, 2000), 5964, 97100.
31On the Ostrorog family, see Theodor Wotschke, Stanislaus Ostrorog: Ein Schutzherr
der grosspolnischen evangelischen Kirche, Zeitschrift der Historischen Gesellschaft fr die
Provinz Posen 22.1 (1907): 59132; Wotschke, Polnische Studenten in Altdorf, Jahrbcher
fr Kultur und Geschichte der Slaven 4.2 (1928): 216232. Bray uses only Bezas collected
Tractationes Theologicae, which omits the dedicatory letter; nevertheless, he cites Gardy,
who indicates the roles of both Egli and Nicholas Ostrorog.
32See Nancy Conradt, John Calvin, Theodore Beza and the Reformation in Poland
(PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, 1974).
33See Edmund De Schweinitz, The History of the Church known as the Unitas Fratrum
(Bethlehem, Pennsylvania: Moravian Publication Concern, [1885] 1901), 288294.
34See Le livre du recteur de lAcademie de Geneve (15591878), ed. Stelling-Michaud, 6
vols. (Geneva: Droz, 19591980) 1:106; cf. 5:6364. On Egli, see 3:228229.
35J.J. Grynaeus, Ionae Prophetae Liber, cum Enarratione (Basel: Oporinus, 1581), fol. 2r.
36J. Sturm, Linguae latinae resolvendae ratio, ed. Johannes Lobart (Strassburg, Wyriot,
1581), fol. * ii r.
37Johann Wolf, Esdras: In Esdrae librum primum, ed. Heinrich Wolf (Zrich: Froschauer,
1584), fol. aa 2 r.
Bezas attempt both to advance the reputation of the Geneva Academy as

an international center for training future Reformed leaders and to lend
support to a flagging Reformed cause in Poland, an enterprise into which
both Calvin and Beza had invested much effort. Bezas reflections on
Gods providential care and predestining grace would serve as an encour-
agement to Polish coreligionists who were under attack from Lutherans,
Jesuits, and anti-Trinitarians. The document would also provide a formi-
dable defense against attacks on the Reformed perspective on predestina-
tion, particularly in its Genevan iteration.
Proceeding to an analysis of the method and content of Bezas lectures,
it is clear that Brays disapproving analysis (again, under the influence of
the negative slant of previous studies) does not hold up. Bray implies
that Bezas approach is deductive and rationalistic rather than exegetical
and biblical. But Bezas method of beginning the treatise with definitions
of terms (most of them biblical terms) and reflections on key concepts
such as the divine will, differs not at all from Luthers arguments in The
Bondage of the Will or Calvins similar arguments in response to Pighius.
Beza refers back to this prolegomena a number of times as he analyzes
Pauls text (e.g. 102).
Thus, while Bezas work is academic, it is not an exercise in metaphysi-
cal speculation; Beza explicitly rejects such speculation and even turns
the accusation back on his opponents. Beza bases his formulations regard-
ing predestinationincluding reprobationon the Apostle Pauls state-
ments in Romans chapter 9, not to mention Exodus 9, which Paul exposits
(9093), as well as on other biblical passages such as Proverbs 16:4, another
key text for Bezas understanding of reprobation serving the end of Gods
glory (125126). Bray, however, refuses to take Beza at his word, implying
that this ostensible exegesis of Romans 9 is merely a vehicle for Beza to
promote his allegedly deductive views on predestination. While one may
not agree with Bezas interpretation of Paul, there is little evidence for
Brays suspicious suppositions, and no place for such subjective and arbi-
trary judgments in historical research. Here again, however, Bray is simply
following in a furrow already laid bare by other dogmatically-oriented
scholars.
Bezas analysis is in fact a verse-by-verse rhetorical analysis of the text,
typical of renaissance humanisms preoccupation with examining argu-
ments (Melanchthons treatments of Romans, for example, come to
mind). Pauls image of a potter and his clay, for example, Beza identifies as
allegorical (115); Beza similarly identifies Canaan as an allegory of Gods
eternal covenant (57). In fact, Bezas exegesis can be seen as an attempt to
mitigate what appears to be a rather unqualified assertion of the absolute

power, sovereignty, and unquestionable nature of the deity by the Apostle
Paul. Thus Beza uses rhetorical analysis to conclude that Paul is referring
to the decree in Romans 9:2223, not its execution in time through contin-
gent causes (119). Beza points out that this teaching is found in Scripture,
and thus must be there for a reason (17). In addition, Beza analyzes
the meanings of Greek and Hebrew terms, which is an exegetical (even
humanistic) activity, not a speculative one.38 Bezas use of fourfold causal-
ity, rather than indicating deductive reasoning or speculation, actually
prevents conclusions of determinism and fatalism; Beza uses these
concepts to provide a coherent understanding of Pauline teaching (1920,
4344, 106, 119120). And like any exegete of any era, Beza interacts with
the Christian intellectual tradition, including the thought of Augustine,
Origen, and Chrysostom, as well as engaging his contemporaries, particu-
larly Sebastian Castellio, who advocated a radically different interpreta-
tion of the text and the doctrine as part of a longstanding and acrimonious
battle with the theologians of Geneva.
In addition, Beza is clearly motivated in his exegesis to defend against
interpretations that would endanger the crucial Reformation teaching
of salvation by grace alone. This explains his frequent references to
Pelagius and semi-Pelagians. Beza is convinced that any understanding
of predestination that is based on foreseen faith or unbelief, such as pro-
posed by Castellio, Pighius, or later Lutherans, threatens the gains made
by the Reformation and Luther himself (e.g. 114, 127). For this reason Beza
appends copious sections from The Bondage of the Will to his treatise to
demonstrate the centrality of this doctrine (and, ironically, to pit Luther
against the Lutherans).
Bray neglects to mention the fact that Beza identifies Christ as elect
(7273), or how often Beza backs up his discussion with supporting
biblical texts and (in contrast to Castellio) refuses to countenance any
demotion of the authority of Pauls teaching in Romans 9 (112), or
Bezas observation that while Mohammed was a wretched antichrist,
other descendants of Ishmael have been and will be included among
the elect (5758). Moreover, interpreters have failed to notice Bezas dis-
tinction between the doctrine per se and its use or practical application,
38De praed. doct., 15 (numerous terms), 8 (), 2425 (), 49 (), 52

() 55 (), 91 (), 94 (analysis of Exodus 9 in the LXX and Aramaic,
in addition to the Hebrew terms and ).

a methodological distinction that Beza discerns also in the Pauline text

(45, 127128). To that practical, pastoral use of the doctrine we now turn.
Pastoral Scholastic
Unlike some modern seminary curricula, Bezas De praedestinationis

doctrina exemplifies how early Reformed instruction in pastoral theology
was fully integrated with biblical and theological subjects. The curricu-
lum, like this document, was simultaneously practical and academic,
pastoral and scholastic.
In fact, Bezas summary of the practical use of this doctrine is that
persons should seek their assurance of salvation not in speculations about
the divine decree but in the means by which God works out his decree in
real time (128129). Beza emphasizes the role of pastors and teachers
in preaching and administering the sacraments; through them God calls
persons to faith in Christ, as opposed to alleged visions or even the private
reading of scripture (129130, 150). That external calling comes to fruition
in a supernatural internal calling by the Holy Spirit when a person believes
the promises of the gospel and begins to live the transformed life of a
follower of Christ (131). When faith and repentance are present, Beza the
pastor declares, a person may not doubt their election, any less than if
they had with their own eyes seen God issue his decree (132133). No spec-
ulation here. But neither is the doctrine of election superfluous, since
without it, no one could be sure of their salvation, but would constantly
worry about the quality of their faith or good works; thus the doctrine
is the only basis of our faith and hope (133). The fact that a person
believes is enough to infer that one is elect, as one ascends from the effects
(faith and repentance) to the cause (Gods decree of election, 133).
Beza rejects the charge that teaching predestination (and persever-
ance) deters people from Christian living (134135). But instead of focus-
ing on disingenuous adherents, Beza stresses the pastoral problem of
persons who undergo exasperating spiritual struggles. Even those who
temporarily lose their faith are not lost to God. The resonances of sanctifi-
cation can sometimes seem so quiet as to be inaudible, and believers can,
for a season, even go through hell (135137). As Beza lectured on this topic
to students in Geneva, his coreligionists in lands such as France, England,
and Poland were enduring persecutions and threats to their existence;
thus Bezas applications were far from theoretical.
What is most striking about Bezas exposition is not speculative conjec-

ture, but pastoral application and sensitivity. Thus he insists that dormant
faith is not the same as mere temporary faith and does not imply reproba-
tion; in fact, one cannot even deduce from a persons unbelief that the
individual is reprobate, for every person is an unbeliever at some point in
time. Great caution is required in making such judgments (137138).
A person can say, I believe, and therefore I am elect, but one cannot say,
I do not believe, therefore I am reprobate (here Beza references the
archetypal cautionary tale of Francesco Spiera, 138139, 153). Instead of
resignation, the unbeliever should make the most of the means of grace,
preaching and the sacraments. Even the recognition of unbelief can itself
be a step along the way of salvation. Only the elect tend to be concerned
about such matters anyway (139).
As in his other predestinarian writings, Beza warns against judging any
person to be reprobate, apart from special revelation and extreme cases
like that of Julian the Apostate. Rather, pastors should teach unbelievers
with patience and gentleness, while rebuking delinquents and employing
church discipline when necessary (141142). One must always hold out
the hope that conversion may occur. And here is the mystery in Bezas
doctrine of predestination, the mystery that Bray overlooks: even if we see
more signs of reprobation than election in an individual, Beza counsels,
the mercy of our Lord God is immense, even in the last breath of life.
And many such things often happen beyond all human hope (141).
The Future of Early Reformed Orthodoxy
Returning to the current state of scholarship into Beza and the develop-
ment of Reformed thought, we observe that new appraisals of Bezas
significance continue to appear, including an illustrated overview of
his life,39 a substantial collection of essays on Beza commemorating the
400th anniversary of his death,40 and studies of Beza as a humanist,41
a diplomat and leader of the Reformed cause,42 a theologian43 and a
39Willem Balke, et al., ed., Thodore de Bze: zijn leven, zijn werk (Kampen: Kok, 2012).
40Backus, ed., Thodore de Bze.
41E.g. Scott M. Manetsch, Psalms before Sonnets: Theodore Beza and the Studia
Humanitatis, in Continuity and Change, ed. Bast and Gow (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 400416.
42Scott M. Manetsch, Theodore Beza and the Quest for Peace in France, 15721598
(Leiden: Brill, 2000).
43See, e.g., Jeffrey Mallinsons outstanding study, Faith, Reason, and Revelation in
Theodore Beza 15191605 (Oxford: OUP, 2003).
pastor.44 A careful examination of his works still leads to the conclusion

that Beza emphasizes not the development of a predestinarian system of
theology but the application of election to the life of piety. His purpose in
preaching and teaching election, even in preaching the doctrine of the
double decree, is the assurance of the elect.45 Freed from a misleading
caricature and a suspect narrative, future scholars of Beza and the devel-
opment of Reformed thought have much to explore.
44Shawn D. Wright, Our Sovereign Refuge: The Pastoral Theology of Theodore Beza
(Carlisle: Paternoster, 2004); cf. Jill Raitt, Beza, Guide for the Faithful Life, Scottish Journal
of Theology 39.1 (1986): 83107.
45Muller, Decree, 80.
FROM PROFESSORS TO PASTORS:
THE CONVOLUTED CAREERS OF JEAN DIODATI AND
THODORE TRONCHIN
Karin Maag
Beginning in the mid-sixteenth century, the republic of Geneva, located

on the border between France, Savoy, and the Swiss lands, had gained a
reputation as a leading center of Reformed theology and teaching. Led by
John Calvin, ably seconded by Theodore Beza, the Genevan church served
as a reference point for Reformed believers. Its academy, officially founded
in 1559 and offering both a Latin school and university-level education,
attracted students from across Europe. While some came for very practical
reasons, specifically to receive the necessary training in biblical exegesis
and preaching to become pastors, others were drawn to the intellectual
reputation of the Genevan Academy, even after Calvins death in 1564.
Later renowned professors, including Lambert Daneau, Isaac Casaubon,
and Franois Hotman, all contributed to the academys aura.1 Yet by the
early seventeenth century, the situation of Genevas church and academy
had deteriorated, mostly because the Genevan church and magistrates
could not seem to attract and retain men of sufficient caliber to replace
the previous generation of leaders who by the turn of the century were
increasingly elderly.
This contribution will focus on one particular extended episode in the
first decade of the seventeenth century, in which a three-cornered debate
surfaced beginning in 1606 between the magistrates, pastors, and profes-
sors of Geneva over possible solutions for the acute shortage of qualified
leading pastors for the Genevan churches. On the professors side, the
main protagonists were two young instructors, Jean Diodati and Thodore
Tronchin, both of whom were at the start of their academic careers
and were requested by the magistrates to combine their pre-existing
teaching responsibilities with pastoral charges, to fill the gaps in Genevan
ministerial ranks. Diodati and Tronchin repeatedly refused to comply,
1For more on the history of the Genevan Academy in its first sixty years, see Karin
Maag, Seminary or University? The Genevan Academy and Reformed Higher Education
(Aldershot: Scolar, 1995). All three men listed served as professors prior to 1600: see 4154
and 7172.
244 karin maag
arguing that the added responsibilities would over-extend them and, by

extension, harm the academy. While the Company of Pastors echoed the
professors concerns, they did eventually join the magistrates in pressing
Diodati and Tronchin to accept these new roles. This contribution will
argue that the roots of this conflict went deeper than a debate over the
appropriate parameters of professors responsibilities, and instead sig-
naled a sea change in the perceived importance of scholarly work and in
the power balance between government and ecclesiastical authorities in
seventeenth-century Geneva, particularly over the selection and appoint-
ment of pastors.
In November 1605, Theodore Beza died, at the age of eighty-six. He had
led the Genevan church following Calvins death in 1564, and his lengthy
period at the helm had fostered a period of relatively harmonious rela-
tions between church and state in Geneva.2 However, perhaps because
Beza was the dominant figure in the Genevan church for so long, and
because of his emphasis on continuing in the same paths traced by Calvin,
little sustained thought had been given to any plans to renew or rejuve-
nate the Genevan pastorate. At the same time, the needs of other Reformed
churches for strong and dedicated leadership, especially in France, meant
that young and promising pastors were regularly lent or sent permanently
from Geneva to distant churches, making these ministers unavailable for
service in the city. Thus, at the time of Bezas death, many of the other pas-
tors in Geneva were men who had been at the peak of their powers in the
1560s, 1570s, or 1580s. By the early seventeenth century, a group photograph
of the Genevan Company of Pastors could have served as advertising for a
retirement community. In 1605, Antoine de La Faye and Jean Pinault were
sixty-five, Charles Perrot was sixty-four, while Simon Goulart and Jean
Jaquemot were both sixty-two.3 These five men constituted the core of the
Company, and they all had been serving in city pulpits for twenty-five
years or more. They were joined in their work by a few younger colleagues:
David Le Boiteux was fifty, Abraham Grenet was forty-eight, and the junior
member was Gabriel Cusin, who at thirty-one had only been serving in a
2Eugene Choisy, LEtat Chrtien calviniste Genve au temps de Thodore de Bze

(Geneva: Eggimann, 1902), 819. See also Thodore de Bze: Actes du colloque de Genve
(Septembre 2005), ed. Backus (Geneva: Droz, 2007).
3The sheer fact of their age was not the only problem. A number of these men were also
in failing health: in 1606, the Company of Pastors noted the ill-health of our brother
Monsieur Perrot, who is becoming increasingly sickly. See the Registres de la compagnie
des Pasteurs de Genve, ed. Campagnolo et al. (Geneva: Droz, 1989), 9:210 (hereafter,
Registres, 9).
the convoluted careers of diodati & tronchin 245
city pulpit for two years by 1605.4 Geneva urgently needed a few more
younger men to take up leadership positions in the Genevan church, espe-
cially as the older members of the Company began to fail in health.
Because Geneva was a state church, pastors and magistrates shared the
responsibility for oversight of the church. The magistrates controlled and
paid the pastors salaries and ratified their appointment, while the
Company of Pastors carried out the day-to-day oversight of the church and
selected and presented candidates for ministry to the magistrates and the
people for their approval.
The precipitating cause of the conflict between the magistrates and
pastors of Geneva over appointments to the citys pulpits was the death of
Jean Pinault in September 1606. His death left a hole in the roster of pas-
tors for the city, one that could not easily be filled by stretching the remain-
ing city pastors duties, especially given the advanced age of many of them.
The usual tactic followed by the Company of Pastors when a vacancy
emerged in the city was to promote one of the pastors who served Genevas
rural parishes. This practice had been followed since the 1540s, and indeed
this career progression from a sequence of rural parishes where a pastor
gained experience, to a city pulpit as the culmination of ones career, was
the expected path for promising ministers. Following the death of Jean
Pinault, therefore, the Company of Pastors prepared to review the capaci-
ties and prospects of its rural clergy to promote one of them to the vacancy
in the city. However, at this point, the Genevan Small Council (the citys
ruling body of twenty-five magistrates) intervened, and stated that their
preferred solution was not to promote one of the pastors from the coun-
tryside but instead to have two of the professors in the Genevan Academy
add pastoral duties to their academic responsibilities. This strategy was
meant as a temporary solution, until the return of an up-and-coming pas-
tor and Genevan citizen, Jean Chauve, who was serving churches in France
at the time, and whom the magistrates felt would be a strong candidate to
replace Pinault.5 The two professors in question in 1606 were Jean Diodati
and Gaspard Laurent. Diodati, born in 1576, had been teaching Hebrew at
the Genevan Academy since 1597 and theology since 1599, while the older
Laurent, born in 1556, had become the academys professor of Greek
in 1597.6
4Information on the ages and lifespans of these pastors comes from the biographical
entries in Henri Heyer, Lglise de Genve 15551909 (Geneva: Jullien, 1909).
5Registres, 9:206.
6See Heyer, LEglise de Genve, and Maag, Seminary or University?, 197. On Diodatis
early career, see E. de Bud, Vie de Jean Diodati, thologien genevois 15761649 (Lausanne:
246 karin maag
It is worth pausing to analyze the magistrates rationale for opposing

the Companys long-standing practice of promoting rural pastors to vacant
city pulpits. According to the editors of the Registres de la compagnie des
pasteurs, the magistrates priority was to have Genevan citizens serve in
city pulpits.7 In this period, most of the pastors serving Geneva were either
born in France or were born in Geneva but were the sons of fathers who
had also been born outside Geneva. Thus these men were not classified as
Genevan citizens, since a citizen was someone born to another citizen or
to a bourgeois of the city. Why would the city fathers care so much about
the citizenship of its leading pastors? In part, it seems, the magistrates
wanted to ensure that the city pastors were more firmly under the citys
controlcitizens had a strong responsibility to defend and uphold the
citys honor, and to support the citys priorities. It was also more difficult
for a citizen to follow career opportunities elsewhere, since his primary
loyalty was to be to his own community. Thus the magistrates preferred to
have pastors who were loyal, obedient, and firmly rooted in the city of
their birth.8 Given the simmering jurisdictional conflicts between the
Genevan pastors and magistrates at the start of the seventeenth century,
the governments preference for citizens when filling vacancies in the cler-
ical corps is understandable. Furthermore, it seems that the magistrates
were keen to recruit men of strong and proven reputations as preachers
for the city pulpits, and were not convinced that the practice of promoting
a junior and relatively unknown pastor from the Genevan countryside
would do much to enhance the reputation of the city.
In spite of the magistrates hopes, Jean Chauve never returned to
Geneva to serve as a pastor.9 Once it was clear that Chauve would not
come back, the magistrates increased their demands to have professors
of the Genevan Academy add pastoral duties to their teaching loads. The
magistrates saw no problem in having the professors take on both sets
Bridel, 1869), 2527. For more on Diodatis life, see William McComish, The Epigones:
A Study of the Theology of the Genevan Academy at the Time of the Synod of Dordt, with spe-
cial reference to Giovanni Diodati (Allison Park: Pickwick, 1989), 15.
7Registres de la Compagnie des Pasteurs de Genve, ed. Gabriella Cahier et al. (Geneva:
Droz, 1991), 10:4, footnote (hereafter, Registres, 10).
8In December 1606, for instance, when the Company of Pastors wanted to nominate
Samuel Perrot (bourgeois of Geneva since 1601) to a city pulpit, the Small Council refused
to approve the nomination, and instead called on the Company to choose Matthieu
Scarron, a citizen with a lengthy Genevan lineage. See the Registres, 9:225, footnote.
9Chauve did come back in person to Geneva in 1608 to preach and to explain why he
could not turn his back on the French churches that had called him to their service. See
Registres, 10:8991.
of responsibilities: as the minutes of the Company of Pastors report in

June 1608,
they [the magistrates] feel we should make use of the professors, by laying
hands on [ordaining] Messieurs Diodati and Tronchin, so that they can pro-
vide assistance as needed. And there should be no reason to object, given
that they preach at the congrgations in the presence of the people, and that
preaching and teaching are not incompatible charges.10
By 1608, Gaspard Laurent was no longer the magistrates first choice.
Instead, they favored adding the young and talented Thodore Tronchin to
the pastoral roster. Tronchin, born in 1582, had become professor of
Hebrew in 1606.11 Thus the Small Council members felt that it made sense
to make use of the two young professors abilities to help fill the gaps in the
pastoral ranks, and saw no reason why Tronchin and Diodati should not
combine their teaching and preaching responsibilities. In many ways,
their position made sense. Professors of theology, Greek, Hebrew, and
humanities were automatically members of the Company of Pastors, and
as such, were expected to attend and participate in the weekly congrga-
tions or preaching practice sessions. Thus their skill set and well-integrated
role within the Company of Pastors would make them ideally suited to
extend their pastoral responsibilities even further and take on more of the
tasks of a Genevan pastor. Furthermore, the Small Council had historical
precedent on its side, since both Calvin and Beza had combined their pas-
toral and teaching responsibilities throughout their careers. However, it
must be noted that both Calvin and Beza were pastors first and foremost,
and saw their teaching duties as part of their overall mission in Geneva.
In the case of Tronchin and Diodati, there is no question that these two
men were professors first, and the Small Council was asking them to take
on new responsibilities by having them serve as pastors in Geneva.
However, the Company of Pastors did not react favorably to this scheme.
In the same month, responding to the Small Councils demand, the
Genevan pastors noted the problems inherent in having a serving profes-
sor combine teaching and preaching roles:
It is not appropriate or reasonable to establish a volunteer or honorary min-
istry, given that such a move not only demeans the charge but also cannot
provide the needed relief. Indeed, those who are called to the ministry have
10Registres, 10:87.
11See Heyer, Lglise de Genve and Maag, Seminary or University? 197. For more on
Tronchins life, see McComish, The Epigones, 3234.
248 karin maag
to swear an oath, be presented, and follow the standard procedures: there-

fore this must also be a full ministry. If our brothers are called to this role,
they will have to oversee a district, attend the Consistory on the requisite
days, and fulfill all the parts of their ministry.12
In other words, the Company of Pastors felt that having Tronchin and
Diodati undertake only certain duties of ministry (such as Sunday or
weekday preaching) to help fill the gaps was almost the worst possible
solution. On the one hand, such a move would introduce a two-tier system
of pastors: some with full and others with partial responsibilities, thus
weakening the status and authority of the ministry according to the
Company of Pastors. On the other hand, having Diodati and Tronchin ful-
fill all the duties of ministry would clearly be too much for the two men,
given their teaching duties. Furthermore, filling the gaps in the pastoral
ranks by making use of the academys professors would take away oppor-
tunities for advancement from promising rural pastors, who might legiti-
mately feel slighted and cast aside if professors were made pastors ahead
of them. Instead, on 8 July 1608, the Company of Pastors reiterated to the
Small Council its desire to select a new pastor for the city from among the
clergy currently serving in Genevas rural hinterland.13
It seems the two professors in question agreed with the Companys per-
spective on the difficulties inherent in pursuing both occupations simulta-
neously; already in January 1607, when Diodati had been asked by the
Company to consider the Small Councils request to have him serve as pro-
fessor and pastor, he replied that for many reasons he is totally unable to
agree to this, given his illness and especially at the moment his very impor-
tant projects that prevent him from agreeing.14 Diodati was a prolific
scholar, who brought out an Italian translation of the Bible and biblical
annotations in 1607 and an Italian translation of the Psalms in 1608.15
When Diodati and Tronchin were approached again in June 1608, they
both replied in the negative: Tronchin simply said he could not accept the
position of pastor at the moment, while Diodati elaborated, stating that
while both he and his parents had wanted him to become a pastor, he
could not do so for the time being given his other responsibilities. He also
stated that he could not accept the full responsibilities of the pastorate,
12Registres, 10:91.
13Registres, 10:96.
14Registres, 10:34.
15Registres, 10:4, footnote.
which he could not manage alongside the teaching of theology.16 Though

both men said no to the idea of serving as pastors at the current time, they
left enough of a door open that the proposal kept recurring in the follow-
ing weeks and months.
By July 1608, a concrete proposal was in place to have Thodore Tronchin
take on one specific ministerial task, namely to teach the catechism on
Sunday afternoons, and celebrate any baptisms that might ordinarily take
place during that service. By this point, it seems that the attitude of the
Company of Pastors had changed, since the minutes state:
Following the prayer, our brother Monsieur Tronchin was strongly urged and
requested to accept the charge of catechizing, which will be that much eas-
ier for him in that he will have no other ministerial task apart from baptizing
if needed and leading the catechism. He will not have any assigned parish or
district, nor will he have to attend the Consistory meetings, nor, if he desires,
will he need to be presented to Messieurs [the Small Council] or to the popu-
lation as he would do if he had a full and complete ministry.17
So why had the Company of Pastors changed its views so rapidly on assign-
ing pastoral duties to professors, and on the validity of a partial ministry?
One possible answer is that the pressure of pastoral responsibilities on the
remaining members of the Company of Pastors had become too much,
and practical considerations ended up outweighing points of principle.
Yet a more cogent reason for the Companys about-face stems from the
Small Councils concurrent plan to bring in yet another rising Genevan
star currently serving in France to fill the pastoral shortfall in the city. After
Jean Chauve had declined the citys efforts to call him back, the Small
Council turned its attention towards recruiting Michel Le Faucheur, who
was at the time serving the church of Annonay in France.18 The Company
of Pastors resisted the Small Councils plan, ostensibly on the grounds that
Le Faucheur was already committed to his French congregation, and that
it was wrong to try to snatch him back to Geneva.19 Yet it seems clear
that underlying the Company of Pastors opposition was their concern at
having the Small Council taking the lead role in selecting and assigning
pastors for the city, when the Genevan clergy were determined to keep
that prerogative in their hands. In a memorable encounter on 29 July 1608,
the magistrates voiced their frustration at what they saw as the pastors
16Registres, 10:92.
17Registres, 10:97.
18Registres, 10:9697.
250 karin maag
delaying tactics and lack of support for the governments plan. The civil
authorities argued that they had precedent on their side for being the driv-
ing force in the attempt to recall Le Faucheur to Geneva, recalling very
clearly that when the late Monsieur Calvin was in Strasbourg, the mem-
bers of the Council of Two Hundred were the ones who cried out with one
voice Calvinum volumus, and wrote to him without informing the pastors
who were in the city at the time.20 In response, the Company of Pastors
noted firmly, we have our rules and ordinances which we have sworn to
uphold, and we cannot deviate from them. According to them, the elec-
tion [of pastors] is in our hands.21 Furthermore, the editors of the minutes
of the Company of Pastors suggest that Le Faucheurs strong personality
threatened to overshadow other members of the Company who were
therefore unwilling to have him join their group.22 Thus, to counter the
Small Councils contention that the situation in Geneva was desperate and
that more qualified pastors were urgently needed, the Company was will-
ing to consider the lesser evil of a partial ministry undertaken by Tronchin
in this instance. By September 1608, Tronchin began leading the catechism
service on Sunday afternoons at La Madeleine, one of Genevas three
churches.23
By November 1608, it was Diodatis turn: the Company of Pastors
reminded him of his willingness to consider a ministerial position. In
response, Diodati indicated that while he was willing to serve as pastor, he
wanted to restrict his involvement to one duty per week, taking into
account his responsibilities as professor of theology. But by now, the
Company of Pastors was convinced that having professors serve as pastors
was the way forward, and his fellow ministers refused to do anything more
than promise not to overburden him. At the same meeting, the Company
agreed to notify the Small Council of Diodatis entry into ordained minis-
try with a full charge, including the oversight of a district and attending
Consistory meetings as needed.24 So much for not overburdening their
new colleague in ministry.
It would seem therefore that by the fall of 1608, the situation had been
resolved, and Tronchin and Diodati were providing pastoral services to
the Genevan church alongside their work in the academy. However, the
records of the Company of Pastors and the Small Council show that the
22Registres, 9:122; and Haag1, 6:493494.
23Registres, 10:99.
debate over the professors pastoral duties, and, crucially, over their pasto-
ral oaths, stretched all the way into 1612, some four years later. Already in
December 1608, shortly before Tronchin and Diodati were to be officially
presented to the people as pastors, and were to swear the customary oath
of office, Tronchin objected, stating at the Company of Pastors meeting
that he did not desire nor had he promised to devote himself fully to min-
istry and carry out all the duties that come with it, nor did he want to bind
himself to this by the oath.25 His pastoral colleagues attempted to reas-
sure him by saying that he could declare his caveats to the magistrates in
order to maintain a clearer conscience. And as for the responsibilities, he
will not be compelled or constrained beyond what he was freely and
clearly willing to do.26 There is no record as to whether Tronchin did
notify the magistrates of his unwillingness to fulfill all the tasks of ordained
ministry, but it is clear that for both men their teaching responsibilities
remained paramount. In November 1611, for instance, the minutes of the
Small Council note that there were renewed problems in ensuring pasto-
ral services in Geneva due to the advanced age of some of Genevas clergy
and because the Srs. Diodati and Tronchin are busy teaching theology.27
It would seem, therefore, that the professors were in fact only providing
occasional assistance to their ministerial colleagues, in spite of the ongo-
ing shortfall of Genevan pastors.
By 1612, the Small Council once again decided to tackle the problem of
the lack of ministerial personnel. On 30 June 1612, the Small Council min-
utes record the following encounter between magistrates and ministers:
Messieurs [the magistrates] do not wish to increase the number of ministers
currently serving this church, both to spare the population these salary costs
and because there are several professors who could carry out some pastoral
duties. However, having carefully examined all these reasons, [the pastors]
feel it is impossible to take the professors away from their teaching duties
and from the school, which is no less important to the population, and for
which almost as much care is needed as for the church itself. The professors
cannot be expected to carry out district visits. All they can do is to relieve
some of the other pastors from some of their preaching duties.28
This time around, the pastors response highlighted the needs of the
Genevan Academy and emphasized the crucial role played by Diodati and
Tronchin in their teaching functions. If Tronchin and Diodati had been
27Archives dEtat de Genve, Registres du Conseil 108, fol. 282r.
28Archives dEtat de Genve, Registres du Conseil 109, fol. 164r.
252 karin maag
carrying out the full duties of ministry as had been suggested in 1608, this
discussion in 1612 would have made little sense. One can infer, therefore,
that in fact the Company of Pastors had only made minimal use of Diodati
and Tronchin in pastoral tasks in the intervening years, and had allowed
them to devote the bulk of their attention to their teaching. Indeed, the
Company of Pastors reluctance to have the academys professors fulfill a
greater amount of pastoral duties could also have served to pressure the
Small Council to provide more money for new pastoral positions, assum-
ing, of course, that the Company would continue to have the first say over
the candidates selected to fill these positions.
Even more tellingly, in November 1612, the matter of the ministerial
oath for professors resurfaced, with Diodati and Tronchin both objecting
that they did not want to swear the oath for pastors, because they had
already sworn the oath of loyalty as professors, and they felt that first oath
was sufficient. In particular, the two men stated that they do not want to
conform to everything that appears in the ministerial oath, such as visiting
the sick, oversight of the districts, and attending the Consistory. The two
men reiterated that they were willing to preach, but nothing further,
declaring that they feel bound to their first charge as the main one, and
that they cannot take on two full loads.29 If the two men had indeed
sworn their oath of loyalty as pastors in 1608, this discussion would have
been be pointless in 1612. In this instance, both the Company of Pastors
and the Small Council replied that taking the oath was in fact compulsory,
though the Small Council noted that the professors would not have to visit
the sick, oversee districts, or deal with the Consistory.30 Their response to
the professors concerns was in fact more understanding than that of the
Company of Pastors, who promptly assigned the professors to a district,
albeit one shared between the two of them.31 Once again, it seems that the
Genevan clergys pragmatism won the day: if the Small Council was bound
and determined to have Diodati and Tronchin be pastors, then the
Company wanted to be the one organizing and overseeing the two mens
duties. From then on, Diodati and Tronchins responsibilities in the church
increased, culminating in their service as the two Genevan delegates to
the Synod of Dordt in 1618.32
29Archives dEtat de Genve, Registres du Conseil 110, fol. 65 rv.

30Archives dEtat de Genve, Registres du Conseil 110, fol. 65 rv.
32On the two mens contributions to the Synod of Dordt, see De Bud, Vie de Jean
Diodati, 113136; and McComish, The Epigones, 34, 3234, and 46126.
The six-year-long effort to get two of the most promising professors of

the Genevan Academy to join the ranks of the Genevan clergy is instruc-
tive on many levels. Thodore Tronchin and Jean Diodatis approach to the
issue was consistent: their reluctance to take on pastoral duties stemmed
from their awareness of the burdens inherent in trying to pursue two dif-
ferent careers simultaneously, and from their understandable commit-
ment to their primary calling, to teach. The Small Councils approach to
the shortage of Genevan pastors was creative, as they pursued with deter-
mination a two-pronged approach of recalling talented Genevan pastors
currently serving in France and pressuring the best Genevan professors to
take on ministerial duties. When the first strategy largely failed, due to the
increasing strength and determination of the French churches to retain
their pastors regardless of their city of origin, the Small Council turned its
attention to its second tack, and consistently insisted on its right to restruc-
ture and redistribute responsibilities among pastors and professors in
Geneva. For their part, the Company of Pastors tactics were the least
coherent. Faced with a shortage of clergy, yet unwilling to defer to the
Small Council by recalling Genevan pastors serving in France, the
Company pursued a vacillating strategy. Although at times they supported
Diodati and Tronchin in their commitment to their teaching, the Company
also was willing to strong-arm the professors into service as substitute pas-
tors so long as the Companys oversight of the Genevan church was main-
tained in the process. While Diodati and Tronchin were undoubtedly
assets for the Genevan church, the process of moving them more firmly
into pastoral roles shed light on all the fissures in the relationship between
the church and civil authorities in Geneva. At the end of the day, the Small
Councils plans for dealing with the ministerial shortfall won out, but at a
cost: the Genevan Academys priorities were subsumed to the needs of the
Genevan church, and the Company of Pastors came face to face with the
reality of its increasing inability to oversee and organize pastoral provision
in the city as it saw fit.
SWISS STUDENTS AND FACULTY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF
HEIDELBERG, 15181622
Charles D. Gunnoe Jr.
The prominent position of the Electoral Palatinate as the major outpost of

Reformed Protestantism in the politics and culture of the Holy Roman
Empire in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century is well known.
While the Palatine Reformed movement was rooted in the region of the
Palatinate itself and neighboring imperial cities such as Strasbourg, the
full flowering of Reformed intellectual life in Heidelberg would not have
been possible without a substantial infusion of intellectual capital from
outside the territory. While in time distinct Dutch, Silesian, and French
streams would all make an impression on the Palatine Reformation, in the
mid-sixteenth century, influences from German Switzerland and the asso-
ciate francophone city of Geneva were decisive in molding the distinct
Reformed culture of the Palatinate.
This survey seeks to track the influence by analyzing the demographic
history of the Swiss students and faculty of the University of Heidelberg.1
Swiss faculty members Thomas Erastus, Johann Jakob Grynaeus, and later
1I extend my gratitude to Erik Gunnoe for preparing the demographic tables that but-
tress this study. The chief source for the demographic analysis is Gustav Toepke, et al., Die
Matrikel der Universitt Heidelberg (Heidelberg, 18721920). The matriculation list itself is
a monument to the quality of primary source scholarship done in this pioneering era. The
current study is based on an analysis of the text with extensive cross-referencing of the
indices to develop the tables of matriculants from the Swiss cantons. As the early modern
matriculation lists themselves were often opaque and the precision of the nineteenth-
century editors in solving all of the geographic riddles does not always stand up to close
scrutiny, readers should note that a modest margin of error must be factored into the anal-
ysis. Nevertheless, the matriculants data is largely complete and long-term enrollment
trends are quite manifest. Furthermore, since faculty, short-term visitors, and long-term
students all appear on the matriculation list, the term matriculants is not limited to stu-
dents. A precise geographical definition of Switzerland in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries is also elusive. Some teleology regarding what later became Switzerland no doubt
influenced the late nineteenth-century editors. The early modern recorders themselves
appeared to regard the Vaud (under Bernese control through most of the period) and
Graubnden as quasi-Swiss. While Geneva was only a marginal associate of the Swiss
Confederation in the sixteenth century, it demands inclusion due to its overweening intel-
lectual and religious importance to the region. The sources are available online as Die
Matrikel der Universitt Heidelberg 13861920 digital (http://www.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/
helios/digi/unihdmatrikel.html).
256 charles d. gunnoe jr.
Johann Heinrich Hottinger played crucial roles in establishing, consolidat-

ing, and reigniting the Reformed confession. The prominence of Swiss
faculty members facilitated the matriculation of large cohorts of stu-
dentsfrom the major centers of Protestantism in Switzerland. The influx
of Swiss students at the university, which reached its apex around the turn
of the seventeenth century, offers a concrete metric to track the ebb and
flow of Reformed influence. On the one hand, the increasing numbers
of Swiss students at the university paralleled the warming political and
religious connections of the Palatinate with Zurich, Bern, and Basel from
the mid-sixteenth century onward. On the other hand, the attraction
of the University of Heidelberg for elite Swiss students was also a testi-
mony to the dominant place of the university in early modern Reformed
culture.
Prologue
While the Palatinate famously played host to the debut of Martin Luthers
theology of the cross in the Heidelberg Disputation of 1518, the terri-
torydid not publically adhere to the Protestant cause during the reign of
Elector Ludwig V (15081544).2 The early evangelical movement, however,
made a deep impression on the territory. For example, before confessional
identity became an absolute shibboleth, prominent Protestants such as
Martin Frecht (14941556) and Johannes Brenz (14991570) served on the
university faculty in the 1520s. While the majority of the faculty remained
Catholic, Protestant-minded students may have been a majority.
After this first wave passed, the university became something of an
intellectual backwater largely due to its poor financial state.3 The stu-
dentbody came predominately from neighboring dioceses in Franconia
and Swabia. While the Heidelberg court had been a prominent location
2See Charles D. Gunnoe Jr., The Reformation of the Palatinate and the Origins of the
Heidelberg Catechism, 15001562, in An Introduction to the Heidelberg Catechism: Sources,
History, and Theology, ed. Lyle D. Bierma et al. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), 1547; Volker
Press, Calvinismus und Territorialstaat: Regierung und Zentralbehorden der Kurpfalz 1559
1619 (Stuttgart: Ernst Klett, 1970); Meinrad Schaab, Geschichte der Kurpfalz, 2 vols. (Stuttgart:
Kohlhammer, 19881992); Eike Wolgast, Die Universitt Heidelberg 13861986 (Berlin:
Springer, 1986); idem, Reformierte Konfession und Politik im 16. Jahrhundert (Heidelberg:
Universittsverlag C. Winter, 1998); Christoph Strohm, Joseph Freedman and Herman
J. Selderuis, eds., Spthumanismus und reformierte Konfession: Theologie, Jurisprudenz und
Philosophie in Heidelberg an der Wende zum 17. Jahrhundert (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck,
2006).
3Wolgast, Die Universitt Heidelberg, 26; Press, Calvinismus und Territorialstaat, 174.
swiss students & faculty at the university of heidelberg 257
in early sixteenth-century Rhineland humanism, connections between

Switzerland and the Palatinate were rather limited in the second quarter
of the sixteenth century. Only seven Swiss students attended the University
of Heidelberg in the 25-year period between the Heidelberg Disputation
and ascension of Frederick II in 1544.4
In the early sixteenth century, Switzerland was much more on the
receiving end of intellectual talent from Heidelberg than vice versa. The
native Palatine Johannes Oecolampadius (14821531) served the Wittels
bach court and briefly on the arts faculty before permanently moving
to the University of Basel in 1523. Similarly, Simon Grynaeus the Elder
(1493/941541) and Sebastian Mnster (14881552) migrated from Heidel
berg to the University of Basel in 1529. Oecolampadius, Grynaeus, and
Mnster represent a moderate, humanistic strain within the early Refor
mation, and thus it is fitting that these Heidelbergers would play a central
role in planting this tradition in Basel.5
There was a tentative move toward Protestantism during the reign of
Elector Frederick II (15441556), but the electors commitment to the
evangelical faith was at odds with his Habsburg alliance. The defeat of the
Protestant forces in the Schmalkaldic War forced him to shelve the nascent
magisterial Reformation of the Palatinate. He endeavored to strengthen
the financial basis of the university and thus contributed to the universi-
tys revival in the second half of the century. The number of Swiss students
increased modestly during the reign of Frederick, but still only averaged in
the neighborhood of one student every two years.6
The University of Heidelbergs turn toward Switzerland and the
Reformed confession began in earnest during the reign of Ottheinrich
(15561559). Ottheinrich was a free-spending patron of the arts who had
a special affection for the university and its famed Bibliotheca Palatina.
His own broad Melanchthonian Lutheran leanings left him open to the
recruitment of highly qualified Reformed intellectuals, and he brought
many talented academics to Heidelberg in his brief reign. The individuals
4Toepke, Die Matrikel, 1:510587; on early Humanism in the Palatinate, see Henry
J. Cohn, The Early Renaissance Court in Heidelberg, European Studies Review 1 (1971):
295322.
5Oecolampadius first left Heidelberg for Basel in 1515. He returned in the 1520s only to
leave definitively for Basel in 1523 after failing to secure a post at the university. Cf. Dagmar
Drll, ed., Heidelberger Gelehrtenlexikon 13861651 (Berlin: Springer, 2002), 190191; 397399;
420421.
6Wolgast, Die Universitt Heidelberg, 29; Toepke, Die Matrikel, 1:598617. There were
seven Swiss students from 15441556.
who proved the most significant for moving the Palatinate in the Reformed
direction were the Augsburg jurist and political councilor Christoph Ehem
(15281592), the former Carmelite theologian Pierre Boquin (d. 1582), and
the polymath physician Thomas Erastus (15241583). While being one of
the primary points of contact with the earlier tradition of the Zwinglian
flavored Upper-German Reformation, Ehem possessed close connec-
tionswith the Swiss and in time became a chief advocate for installing
Genevan-style reform in the Palatinate.7 The Frenchman Boquin had stud-
ied at Wittenberg and Basel, and briefly served as John Calvins successor
in Strasbourg. If not Swiss himself, he possessed a firm orientation toward
Switzerland in general and Geneva in particular and would conclude his
career in the service of the Bernese in Lausanne.8 From Baden in modern
Aargau, Erastus had studied at the University of Basel and possessed close
contacts with church leaders in Bern and Zurich, especially Konrad
Pellikan and Heinrich Bullinger.9 Erastus would serve as a virtual clearing
house for all things related to the Swiss Germans in the 1560s and 1570s,
and his large surviving correspondence in Basel and Zurich documents
the depth of these relations. The French jurist and historian Franois
Baudouin (15201573) also joined the faculty in this era. Baudouins close
connections to Calvin and the Genevans made his reconversion to Cathol
icism in 1561 all the more embarrassing. The reign of Ottheinrich laid the
basis for the coming surge of Swiss Reformed influence upon the Palatinate
even though only two Swiss students actually matriculated during his
brief reign (see Figure 1).
Reformed Heidelberg I:
The Reign of Frederick III the Pious (15591576)
Reformed Christianity and pervasive Swiss influence would blossom fully

in the reign of Frederick III the Pious. Fredericks transition from a moder-
ate Lutheran understanding of the Lords Supper to a Reformed one was
marked by various steps in the years from 1559 to 1564. These steps included
the release of the contentious Lutheran superintendent Tilemann Hes
husius, holding the Heidelberg Lords Supper Disputation in 1560, and
7See Ekkehart Fabian, Christoph von Ehem, in NDB, 4:342; Press, Calvinismus und
Territorialstaat, passim.
8Drll, Heidelberger Gelehrtenlexikon 13861651, 4849.
9Charles D. Gunnoe, Thomas Erastus and the Palatinate: A Renaissance Physician in the
Second Reformation (Leiden: Brill, 2011).
finally commissioning the Heidelberg Catechism and church order in

15621563.10 Almost every major player involved in enacting these steps
had had substantial Swiss connections. Ehem and Boquin remained
active, and Erastus in particular played a key role in reconstituting the
theological faculty in the wake of the Heidelberg Lords Supper Dispu
tation. While Wolfgang Musculus in Bern and Peter Martyr Vermigli in
Zurich declined invitations to join the Heidelberg faculty, the Silesian
Zacharias Ursinus (15341583) and the Italian Jewish convert Imman
uel Tremellius (15101580) accepted the call. The Melanchthon student
Ursinus had capped his education with a sojourn in Switzerland and
was particularly close to the Zurichers. Likewise the legally trained
Caspar Olevianus (15361587) from Trier, who briefly joined the theol-
ogy faculty from 15611562 and later became the chief organizer of
the Palatine church along Genevan lines, had studied in Zurich and
Geneva and remained especially close to Calvin and Theodore Beza.11
When Ursinus resigned his post at the university to focus on his work
at the Sapience College (Collegium Sapientiae)an institution founded
by Ottheinrich and repurposed as a theological seminary by Elector
FrederickGirolamo Zanchi (15161590) took his place at the univer-
sity.12 The Italian Zanchi had worked in Strasbourg and more recently in
Chiavenna, an Italian enclave controlled by Graubnden, an associate of
the Swiss Confederacy.13
Such strong connections to the leaders of the Swiss churches opened
the doors to a wave of Swiss matriculants at the university. While the uni-
versity had never averaged even one student per year in any prior decade,
there were twelve matriculants in 1562 alonethe year of the composi-
tion of the Heidelberg Catechism.
The high point of Swiss German influence came in the early-to-mid
1560s, and Bullinger, Zwinglis successor and the head of the church in
10August Kluckhohn, Friedrich der Fromme, Kurfrst von der Pfalz, der Schtzer der
reformirten Kirche, 15591576 (Nrdlingen: C.H. Beck, 1879); Gunnoe, Thomas Erastus,
51139.
11See Gunnoe, Thomas Erastus; Erdmann K. Sturm, Der junge Zacharias Ursin: Sein Weg
vom Philippismus zum Calvinismus (Neuenkirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1972); Andreas
Mhling, Caspar Olevian 15361587: Christ, Kirchenpolitiker und Theologe (Zug: Achius,
2008).
12Eike Wolgast, Das Collegium Sapientiae in Heidelberg im 16. Jahrhundert, Zeitschrift
fr die Geschichte des Oberrheins 147 (1999): 303318.
13Christopher Burchill, Die Universitt zu Heidelberg und der Fromme Kurfrst,
in Semper Apertus: Sechshundert Jahre Ruprecht-Karls-Universitt Heidelberg 13861986,
ed. Wilhelm Doerr et al. (Berlin: Springer, 1985), 1:231254.
Zurich, was frequently consulted as an external resource in this period.14

A few Swiss natives joined the faculty, including the great nephew of
Simon Grynaeus, Simon Grynaeus the younger (15391582), who would
serve on the arts faculty from 1563 to 1580. Grynaeus was born in Bern and
studied at the University of Basel. He also pursued medical studies, but
never secured a more lucrative post on the medical faculty. He enjoys a
small place of honor for procuring the first skeleton for anatomical instruc-
tion at the university in 1569.15
There was at least some local resentment of the Swiss influx in the
1560s. A prime example of this is the resistance to the attempt to have
the Swiss theologian Johannes Brunner appointed to the faculty of the
University of Heidelberg. Brunner was first sent out to work in a local par-
ish to take the edge off his Swiss accent. He was eventually appointed to
the arts faculty at the university, though his apparent cranky disposition
and advocacy of an unbending Zwinglian position on the Lords Supper
led to his release from the Palatinate in 1567.16
1568 would prove to be the first crest of popularity of Heidelberg for
Swiss students in the era of Frederick III with 19 matriculants. That year
the controversy over church discipline erupted in the Palatinate. While
Olevianus, Ehem, and many church leaders and court insiders were eager
to institute what they felt to be a purer biblical model of consistorial disci-
pline as practiced in Geneva and the church under the cross, Erastus and
his faction at the university and court were just as resolved to obstruct this
initiative. In keeping with Zwingli, Musculus, and Bullinger, Erastus felt
that oversight of morals was best left in the hands of the state in a Christian
polity. The controversy thus pitted the Genevan vision of discipline and
church-state relations against the traditions of Zurich and Bern. The fact
that the church authorities suppressed the sale of some of Bullingers own
writings is an indicator of the decline in influence of the Swiss Germans.
Bullinger and Rudolf Gwalther advanced their views on church discipline
directly with the elector to little effect.17
14Walter Hollweg, Der Augsburger Reichstag von 1566 und seine Bedeutung fr die
Entstehung der reformierten Kirche und ihres Bekenntnisses (Neukirchen-Vluyn:
Neukirchener, 1964); Andreas Mhling, Heinrich Bullingers europaische Kirchenpolitik
(Bern: Lang, 2001), 104130.
16Gunnoe, Thomas Erastus, 8283, 158160; Drll, Heidelberger Gelehrtenlexikon 1386
1651, 5455.
17Stimmen aus dem Schweizerischen Reformationszeitalter ber die Exkommunikation
oder den Kirchenbann (Bern, 1839); See Gunnoe, Thomas Erastus, 135260.
With the church disciplinary controversy, the Swiss faculty and student
community of Heidelberg also briefly held the unhappy reputation of
beinganursery of dissent and heresy. Imperial officials discovered an anti-
Trinitarian cell among Erastus anti-disciplinist partisans in 1570. Simon
Grynaeus the younger and the junior faculty member Timotheus Mader
from Thurgau were arrested and briefly imprisoned for allegedly assisting
the heretics.18 Erastus was later accused of harboring anti-Trinitarian
sentiments himself, although he was able to clear his name and to have
his fellow Swiss instructors released. The Bernese student Johann Hasler
(15481585) is the only Swiss person who seems to have actively espoused
anti-Trinitarian ideas. The church disciplinary controversy and the rough
handling of these Swiss faculty members at least temporarily soured rela-
tions between Geneva and Zurich and further undermined the Swiss German
influence upon the Palatinate in the closing years of Frederick IIIs reign.19
Reformed Heidelberg II: From the Exile to Triumph (15831622)
With the death of Frederick III, the Reformed confession and close rela-
tions with Switzerland would both be jettisoned by his Lutheran heir
Ludwig VI (15761583). While some Reformed professors remained at the
university in the period from the pious electors death until 1580, a reduced
number of Swiss matriculants appeared at the university. Count Palatine
Johann Casimir established an ersatz university at nearby Neustadt an der
Weinstrasse. The Casimirianum flourished in this period and the leading
theologians Ursinus and Zanchi moved there. With the adherence to the
Formula of Concord in 1580 and the departure of the last Reformed faculty
members, the Swiss pipeline nearly shut down completely at the univer-
sity with only three Swiss students matriculating from 1580 to 1583.
The Lutheran interlude represented by the reign of Ludwig VI came to
an end with his death in October 1583. While Ludwig was formally suc-
ceeded by his minor son Frederick IV (r. 15831610), the driving force in
return to the Reformed confession to the Electoral Palatinate was Ludwigs
brother Count Palatine Johann Casimir who dominated the Palatine

19Christopher Burchill, The Heidelberg Antitrinitarians (Baden-Baden: Editions
Valentin Koerner, 1989), passim, especially 180210; Friedrich Rudolf, Die Kirche in
Heidelberg nach den letzen Briefen Bullinger-Beza, Zwingliana 8 (1944): 95107; Gunnoe,
Thomas Erastus, 211260.
administration as Kuradministrator, or regent, from 1583 to 1592. Alongside

his father Frederick III, Johann Casimir must be regarded as one of the
most influential political supporters of Reformed Protestantism in the
sixteenth century. His earlier career had seen him lead two military cam-
paigns into France and the Netherlands on behalf of his co-religionists.
Johann Casimir sought to pursue a more irenic religious policy in the
Palatinate than that of his brother or father. While he envisioned the
Reformed Confession as occupying the lead role, he proclaimed freedom
of conscience for Lutherans as long as they would not defame the
Reformed position. Key figures from the administration of Frederick III
such as chancellor Ehem and the court preacher Daniel Tossanus (1541
1602) helped reestablish Reformed Protestantism.20 Johann Casimir called
upon the Basel theologian Johann Jakob Grynaeus (15401617) to reintro-
duce the Reformed faith at the University of Heidelberg in 1584. Johann
Jakob was the son of Thomas Grynaeus, professor in Bern, and great-
nephew of Simon Grynaeus the elder. More salient to the Heidelberg
context, he was the brother of Simon Grynaeus the younger and the
brother-in-law of Erastus.21 Grynaeus prepared the theses for a disputa-
tion on the Lords Supper at the university from 414 April 1584 and acted
as the chief Reformed disputant in the event, which focused on whether
Christs body was in the bread of the Lords Supper, so that it was given
from the hand of the minister to the communicant. The disputation was
attended by the regent and his councilors and a large crowd of students.
Not surprisingly the Lutheran party at the university objected to both the
legitimacy of the disputation itself as well as to Grynaeus Reformed posi-
tion. Nevertheless, at the conclusion of the disputation, the councilors
declared that the Reformed side had won. The contentious aftermath of
the disputation led to the dismissal of leading Lutheran faculty members
and preachers as well as the departure of many Lutheran students.22 But
20Press, Calvinismus und Territorialstaat, 299368.

21Born in Bern, Grynaeus studied at Basel and Tbingen, where he took his doctorate in
theology in 1564. After his fathers death, J.J. Grynaeus assumed his former post in Rteln in
the Markgrafschaft of Baden outside of Basel. His connection with Erastus had been espe-
cially close both intellectually and financially, and Erastus is generally credited with effect-
ing Johann Jakobs conversion from a Lutheran to a Reformed understanding of the Lords
Supper. See F. Wei, Johann Jakob Grynus, in Basler Biographien (Basel: B. Schwabe,
1900), 159199; Gunnoe, Thomas Erastus, 256259.
22Armin Kohnle, Die Heidelberger Disputation von 1584, in Zwischen Wissenschaft
und Politik, ed. Kohnle and Engehausen (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2001), 455472; Press, Calvinis
mus und Territorialstaat, 331; Wolgast, Die Universitt Heidelberg, 46; Friedrich W. Cuno,
Daniel Tossanus der ltere: Professor der Theologie und Pastor (15411602) (Amsterdam:
Grynaeus work in Heidelberg was short-lived. Because he had not been

able to secure his long-term release from Basel, he returned there in 1586,
where he succeeded his former mentor and later opponent, Simon Sulzer,
as Antistes. Nevertheless Grynaeus remained in contact with Heidelberg,
and his short service there played a catalytic role in restoring the Reformed
confession.
The period from 1584 to 1622 during the reigns of Frederick IV and later
Frederick V (16101623) would prove to be the second golden age of
Reformed intellectual life in Heidelberg. While the leaders of the earlier
golden age had all died by the late 1580s, their students were prominent in
the late sixteenth-century effervescence. Grynaeus was succeeded at the
university by Tossanus from the small territory of Montbliard in modern
France, not far from the German and Swiss borders. Montbliard was
ruled by the dukes of Wurttemberg and had been brought into the
Protestant sphere through the efforts of William Farel. Tossanus educa-
tion had been at the universities of Basel and Tbingen. Though not tech-
nically a Swiss native, Tossanus represented a Swiss theological viewpoint
and remained in continual contact with Zurich, Basel, and Geneva.23
Tremellius collaborator Franciscus Junius (15451602), who had stud-
ied in Geneva with Calvin and Beza, served as professor of Old Testa
mentat the university.24 Members of the Ursinus circle such as Jacobus
Kimedoncius (15541596) and Quirinus Reuter (15581613) were especially
influential in this era. The tradition of Erastus on the medical faculty
was kept alive by his students Theophil Mader of Thurgau (15411604)
and Henricus Smetius (15371614) of Flanders. The jurist and statesman
Hippolyt von Colli (15611612) was one of the few Swiss German natives to
serve on the law faculty in the era.25
The period was noteworthy for the irenic impulse of theologians such
as David Pareus (15481622). A student of Ursinus, Pareus nearly forty
years of labor at the Collegium Sapientiae and University of Heidelberg
made him the defining figure of the period. Pareus most famous work
was his Irenicum, which suggested the Lutherans and Calvinist hold a
Scheffer, 1898), 168172; Heinrich Alting, Historia de ecclesiis palatinis (Groningen, 1728),
153156; J.J. Grynaeus, De Evcharistica Controversia Capita Doctrinae (Heidelberg: Mylius,
1584).
23Cuno, Daniel Tossanus, in ADB, 38:469474.
24Tobias Sarx, Franciscus Junius d.. (15451602): Ein reformierter Theologe im
Spannungsfeld zwischen spthumanistischer Irenik und reformierter Konfessionalisierung
(Gttingen: V&R, 2007).
25Drll, Heidelberger Gelehrtenlexikon 13861651, 86; 363364; 505506.
synod to work out their lingering theological differences. Given that many
of these theologians had deep Melanchthonian Lutheran roots them-
selves, it was natural for them to ground their argumentation upon the
work of the great Wittenberg reformers, especially the early period of
Luthers work.26
Catastrophe and Renewal (16221652)
The golden age of the Reformed Heidelberg which had flourished in the
age of Frederick IV and Frederick V came to a definitive close with the
tragedy of the Thirty Years War. The starry-eyed Frederick V and his bride
Elizabeth Stuart unwisely accepted the Bohemian crown. His short reign
and military defeat at White Mountain would earn him the epithet, The
Winter King. More tragically Fredericks military misadventures led to
the occupation of Heidelberg by Spanish forces in 1622 and the closure
of the university. Though the university briefly opened as a Catholic insti-
tution during the war years, the occupation of the Palatinate ended the
tradition of Heidelberg as an outstanding Reformed university until its
rebirth in the 1650s.
When peace finally came, the Wittelsbach dynasty was restored to the
Palatinate in the person of Karl I Ludwig (r. 16481680). Given the close
relations that had existed with Switzerland in the golden age, it is not sur-
prising that Karl Ludwig turned again to Switzerland to reignite the
Reformed orientation of the University of Heidelberg in 1652. The nephew
of Daniel Tossanus, Daniel Tossanus the younger (d. 1655), who had spent
his exile in Basel, and Johann Heinrich Hottinger (16201667) of Zurich
answered the call to restore the Reformed faith to the university and the
Collegium Sapientiae. The tradition was restored, but with less prestige
and a more humble financial base than the glory days.27 Nevertheless the
Swiss students also returned.
26Howard Hotson, Irenicism and Dogmatics in the Confessional Age: Pareus and
Comenius in Heidelberg, 1614, JEH 46 (1995): 432456; Herman Selderhuis, Eine attrac
tiveUniv Eine attractive UniversittDie Heidelberger Theologische Fakultt 15831622,
in Bildung und Konfession, ed. Selderhuis and Wriedt (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006),
130.
27Heinrich Steiner, Der Zrcher Professor Johann Heinrich Hottinger in Heidelberg, 1655
1661 (Zrich: Friedrich Schulthess, 1886); Wolgast, Die Universitt Heidelberg, 5558.
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
1520s 1530s 1540s 1550s 1560s 1570s 1580s 1590s 1600s 1610s 1620s
Figure 1.Number of Swiss Matriculants to the University of Heidelberg by

Decade.
Demographic Overview
The general trends of Swiss enrollments are manifest and closely parallel
the political fortunes of the Reformed Protestantism in the Palatinate.
Enrollment of Swiss students quickly spiked during the era of Frederick III
and declined sharply during the Lutheran interlude of Ludwig VI. They
rebounded immediately with the accession of Frederick IV and the reas-
sertion of the Reformed confession and remained high until the coming of
the Thirty Years War. Swiss matriculants tended to average in the range of
510 percent of each years cohort. The highest enrollment for an individ-
ual year was 1585 with 22 matriculants, and the decade with the largest
enrollment was the 1590s which averaged 12 matriculants per year. It was
a genuinely international era of the University of Heidelberg, and the stu-
dent body had healthy enrollment from across central Europe, especially
France, Silesia, Poland, Hungary, and the Netherlands.28
A closer look at the data reveals some additional trends. While the
Heidelberg-Basel connection was of tremendous significance in the con-
fessional history of both territories, Basel students are poorly represented
compared to those of Bern or Zurich. Given Basels comparatively larger
28Armin Kohnle, Die Universitt Heidelberg als Zentrum des reformierten Protes
tantismus im 16. und frhen 17. Jahrhundert, in Die ungarische Universittsbildung und
Europa, ed. Szgi and Font (Pcs: Univ., 2001), 141161; Peter Meusburger and Thomas
Schuch, eds. Wissenschaftsatlas of Heidelberg University. Spatio-temporal relations of aca-
demic knowledge production (Knittlingen: Bibliotheca Palatina), 5869.
Francophone
"Swiss" (incl.
Geneva)
7%
Other Swiss (non
Francophone)
12%
Zurich
Thurgau
35%
4%
Basel
7%
Schaffhausen
9% Bern
26%
Figure 2.Origin of Swiss Students at the University of Heidelberg 15591583.
urban population and its closer proximity to Heidelberg, the lower

number of students is noteworthy. Many faculty members could count
Basel among the institutions that they had attended prior to taking
up their posts at Heidelberg, and the Basel and Heidelberg medical
faculties seemed to enjoy particularly close connections throughout the
period. Furthermore, the exceptional contribution to philological studies
remained a common inheritance of Swiss-Heidelberg connection from
Simon Grynaeus and Sebastian Mnster to Johannes Buxtorf and Johann
Heinrich Hottinger.
The rather obvious explanation for the comparative underrepresenta-
tion of Basel students is the fact that Basel possessed its own university.
Thus many of the Basel students that matriculated in Heidelberg were
upper level students pursuing advanced studies. Alternatively, while Bern
and Zurich possessed arts academies in their territories, most prominently
the Zurich academy or Carolinum and the Lausanne Academy in Bernese
controlled Vaud, their institutions lacked full university status, enhancing

the utility of traveling to Heidelberg for a more prestigious credential.
Given their moderate size and relative political influence, it is not surpris-
ing that the cantons of Zurich and Bern would consistently contribute the
most students to the university in both the earlier and later stages of
Heidelbergs prominence as a Reformed institution.29 Schaffhausens rela-
tive prominence in sending students throughout the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries is also striking.
As the university advanced in attraction as a genuine international
institution in the later seventeenth century, the numbers of matriculants
from the allied or Bernese subject Francophone districts picked up mark-
edly. Two regions are especially well represented in the post 1584 period:
the Vaud (including Lausanne) and Geneva. The relatively strong enroll-
ment from these allied Francophone districts is indicative of the general
international appeal of the university and the strong Calvinist influence
on the Palatine theology of this era. As the Genevan Academy did not
Other
Francophone
2%
Vaud
6% Zurich
21%
Other Swiss Geneva
(non 15%
Francophone)
2%
St. Gallen
3% Bern
18%
Graubnden
9% Basel
Schaffhausen
10%
14%
Figure 3.Origin of Swiss Students at the University of Heidelberg 15831621.
29See Karin Maag, Seminary or University? The Genevan Academy and Reformed Higher
Education, 15601620 (Aldershot: Scolar, 1995).
possess university status or a full complement of disciplines, moving on to

Heidelberg in a higher faculty such as medicine was advantageous. Also
noteworthy is the rise of Graubnden as an origin of students in the late
decades of the sixteenth century. While only a handful of Graubnden
students had matriculated prior to 1584, 36 matriculated between that
date and 1621. Strikingly, though not surprisingly, no students from the
Catholic Forest Cantons of Switzerland matriculated to the university dur-
ing the Reformed era.
The prominence of educated dynasties of Protestant pastors was an
unintended outcome of Luthers revolutionary movement. Such multi-
generational intellectual dynasties were especially influential in Switzer
land as we have seen with the Grynaeus clan. The family names of some of
the Swiss students at the University of Heidelberg read like a veritable
whos who of the Swiss Reformation. A sampling of the prominent names
includes Ulmer (4x) from Schaffhausen; Haller (4x), Musculus (4x), and
Viret from Bern; de Maerne and Turretin from Geneva; and Buxtorf,
Castellio (2x), Curio (2x), Grynaeus (3x), Keller, and Pantaleon (2x) from
Basel. Zurich furthermore contributed the celebrity lineup of Gessner,
Grebel, Gwalther (2x), Hospinian (2x), Lavater (4x), Pellikan, Simmler,
Stucki, Stumpf, Wolff (3x), and finally Zwingli. While not many of these
students lived up to the reputation of their more famous forebears, many
went on to solid academic careers. Among the more important students
were the Paracelsian physician Thodore de Mayerne (15731655), the
Christian Hebraist Johannes Buxtorf the Younger (15991664), and the
Zurich theologian Rudolf Hospinian (15471626).30
Conclusion
Swiss students and faculty played a major catalytic role in making

Heidelberg one of the most highly sought out Reformed institutions of
higher learning in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
While Thomas Erastus and Johann Jakob Grynaeus were the two Swiss
natives who had the most direct impact on the history of Palatinate, a
much larger group of individuals from across Europe with strong Swiss
30The prominent Genevan theologian Thodore Tronchin (15821657) is commonly

thought to have studied with Pareus ca. 1604, though I have yet to identify him on the
matriculation list. Cf. Pierre Bayle, Dictionnaire Historique et Critique (Amsterdam, 1734),
5:401.
connections magnified this influence tenfold. Indeed the irenic Melanch

thonian strain as mediated by Zacharias Ursinus and his Silesian succes-
sors remained a vital component of the unique Palatine Reformed culture
alongside the humanistic-philological contribution of Basel. While the
Genevan Calvinist element was well-represented and its theological
contribution and disciplinary vision were also essential ingredients in
the mix, personnel and students from the Swiss German cantons were far
more prevalent among the faculty and students of the university during
Heidelbergs era of prominence as a Reformed institution. The analysis
of trends from students and faculty offers some nuance to the ebb and
flow of Swiss influence in the Palatinate. It confirms the depth and breadth
of the Reformed tradition to which Richard Mullers work has made an
immeasurable contribution to our understanding.
JOHANNES PISCATORS (15461625) INTERPRETATION
OF CALVINS INSTITUTES
Heber Carlos de Campos Jr.
Introduction
The question of the interpretation of Calvin in the late sixteenth and sev-
enteenth centuries has been in vogue for quite some time.1 Opposing
answers have attempted overarching solutions to the issue. This short
essay is inserted in response to such a question but with a more modest
objective. It attempts to look at one important Reformed theologians
condensed version of Calvins Institutes and provide comments about its
contribution to a post-Reformation controversy. Before the thesis of this
essay is stated, two pieces of information are necessary to set the context:
First, the importance of this Reformed theologian; and second, Johannes
Piscators abridgment of Calvins Institutes within this genre of writing.
Setting the Context
Piscator as an influential Reformed theologian

Piscators contribution to the Reformed tradition comes from his connec-
tions with major representatives of this tradition and is transmitted
through his influence as a teacher and writer. He was a student of Jerome
Zanchi at Strasbourg. In Tbingen, the Lutheran Jakob Andreae intro-
duced him to Calvins Institutes and Piscators appreciation for the
Genevan reformer grew in proportion to his criticism of the Lutheran
faith. Throughout his teaching career he was in close contact with figures
such as Zacharias Ursinus, Caspar Olevianus, Franciscus Junius, David
Pareus, among others. He corresponded frequently with and had the
appreciation of Theodore Beza. Piscator was thus part of a strong Reformed
lineage.
He was also very influential in his teaching and writings. His forty-
one years teaching at the Hohe Schule in Herborn was the occasion for
1For a vast bibliography on the issue see Muller, Calvinists I and Calvinists II.
272 heber carlos de campos jr.
spreading his beliefs. He provided basic theological training for hundreds

of students from all parts of Germany, as well as France, Poland, and
Hungary. His writings were voluminous and regarded as important contri-
butions to the spread of Calvinism. His translation of the Bible into
German was the first complete translation since Martin Luthers. Another
example of his exegetical expertise was his commentaries on every book
of the Bible. Later Reformed theologians, such as Petrus van Mastricht,
recommended Piscator to their students as a commentator which should
be among the first for them to look at. In sum, a theologian like Piscator,
with so many connections to Reformed luminaries and with a wide influ-
ence through his teaching and writing, makes it important to investigate
how he communicates Calvins theology.2
Piscators Aphorismi within its genre

After highlighting the major networks of influence in which Piscator
became involved, it is also necessary to situate his summary of Calvins
Institutes within the context of this genre. In 1589, Piscator wrote Apho
rismi doctrinae christianae ex Institutione Calvini excerpti, a type of sum-
mary of Calvins Institutes of the Christian Religion in aphorisms.3 The
Aphorismi arose out of a course on Calvins Institutes in Herborn, origi-
nally taught by Caspar Olevianus, which Piscator had to take over after the
death of the Heidelberg pastor (1587), three years after the inauguration of
the school (1584). Thus, by taking this chair for so many years, Piscators
work became a major source of spreading Reformed theology to Herborn
students. This was possibly the most popular book written by Piscator,
with eleven Latin editions from 1589 to 1630 and one English translation
in 1596.4
Piscators Aphorismi is an interesting version of Calvins Institutes in
comparison with other summaries. Olivier Fatio has analyzed several of
these as vehicles of Calvins theology especially to laymen and students of
2For more on Piscators life, see Georgio Pasore, Oratio Funebris in Obitum Reverendi et
Clarissimi Theologi Johannis Piscatoris (Herborn: Muderspachius & Corvinus, 1625); Johann
Hermann Steubing, Caspar Olevian; Johannes Piscator (Leipzig: Cnobloch, 1841), 98117;
Frans Lukas Bos, Johann Piscator: Ein Beitrag Zur Geschichte der Reformierten Theologie
(Kampen: Kok, [1932]), 931.
3I will be quoting mainly from the third edition (London: Field, 1595) but also from the
11th ed. (Oxford: Lichfield and Cvrteine, 1630).
4Johannes Piscator, Aphorismes of Christian Religion: or, A verie Compendiovs abridge
ment of M. I. Calvins Institutions, set forth in short sentences methodically by M.I. Piscator,
trans. H. Holland (London: Field and Dexter, 1596).
johannes piscators interpretation of calvins institutes 273
theology in an age where Calvins works became less and less printed.5
While summaries such as the ones from Edmund Bunny (1579),6 Guillaume
Delaune (1583),7 and Caspar Olevianus (1586)8 more closely follow the
structure and the language of Calvin, Piscator aims for an approach which
is more free (like Wilhelmus Molichius) and more succincta good deal
shorter than the other works of the genre.9 Piscators reconstructions
of Calvins doctrines, which do not follow the limits set by the books
and chapters of the Institutes, according to Olivier Fatio, tell us as much
about his own theology as about that of Calvin.10 This points to a heavier
interpretative touch present in the Aphorismi than in other books of this
same genre.11
Argument
Having expanded on the context of the writer and the work, this essay
demonstrates that Piscator, in the Aphorismi, portrays Calvins doctrine of
justification in ways which go beyond what Calvin states in the Institutes.
This essay is too short to consider in detail the rest of Calvins and Piscators
works, though it does set them in the background. This study aims to point
at possible strands of influence which Piscators Calvinism might have
had on discussions over the doctrine of justification, more specifically the
imputation of Christs active obedience. A few remarks about the struc-
ture and content of the Aphorismi as a whole will be made before dealing
specifically with the locus on justification.
5Olivier Fatio, Prsence de Calvin lpoque de lorthodoxie rforme: Les abrgs de

Calvin la fin du 16e et au 17e sicle, in Calvinus Ecclesiae Doctor, ed. Neuser (Kampen:
Kok, 1980), 171207.
6Edmond Bunnie, The Institvtions of Christian Religion, trans. Edward May (London:
Dawson, 1580).
7William Lawne, An Abridgment of the Institvtion of Christian Religion, trans.
Christopher Fetherstone (Edinburgh: Vautrollier, 1585). Concerning Delaune, see Fatio,
Prsence de Calvin, 184.
8Caspar Olevianus, Institutionis Christianae religionis epitome (Herborn: Coruinus,
1586). Concerning Olevianus Epitome, see Fatio, Prsence de Calvin, 191.
9Piscator prefers aphorisms to theses, for the latter term carries some element of
doubtfulnessas in Aristotles Topicsof something which one may not avouch to be
true, but needs to be logically defended as true. Other times, a thesis in Aristotle means
some absurd opinion. The aphorisms, on the other hand, are debated but not doubted as
to their truthfulness. The disputations aim to raise in the students awareness of the objec-
tions to these aphorisms, but also to see them resolved by the word of God. See Piscator,
Aphorismi (1595), 4.
10Fatio, Prsence de Calvin, 197.
11Fatio, Prsence de Calvin, 199. Yet Fatio concludes by saying that every work sur-
veyed tells us as much about its adaptors as about Calvin, in Prsence de Calvin, 205.
The Structure and Content of the Aphorismi
The work does not follow the division into four books as it occurs in the
Institutes, but instead divides the whole content of Calvins masterpiece
into twenty-eight loci communes. Because of its brevity and topical divi-
sion, each chapter aims for cohesiveness, thus omitting some significant
elements of Calvins work. For example, Piscator brings no aphorisms on
the interconnectedness between knowledge of God and knowledge of
ourselves with which Calvin starts his magnum opus (Inst. I.i); there is no
aphorism on the internal testimony of the Spirit; the chapter on God
(locus III) is proportionally very short in comparison to others and leaves
out the issue of idolatry upon which Calvin discourses at length; Piscator
spends only one aphorism on the bondage of the will which Calvin
explores so extensively (Inst. II.iii.6-II.v).
The cohesiveness of the Aphorismi also allows for additions to Calvins
thought which Piscator regards as necessary in light of his context and the
development of Reformed theology. For instance, the locus on Scripture
has a list of the canonical books (much like the Westminster Confession of
Faith) against the Apocrypha, and confronts Trents authentication of the
Vulgate (Aphorismi, II.x), which amounts to a different opposition to
Romes doctrine of Scripture than Calvins opposition.12 Another example
of addition is in the locus on sin (locus VII), where Piscator spends ten
long aphorisms (equivalent to half of the chapter) on the distinctions con-
cerning actual sins. All his distinctions follow his typical Ramistic bifurca-
tions.13 Besides the obvious additions to Calvin which are not in the
Institutes, there are some emphases from Piscator that provide a different
flavor to what Calvin has affirmed. For instance, Piscator closes the locus
on angels (locus V) with a warning concerning the enemies and principali-
ties while Calvin comforts the readers with the greatness of God above
these creatures (Inst. I.xiv.18, 2022). Calvin, after all, deals with angels
within his treatment of the doctrine of divine providence.
Occasionally, an aphorism reflects Calvins theology without summa-
rizing a portion of the Institutes. Piscator brings ideas into the text which
possibly come from (or, at least, are in line with) Calvins commentaries to
enhance the topic of the Institutes he is summarizing. When he speaks on
angels, his application is that when danger arises, we ask God for the
12Piscator calls Holy Scripture the rule both of faith and life (regula tum fidei, tum
vitae) much like the language of WCF I.2.
13Piscator, Aphorismi (1595), VII.xxix.
protection of holy angels.14 This is not in the Institutes, but it does resem-
ble what Calvin says in the very same passages that Piscator includes on
the margin (Psalm 34:8; 91:1112). When making the distinction between
legal and evangelical covenant,15 Piscator is again not summarizing the
Institutes but in continuity with Calvins comments on Galatians 4:24.16
In sum, with all these examples, we can get a sense of how Piscators
abridgment is somewhat free in structure and content. It is important to
reaffirm that the purpose of his work was didactic, mainly for class dispu-
tations, but also for the purpose of teaching Calvins theology to laymen.
Thus the reason for omissions, additionsboth from outside and from
within Calvins corpusand Ramistic bifurcations is to obtain coherence
of topics. Such abridgments with adaptations, however, sometimes
resulted in less than faithful transmission of Calvins theology, as we will
see next, phenomena which were not only peculiar to Johannes Piscator.17
The importance of structure and content concerns our topic of justifi-
cation when Piscator deals with the law of God (locus VIII). If, on the one
hand, he is clearer than Calvin in defining the three types of lawmoral,
ceremonial, judicialand structuring this whole chapter on these three
types, on the other hand, Piscator omits the important section on the
three uses of the moral lawthe pedagogical, the civil, and the main use
(Inst. II.vii.613)which hinders his complete understanding on how the
law is or is not abrogated.18 He faithfully summarizes Calvin (Inst.
II.vii.1415), saying that for the believer the moral law is not abrogated as
an eternal rule of righteousness (aeterna justitiae regula), but it is abro-
gated both in its curse and in its rigor or rigid demand (tum malediction
tum rigore seu rigida exactione).19 However, the abrogation of the law
14Piscator, Aphorismi (1595), IV.viii.

15Piscator actually uses the language of fedus legale and fedus gratuitum (Aphorismi,
IX.vvii), but the term evangelical covenant appears elsewhere in Piscators corpus.
Cf. Piscator, Analysis Logica Omnivm Epistolarum Pauli, 3rd ed. (London: Bishop, 1608),
421422; Analysis Logica Evangelii Secundum Matthaeum (London: R.F., 1594), 316;
Commentariorum inPentateuchus Mosaica (Herborn, 1643), 197.
16Cf. CO 50:237. In the 1630 edition, Piscator adds material from Franciscus Junius.
Cf. Aphorismi (1630), VIII.xvii.
17Bunnys abridgment organized Calvins thought in tabular form right in the begin-
ning, apparently in Ramistic fashion. Tables are more elaborate in Delaunes works and,
according to Fatio, less true to Calvins thought than those of Bunny. See Fatio, Presence
de Calvin, 184. These are examples of didactic devices that had an influence on faithful
transmission of Calvins thought.
18Bunny and specially Delaune are faithful to Calvin in describing these three uses.
Cf. Bunnie, The Institvtions, 61v-63r; and Lawne, An Abridgement, 9091.
19Piscator, Aphorismi (1595), VIII.xv. Cf. I. John Hesselink, Calvin Concept of the Law
(Allison Park: Pickwick, 1992), 257259.
means much more for Piscator than was explicit in Calvin. Piscator
affirmed that in the Evangelical covenant we are not freed from rendering
obedience, but we are freed from rendering perfect obedience.20 On the
other hand, the eternal obligation of creatures would lead him to say else-
where that we are obliged to perfect obedience.21 This inconsistency
comes out of the lack of distinction between obedience in the context of
justification and obedience in the context of sanctification. The Herborn
teacher believed that after the Legal covenant was broken, there never
was again a demand for perfect obedience of the law in order to be counted
right with God. God never again demanded it from us, nor from Christ as
our substitute. Calvin never says the standard to be counted righteous was
made void even for Christ as our substitute.
The Doctrine of Justification in both Documents
Piscator was in tune with Calvin on at least three major points of the
Protestant understanding of justification: Piscator upheld a forensic view
of justification with an extrinsic notion of righteousness imputed rather
than the medieval and Roman Catholic notion of infusion; he vehemently
excluded human works from justification, clearly distinguishing justifica-
tion from sanctification; and he believed in the mere instrumentality of
faith to grasp the righteousness of Christ rather than being the root from
which works of righteousness for our justification come.22
However, for the sake of brevity, the focus here shall be on the topic of
imputation of righteousness and its connection to the so-called active
obedience of Christ, for in this regard Piscator affirmed, through a mixture
of omissions and additions, what Calvin never did say. The focus will be on
Piscator first and then we will turn back to Calvin.
Piscator writes that the righteousness of Christ which covers a man
so he does not appear a sinner in the sight of God is the righteousness
20Piscator, AnalysisPauli, 422: sentiunt enim se iis destitutos esse ad perfectam Legi
obedientiam praestandam. Since we are freed from rendering perfect obedience, there is
no reason to fear our frail obedience in this life. In fact, in the 1630 edition of the Aphorismi,
Piscator adds that the faithful are freed even from the fear of curse and of damnation:
atque adeo e metu maledictionis atq, damnationis quem rigida exaction perit. See
Piscator, Aphorismi (1630), VIII.xv.
21Piscator, Apologia disputationis de caus meritori justificationis hominis coram Deo
(Herborn, 1618), 21, 2728, 94.
22Cf. J. Wesley White, The Denial of the Imputation of the Active Obedience of Christ:
Piscator on Justification, The Confessional Presbyterian 3 (2007): 147154. He argues that
Piscator was much more conservative than some modern theologians on justification.
purchased by the death of Christ (justitiam morte Christi partam).23 He

often includes this explanatory note that when he is speaking of the righ-
teousness of Christ, he means the righteousness acquired by Christs
death.24 Piscator means to exclude the life of Christ in acquiring righ-
teousness for us. He writes, The impulsive cause, which moves God in
order that he may justify us, is the satisfaction and merit of Christ, that is,
his obedience that he presented to the Father in experiencing death for
us, the obedience imputed to us as righteousness.25 It is merely the obe-
dience in his death which counts as merit for our redemption and is, thus,
imputed. Piscator does not leave out the purpose of Christs life in the
scheme of redemption: to become the suited sacrifice that pleases and
pacifies God.
And to the end that this obedience and righteousnesse of Christ might be
imputed vnto vs: it was necessarie first that he should yeeld perfect obedi-
ence to the law of God himself, liuing thereafter in all holynesse of life. And
to performe this, it was necessarie also, that he should be sanctified & with-
out sin from his beginning, & first conception in his mothers wombe: for if
he had not bene a holy Priest, and a holy [sacrifice], he could not haue
pleased God: and so could not haue pacified him for vs. And yet further I ad,
that this our high Priest, and mediator, must be very God, that the obedience
of his death might be of price sufficient for our sinnes, and meet to giue vs an
euerlasting righteousnesse.26
In aphorism 26 of locus 13, Piscator regards the full obedience to the law
(integra Legis observatio) to be merely Christs death. Interestingly, he
cites the reference of Deuteronomy 27:26 and Leviticus 18:5, texts which
23Piscator, Aphorismi (1595), XIII.iii.

24Later in the chapter he writes, justitia Christi (hoc est per mortem Christi parta),
and justitiam morte Christi partam. See Piscator, Aphorismi (1595), XIII.xxvi, xxx. This
expression is repeated several times in his commentary on Romans.
25Piscator, Aphorismi (1595), XIII.xv. This is where the numbering in the English trans-
lation starts differing from the original Latin. The English translator, Henry Holland,
includes a fifteenth aphorism in this chapter which is entirely composed by Holland. In
fact, this aphorism goes against the theology of Piscator by presenting a tripartite parallel
(guiltinesse, disobedience, corruption paralleled with passion, righteounes and holynesse
of Christ) which resembles a construction by Theodore Beza. Cf. Piscator, Aphorismes of
Christian Religion, 72. In his epistle to the reader, Holland states that he has not followed
the authors words, though he believes he has been faithful in his translation. See Piscator,
Aphorismes of Christian Religion, Aii-r. Holland refers to Piscators summary of Olevianus
Epitome, which Piscator viewed as a faithful, but not verbatim, representation. See Piscator,
Aphorismi (1595), 4. Apparently, the only chapters where Holland adds whole paragraphs
to the Latin edition are the chapters on justification (1 paragraph) and on the Lords Supper
(6 paragraphs).
26Piscator, Aphorismes of Christian Religion, 73.
would often be quoted by the opposing position to refer to both require-

ments of the law: punishment and obedience. This distinction between
the function of the life being different from the death of Christonly the
latter being imputed to uscomes from his understanding of what justi-
fication is, in its very core. He writes, The form of justification is the very
remission of sins, or the imputation of righteousness.27 He is saying that
justification equals remission of sins which equals imputation of righ-
teousness. In a later book, Piscator explicitly calls upon the authority of
Calvin to defend his own position. He says that Calvin, in his commentary
on Romans 4:6, affirmed that righteousness, according to Paul, is nothing
else than the remission of sins.28
Piscator is part of a common misinterpretation of Calvin in the period
of Protestant orthodoxy. Those who affirmed the imputation of Christs
active obedience and those who denied it, as Piscator did, assumed that
Calvin had exhibited a precise delineation of the imputed righteousness
of Christ. When the Genevan Reformer referred to an imputed righteous-
ness or outlined Christs mediatorial role and thus referred to his obedi-
ence in the context of redemption, in general there was no refinement
clarifying how much of Christs obedience was actually imputed to the
Christian. His ambivalent and inconsistent language, his early stage in the
development of the doctrine of imputed righteousness, and his polemical
context of opposition to the Roman Catholic doctrine of justification by
works all resulted in Calvins writings being unconcerned with distinc-
tions which were unfolded later. The judgment if Calvin was in favor
or against the imputation of Christs active obedience is actually
anachronistic.29
With this in mind, it is important to verify how much Calvin in fact
says on Christs life of obedience. First, it is true that Calvin identified
justification with remission of sins. John Forbes (ca. 15681634) and John
27Piscator, Aphorismi (1630), XIII.xiv.

28Piscator, Apologia disputationis, 50. Piscator drew the same conclusion concerning
the work of other Reformers. In a letter to Daniel Tossanus (15411602), written in
December of 1595, Piscator claims that the teaching of Beza in his 1559 Confession regard-
ing the imputation of righteousness is not supported by Scripture and, thus, Piscator is
annoyed by Tossanus accusing him that his teaching is novelty, as if it were not taught by
Luther, Ursinus, and Olevianus. In the very next sentence, Piscator mentions the Lutheran
Georg Karg and asserts that if he held the same opinion as Piscator did, he should not have
abandoned it. See Bos, Johann Piscator, 245.
29For more on the rather unqualified view of Christs obedience in Calvin and other
Reformers, see my Johannes Piscator (15461625) and the Consequent Development of
the Doctrine of the Imputation of Christs Active Obedience (Ph.D. diss., Calvin
Theological Seminary, 2009), especially chapters 23.
Goodwin (ca. 15941665) believed that Calvin meant to exclude all things
from the matter of our righteousness except the blood and death of Christ
alone.30 After all, Calvin presented righteousness as simply opposed to
guiltiness and affirmed justification to be made of only one part, remis-
sion of sins (cf. Institutes III.xi.3, 4, 11, 21, 22). However, such interpretation
disregards the polemical context against the Roman Catholics. In a sec-
tion from the Institutes quoted by John Goodwin, Calvin affirms, the righ-
teousness of faith consists solely in the forgiveness of sins. Later in this
section, he explains what he means:
We add that this is done through forgiveness of sins; for if those whom the
Lord has reconciled to himself be judged by works, they will indeed still be
found sinners, though they ought, nevertheless, to be freed and cleansed
from sin. It is obvious, therefore, that those whom God embraces are made
righteous solely by the fact that they are purified when their spots are
washed away by forgiveness of sins.31
Notice that Calvin is opposing the righteousness of works. That is the rea-
son why justification consists solely in the forgiveness of sins. In another
section not quoted by Goodwin, where Calvin is commenting on Romans
4:7, he writes,
Surely, Paul does not make the prophet bear witness to the doctrine that
pardon of sins is part of righteousness, or merely a concomitant toward the
justifying of man; on the contrary, he includes the whole of righteousness in
free remission, declaring that man blessed whose sins are covered, whose
iniquities God has forgiven, and whose transgressions God does not charge
to his account. Thence, he judges and reckons his happiness because in this
way he is righteous, not intrinsically but by imputation.32
Here Calvin is defending remission of sins as the whole of righteousness
against the idea that justification is also made of intrinsic righteousness.
He is not opposing positive righteousness coming from Christ.33 He is
merely opposing any righteousness present in us.
Secondly, there is no doubt that Calvin regarded Christs life of obedi-
ence as crucial in the whole of our redemption. Those who held to the
30John Forbes, A Treatise tending to cleare the Doctrine of Ivstification (Middelburgh:

Schilders, 1616), 93110; John Goodwin, Imputatio Fidei, or A Treatise of Justification
(London: R.O. and G.D., 1642), 7983, 119124, 212215.
31Calvin, Institutes, III.xi.21; CO 2:551.
32Institutes, III.xi.11; CO 2:542.
33Calvins Comm. Romans, on 4:6, substantiates this idea. See Calvin, Commentaries on
the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans, trans. John Owen (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003),
160161; CO 49:72.
imputation of Christs active obedience, claiming to be following faithfully

the writings of Calvin, often quoted Calvins exposition of the Apostles
Creed in the Institutes:
In short, from the time when he took on the form of a servant, he began to
pay the price of liberation in order to redeem us. Yet to define the way of
salvation more exactly, Scripture ascribes this as peculiar and proper to
Christs death. For this reason the so-called Apostles Creed passes at
once in the best order from the birth of Christ to his death and resurrection,
wherein the whole of perfect salvation consists. Yet the remainder of the
obedience that he manifested in his life is not excluded.34
As if this were not enough, there are portions of Calvins other writings
that are even clearer on the side of active obedience imputed. In his
sermon on Deuteronomy 21:2223, Calvin refers to the text of Galatians
3:[12-]13 and says that Paul deals with two things. The second is the suf-
fering brought by the curse of the law, a clear reference to verse 13. The
first, however, seems to be connected to verse 12.
He [Paul] sayeth that because wee can not attaine to righteousnesse, but by
fulfilling the Lawe in all pointes, and by being discharged before GOD: it
behoued our Lorde Iesus Christ to bee subiect to the Lawe, to the intent that
his obedience might nowe be imputed unto vs, and God accept thereof as
though we brought the like obedience of our owne. When we speake of
being justified before God, howe is that to be vnderstoode? Verily that we
should obey the things that God commaundeth vs in his Lawe. For the righ-
teousnesse that hee speaketh of is, that he which doeth those things shall
liue thereby.35
Later, Calvin adds that we can know that we are righteous in Jesus
because he
willingly submitte himself to the Lawe, and beare the yoke thereof for vs: for
we knowe that he performed the will of GOD his father in all pointes to the
full. And so by that meane we be taken for righteous in Iesus Christ. Why so?
Because Hee was obedient. Yea and that obedience of his was not for him-
selfe; there was no subjection in him, neither was hee bounde to any thing:
for he is altogether aboue the Lawe: therefore it followeth that he was obedi-
ent for vs.36
Thirdly, an idea not present in the Aphorismi, because Piscator opposes
it elsewhere in his writings, is the notion of the stability of Gods
34Calvin, Institutes, II.xvi.5; CO 2:371.

35John Calvin, The Sermons of M. Iohn Calvin upon the Fifth Booke of Moses called
Deuteronomie, trans. Arthur Golding (London: Middleton, 1583), 763; CO 27:693.
36Calvin, SermonsDeuteronomie, 763; CO 27:693.
law.37 Calvin has some seminal reflections on the continuity between law
and gospel. He writes that the gospel did not so supplant the entire law as
to bring forward a different way of salvation. Rather, it confirmed and sat-
isfied whatever the law had promised, and gave substance to the shad-
ows.38 Calvin also says that we cannot deny that the reward of eternal life
awaits complete obedience, but since observance of the law is found in
none of us, God does not reject our imperfect obedience, but supplying
what is lacking to complete it, he causes us to receive the benefit of the
promises of the law as if we had fulfilled their condition.39 In his
Commentary on Leviticus 18:5, Calvin reaffirms that the promise of eternal
life attached to the law is still in force, though he repeats the scriptural
emphasis that sin in us makes the promise impossible to attain; but the
authority of the law gives itself support until contemporary times, with
promises and threats.40 His Commentary on Romans at 3:31 also appears to
address the obedience of Christs life.41
In spite of the three elements of Calvins theology that were just com-
mented onjustification as remission of sins explained in the context of
his polemics with Roman Catholics, Christs life of obedience as essential
to our redemption, and the notion of stability of the lawthis does not
mean that Calvin is clear regarding Christs active obedience. It just means
that he allowed for more than Piscator did. The Herborn teacher closed
certain avenues which Calvin never intended to. An evidence to corrobo-
rate with this conclusion is that Delaune, considered by Fatio quite faith-
ful to Calvin in his abridgment, states nothing in favor or against the
imputation of active obedience in his chapter on justification; the same is
true of Bunnys and Olevianus abridgments.42
Conclusion
Johannes Piscators Aphorismi is not a polemical work opposing the

imputation of Christs active obedience. Piscator did write polemically
37Cf. Piscator, Examen sententiae Domini Theodori Bezae, De justificatione Hominis

coram Deo, quae habetur in annotatione ad Rom. 8, v. 2 in Correspondance de Thodore de
Bze, tome XXVII [1586], ed. Dufour et. al. (Geneva: Droz, 2005), 4963.
38Institutes, II.ix.4; CO 2:312.
39Institutes, II.vii.34; CO 2:255.
40See Calvin, Commentaries on the Four Last Books of Moses, trans. Bingham (Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1993), 204; CO 25:7.
41See Calvin, Comm. Romans, 152; CO 49.67.
42Lawne, An Abridgement, 187195.
elsewhere. Here he simply intends to summarize Calvins Institutes faith-

fully. Nevertheless, because of the nature of this work, its veiled influence
(Piscators theology through Calvins name) should not be overlooked.
Piscators version of Calvins doctrine of justification might explain, in
part, why in the seventeenth century there are so many disputes as to the
genuine Reformed understanding concerning the imputation of Christs
active obedience. If a good number of students and laymen are reading
Calvin through Piscator, since his Aphorismi had so many editions, it is no
wonder that a strong minority of Reformed opposed the imputation of
Christs active obedience thinking that Calvin is on their side.
Calvin is on neither side of the debate. But that is a matter for another
essay.
THE ACADEMIZATION OF REFORMATION TEACHING IN JOHANN
HEINRICH ALSTED (15881638)
Byung Soo Han
Based on his survey of visitation records, Gerald Strauss made a provoca-

tive argument that the reformers just superficially realized their aims and
failed to indoctrinate the common people with Protestant beliefs.1 This
argument prompted a fierce debate and further research into the spiritual
and pedagogical effect of the Reformation on the popular religious cul-
ture. The research has largely been defensive of a successful reformation.2
By examining the theological education of the Reformed clergy in Basel of
the first century after the Reformation, Amy Nelson Burnett showed that
the Protestant church leaders, who played a crucial role in teaching the
Reformation and were responsible for the solidification of confessional
identity, were well trained in Reformation theology and successfully car-
ried out their pedagogical task of transmitting the central beliefs of the
Protestant Reformation to the next generation.3 She viewed the success of
1See Gerald Strauss, Success and Failure in the German Reformation, PP 67 (1975):
3063; Strauss, Luthers House of Learning: Indoctrination of the Young in the German
Reformation (Baltimore: JHUP, 1978); Strauss, The Reformation and Its Public in an Age of
Orthodoxy, in The German People and the Reformation, ed. Hsia (Ithaca: Cornell, 1988),
89102. Peter Elmer approves Strauss view. Cf. Peter Elmer, Challenges to Authority (New
Haven: YUP, 2000), 8891.
2James Kittelson, Successes and Failures in the German Reformation: The Report from
Strasbourg, AR 73 (1982): 153174; Kittleson, Visitations and Popular Religious Culture:
Further Reports from Strasbourg, in Pietas and Societas, ed. Sessions and Bebb (Kirksville:
TSUP, 1985): 89102; Geoffrey Parker, Success and Failure during the First Century of the
Reformation, PP 136 (1992): 4382; Scott Dixon, The Reformation and Rural Society: The
Parishes of Brandenburg-Ansbach-Kulmbach, 15281603 (Cambridge: CUP, 2002); Natalie
Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France (Stanford: Stanford, 1975); Robert
Scribner, Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany (London:
Hambleton, 1987); Scribner, Pastoral Care and the Reformation in Germany, in Religion
and Culture in Germany (14001800), ed. Roper (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 172194; Susan Karant-
Nunn, The Reformation of Ritual: An Interpretation of Early Modern Europe (Cambridge:
CUP, 1997), 155228; Christian Grosse et al., Anthropologie historique: Les rituels reformes
(XVIeXVIIe siecles), BSHPF 148 (2002): 9791009; Amy N. Burnett, Teaching the
Reformation: Ministers and Their Message in Basel, 15291629 (Oxford: OUP, 2003); Heiko
A. Oberman, The Reformation: Roots and Ramifications (London: TTC, 2004): 2352.
3Amy N. Burnett, The Evolution of the Lutheran Pastors Manual in the Sixteenth
Century, ChH 73.3 (2004), 536565; Burnett, Teaching the Reformation, 315.
284 byung soo han
the Reformation as a composite result of education for the ministry, the

evolution of preaching, and the practice of pastoral care. She pointed out
that the development of the institutional structure and curriculum of the
theology faculty parallels the developments in personnel.4
With this educational continuity of reformational doctrine in mind,
Richard A. Muller characterizes the orthodox or scholastic era of the first
two centuries following the Reformation as the creation of institutional
theology, confessionally in continuity with the Reformation and doctrin-
ally, in the sense of the larger system of doctrine, in continuity with the
great tradition of the church.5 The theology of the period, he continues,
was not developed in isolation from the Protestant confessions and the
ongoing Western intellectual and academic tradition but a product both
of the confessional solidification and of the institutionalized academic
culture of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.6 For the sake of
both positive teaching and polemical defense, the theology ought to have
been associated with the school method or scholasticism that was being
gradually developed in European gymnasia, academies, and universities
from the twelfth to the seventeenth century and was characterized
byathorough use and technical mastery of the tools of linguistic, philo-
sophical, logical, and traditional thought.7 But this academization of
Reformed orthodoxy should not be seen as a departure from Reformation
theology.
As a blend of theological orthodoxy and methodological scholasticism
and a quite complex phenomenon of the intellectual world of the period,
the scholastic Reformed orthodoxy of the two centuries after Reformation
is almost best illustrated by the most active encyclopedist of Herborn,
Johann Heinrich Alsted (15881638),8 especially in his encyclopedic works,
4Burnett, Teaching the Reformation, 14, 128.

5Muller, PRRD, 1:28.
8For his biographical and theological study, see August Nebe, Johann Heinrich Alsted,
Annalen des Vereins fr Nassauische Altertumskunde und Geschichtsforchung 10 (1870): 118
130; Alois Madre, Raimundus Lullus und Johann Heinrich Alsted, Estudios Lullianos 4
(1960): 165180; Robert G. Clouse, The Influence of John Henry Alsted on English Millenarian
Thought in the Seventeenth Century (PhD diss., State University of Iowa, 1963); Ingo
Schultz, Studien zur Musikanschauung und Musiklehre Johann Heinrich Alsteds (15881638)
(Marburg: Grich & Weiershuser, 1967); Robert G. Clouse, Johann Heinrich Alsted
and English Millenarianism, HThR 62 (1969): 189207; Walter Michel, Der Herborner
Philosoph Johann Heinrich Alsted und die Tradition (PhD diss., Universitt Frankfurt am
Main, 1969); Michel, Die Theologie des Herborner Professors Johann Heinrich Alsted als
Systema Harmonicum, Archiv fr mittelrheinische Kirchengeschichte 22 (1970): 169186;
reformation teaching in johann heinrich alsted 285
Encyclopaedia biblica (1625) and Encyclopaedia omnium disciplinarum

(1630).9 During this era, the field of theological education was gradually
expanded to cover the whole realm of the academic world. As Cuno and
Hotson pointedly say, there is no single source in which we can find
reflected more of the intellectual world of late sixteenth and early seven-
teenth century Reformed central Europe than in the microcosm of Alsteds
Encyclopaedia.10 Alsteds encyclopedic works are the culmination and
embodiment of several generations of pedagogical and philosophical
activity concentrated in a network of Reformed gymnasia, academies, and
universities spread across central Europe, providing a comprehensive,
voluminous but unified conspectus of Reformed theological and philo-
sophical learning in his day.11 But his encyclopedic work has been blamed
for its departure from Reformation theology, especially by Howard
Hotson.12 Hotson actually acknowledged Alsted to be orthodox in con-
tent in his official statements to the synod of Dordt and offered a careful
and thorough examination of the formulation and structure of the
Encyclopaedia, but he did not pay sufficient attention to the biblical and
theological aspect of Alsteds thought on the locus de homine.13 And
Hotson did not make it clear that the whole encyclopedia of teaching and
learning in school, most suitable for their renewal according to their origi-
nal perfection, has God and Scripture for its essential and cognitive princi-
pium. This short essay will show another possible interpretation of Alsteds
Johannes Kramer, ed., J.H. Alsted, Herborns calvinistische Theologie und Wissenschaft im
Spiegel der englischen Kulturreform des frhen 17. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt: Peter Lang,
1988); Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann, Apokalyptische Universalwissenschaft: Johann
Heinrich Alsteds Diatribe de mille annis apocalypticis, Pietismus und Neuzeit 14 (1988):
5071; Howard Hotson, Johann Heinrich Alsteds Relations with Silesia, Bohemia and
Moravia: Patronage, Piety and Pansophia, Acta Comeniana 12 (1997), 1335; Hotson,
Paradise Postponed: Johann Heinrich Alsted and the Birth of Calvinist Millenarianism
(Dordrecht: Springer, 2000); Hotson, Johann Heinrich Alsted 15881638: Between Renaissance,
Reformation and Universal Reform (Oxford: Clarendon, 2000); Hotson, Commonplace
Learning: Ramism and its German Ramifications, 15431630 (Oxford: OUP, 2007).
9For the structure and contents of those works, see Encyclopaedia Britannica
(Cambridge, 1910), 9:372.
10F.W. Cuno, Johann Heinrich Alsted, Reformierte Kirchenzeitung 26 (1903): 2650;
Howard Hotson, Johann Heinrich Alsted, 9, 35. For his international fame, see Pierre Bayle,
A Dictionary Historical and Critical, trans. John Bernard et al. (London, 1735), 1:529; Gottfried
Zedler and Hans Sommer, Die Matrikel der Hohen Schule und des Paedegogiums zu Herborn,
Verffentlichungen der Historischen Kommission fr Nassau (Wiesbaden: Bergmann, 1908),
5:82ff; Samuel E. Morison, Harvard College in the Seventeenth Century, 2 vols. (Cambridge:
HUP, 1936), 1:158.
11Cuno, Johann Heinrich Alsted, 2650; Hotson, Johann Heinrich Alsted, 9, 35.
12See Hotson, Johann Heinrich Alsted, 81, 89, 111112.
13Hotson, Johann Heinrich Alsted, 112.
286 byung soo han
academization of the Reformation theology by taking a close look at

Alsteds Scripture-based perspective of anthropology, pedagogy, and phi-
losophy, which may lead us to the possible conclusion that he, though
actually referring to the Aristotelian idea of tabla rasa as characteristic of
human beings after the fall, does not depart from the Reformed tradition
on the issue. In a broad sense, the theological academization of the seven-
teenth century should not be taken as a mark of so-called Pelagianism or
proto-rationalism departing from Reformation teaching.
With a thorough and careful inquiry into the primary sources of
Bartholomaeus Keckermann and Alsted, Hotson argues that Keckermann
and Alsted departed from the first generation of reformers and agreed
with one another on the ground of three anthropological and educational
points: 1) the perfection of the intellectual, volitional, and operative facul-
ties constitutes a major part of the image of God in man; 2) an encyclope-
dic philosophical education can help restore that image; and 3) that
enough principles remains in fallen human nature to provide a natural
starting for that process.14 Alsted seems to support Hotsons argument
when he states:
Humans are by nature like a tabula rasa on which nothing is written but
whatever can be inscribed. Oh you schools, inscribe the characters of piety
and humanity! A human is by nature like a white line which can be given any
color. Tinge that white line with the vivid hue of honor! Humans when first
born into the light of day are like stones out of which any sort of figure can
be carved. You have the most skillful sculptors who remake humans in order
that the image of God uncovers itself more and more!15
It is possible to reinterpret this quotation in light of Alsteds theological
understanding of human beings sinful nature post lapsum. However, it
should first be noticed that Alsted wrote the above statement in the con-
text of describing the providence of God toward schools, but not in the
context of building theological commonplaces, particularly the locus de
homine. His doctrinal discussion of anthropology is found in a biblical
encyclopedia grounded exclusively on the text of Scripture, Triumphus
bibliorum sacrorum seu Encyclopaedia biblica (1625), as well as in the
Encyclopaedia septem tomis distincta (1630). Slightly different from Hotson,
who puts weak emphasis on the locus de homine in these sources, the pres-
ent essay will attempt to interpret them properly.
14Hotson, Johann Heinrich Alsted, 8384.

15J.H. Alsted, Encyclopaedia septem tomis distincta (Herborn, 1630), 4:1541.
In the Triumphus, Alsted asserts, on the basis of Genesis 2:17 and

Ephesians 4:24, that God made Adam and Eve upright and good: The grace
of their spirit constitutes original wisdom and justice to be naturally prop-
agated and the grace of their body constitutes remarkable immortality
and beauty, naturally increased according to the law of creation.16 The
continuation of grace or the integrity of nature given to our first parents
depends on the covenant of nature whose sacrament was the tree of life.
But sin, the discordance from the law of God, entered into the world by
Adam in whom all human beings except Christ have been conceived and
born with sin. However, its author was not God or human beings but the
devil. The penalty of sin is the temporal and eternal, the first and second
death of body and soul, and every kind of affliction that is injurious to soul
and body.17 The human mind was so darkened by sin that it cannot know
what is spiritual. The human will was thus so depraved by sin that it always
fights against the divine laws. God, nevertheless, engenders in humans a
possibility, in which they can believe, the act of faith itself (ipsum fidei
actum), and similarly, a possibility in which they can will and act.18 It is of
interest to note that Alsted did not use such terms as us, the elect, or
believers, but humans, to whom God gives these possibilities. Does it
mean that Alsted maintained that God gave all humans the possibility to
believe or faith itself? No, he did not. In support of his thesis, Alsted
appeals to some biblical testimonies which say that God does give us
(nobis, believers) a heart to understand, eyes to see, and ears to hear; and
God works in you the will and the deed for his good pleasure, he illumi-
nates the eye of our mind to see, he grants us a new heart and a new
spirit, he pours out his love in our heart through the Holy Spirit, and he
makes us be born again and raised from death.
In the Encyclopaedia, Alsted makes a distinction between the govern-
ment of human beings before and after the fall. The government of
humans before the fall is done in the image of God and in the covenant
of nature. He again divides the image of God in human beings into images
of nature and of grace: the former is inseparable from them, while the lat-
ter is separable. The image of God naturally in humans may be said to be
16J.H. Alsted, Triumphus bibliorum sacrorum seu Encyclopaedia biblica (Herborn,

1625), 314.
17Alsted, Triumphus, 319.
18Alsted, Triumphus, 322323; Encyclopaedia, 5:1594. There is a history to the idea of
possible power going back to Augustines distinction between the capacity (posse habere
fidem) and actuality of faith (habere fidem). See Augustine, De praedestinatione sanctorum,
V.10 (PL 44:968).
288 byung soo han
the spiritual, simple, and immortal substance of the soul, faculties of the
soul like intellect and will, the light of nature in the intellect, the liberty in
the will, and the bodys structure and stature.19 The gracious image of God
consists of four things: 1) excellent wisdom and integral knowledge of God
and his works in the intellect; 2) original justice and sanctity in the will;
3) perfect disposition of parts, outstanding moderation, eminent beauty,
imperial majesty, and immortality; and 4) in the whole humanity, the felic-
ity encompassing the most consecrated communion and familiarity with
God, the abundance of all goods and the most beautiful habitation and
optimal sustenance, the most absolute authority in all animals, and the
fullest immunity from all labor and trouble.20
The government of humans after the fall, according to Alsted, is
observed in free choice, sin, and a repression of sin.21 Originally, the free-
dom of the first humans was directed toward both the good and the evil,
while that of the fallen humans toward the evil alone. Then he divides the
free choice of humans in this world after the fall into two: the free choices
of the regenerate and the non-regenerate.22 The free choice of the latter is
directed only toward the evil in terms of spiritual things, and nearly toward
the evil in terms of moral and civil things, while that of the former is partly
directed toward the good and partly toward the evil in terms of moral and
civil things.23 Alsted points out that there are grades of freedom by saying
that freedom of the regenerate when not yet glorified is from the evil to
the good through the grace of God but imperfectly, but freedom after
being glorified is from the evil to the good perfectly.24 Likewise, the free-
dom of the will has different degrees according to its state: in the state of
integrity, human beings were able not to sin; in the state of misery, they
can do nothing but sin; in the state of grace, sin cannot reign in them; and
they are completely unable to sin in the state of glory.25 The freedom
related to the regenerate in this world is threefold: from sin, from misery,
19Encyclopaedia, 5:1594.
22Alsted further states that while the free choice of the blessed in the next world is
directed toward the good alone, that of the condemned in the next world is directed toward
the evil alone. Encyclopaedia, 5:1595.
23At this point, Alsted appeals to Augustine. See Augustine, De libero arbitrio, III.viii
(PL 32:12811282).
25Cf. W. van Asselt et al., Reformed Thought on Freedom (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009),
4445; Calvin, The Bondage and Liberation of the Will, ed. Lane (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996),
240, and passim.
and from necessity. What should be noted here is that it is primarily by

divine grace that the regenerate in this world are given this freedom. It is
not the result of any discipline or of any science.
Next, Alsted makes several distinctions as he examines sin and its effect
on human beings. He distinguishes special sin as primary (the fall of Adam
and Eve) and generated sin as their corruption. Furthermore, he divides
generated sin into natural and actual. The generated natural sin or sin
clung to the nature of fallen Adam and Eve is partly the defect or lack of
original justice and wisdom and partly a crooked inclination or concupis-
cence or propensity toward the evil. From the primary sin of the first
humans are generated guilt, turpitude, original and actual sin, and any
sort of punishment. The propagation of the first transgression to the
descendants is done by imputation and real communication, entailing our
privation of justice that necessitates the ineptitude for the good and the
perversity of all faculties of soul and body. As the derailment in human
acts or the deviation from the law of God, the actual sins come from origi-
nal sin and are varied by reason of causes, effects, subjects, and adjuncts.26
The punishment of sin has many distinctions: in terms of modus there are
internal or external, (properly or analogically said) spiritual or corporeal,
original or adventitious, ordinary or extraordinary, immediate or mediate,
bare punishment or simultaneous transgression, privation of habitual or
assistant grace, and damnation or sentence. In terms of grade, Alsted dis-
tinguishes major or minor, and by reason of recipient subject, pious or
impious humans.27 According to Alsted, the total misery of humankind
comes to fulfillment with the vocabulary of death, which is threefold:
1) spiritual death which is the privation of spiritual life in which wretched
humans live only in sin, 2) death of affliction which is the privation of
youthful felicity and the engrafting of all generic calamity, and 3) spiritual
and corporeal death which has its inchoation in terms of damnation and
sense. This spiritual and corporeal death is like the carelessness and sense-
lessness of conscience, the greatest terror and desperation of conscience,
internal loss of sanity, vivacity, and from it morality, or it is external loss of
external good such as suffering and fatigue and poverty, and its consum-
mation, like the total and final separation from divine favor and the pleni-
tude of eternal sin and suffering.
Finally, the repression of sin needs to be taken into careful consider-
ation. The repression of sin in the control of divine providence is general
290 byung soo han
or special, common or proper. The former is done by law (the law of cre-
ation that was inscribed in human heart, the law of nature or moral law as
the eternal norm of justice, and the Mosaic Law including moral, judicial,
and ceremonial laws). The latter is done by the home or marriage based on
Genesis 2, by politics or magistracy grounded in Psalm 82 and Deutronomy
1, or by scholastic society or school.28 For the subject of this essay, let us
focus on the school as a medium actualizing the proper or special repres-
sion of sin.
Regarding the origin of schools, Alsted describes schools as founded on
the divine law, the law of nature, and the law of nations. He explains that
in the Old Testament God instituted schools, while in the New Testament
Jesus Christ sanctified them. Every society which sets up ideals of virtue
and felicity is a society according to nature; and all humankind in all ages
and generations have approved of schools.29 Especially for the divine ori-
gin and sanction of schools, Alsted appeals to some biblical testimonies:
Moses was prepared to be a great leader of Israel by being trained and
educated in all the wisdom of Egypt. Daniel was educated in a Chaldean
school to make the name of God known even to the Gentile kings so they
could praise Gods name. Jehoshaphat emphasized school education as
the most important factor to make his people knowledgeable in the divine
laws and to rid the land entirely of idolatry.30 Alsted continues to empha-
size God as the author of schools.
In the beginning, therefore, just as the garden of Eden had God for its archi-
tect, so the birthday and incunabula of schools which emulate Eden can be
referred to no other author, but God. Nay, could the glory of an institution so
excellent, so good, in every way so worthy of support, from which the most
joyful and copious harvest of mighty blessings flows upon all the mortal race
as it were out of the cornucopia of Amalthea, be regarded as referable to
another than God, the fountain and source of all good?31
Alsted argues that always in the world there have been pious schools
above all among the chosen people of God, which through his infinite
favor and power have endured even to his day and will remain to the end
of the world and will find their completion in eternal life.32 He contin-
uesthat not just the genesis of school but also its defense manifests the
inexplicable providence of God. According to Alsted, the first private

school was in the house of Adam, while the first public school was erected
by Enosh. Alsted also attempts to link schools with the church by saying
that certainly whoever said this said rightly, that the origin of schools is
one with the origin of the church.33
As God, our heavenly father, in the beginning planted a noble vineyard,
I mean the church; and having planted it, preserved it from foxes and wild
boars; and having preserved it, gave it increase; so in his unspeakable wis-
dom he added schools to it as nurseries and seminaries, to the end that as
often as the plants of the vineyard withered with age, or collapsed in death,
they might be replaced by fresh, green, young and vigorous shoots from the
garden of the school. Oh, ineffable wisdom of God, whereby he ordained the
perennial fountain of the school to subserve the glorious vineyard of his
church! Oh, admirable bounty whereby just as he ordained that there should
be a seed in this mundane theater that humans and their affairs should
never perish! In the garden of his church, thus, he established the school as
an inexhaustible seminary, that the shoots and young plants might be trans-
ferred into that glorious vineyard and conduce to its eternal life.34
According to Alsted, the absolute aim of pedagogy in schools is scholastic
felicity, located in the union and communion of the minds of the good,
and truly in biosophia (, the wisdom of living well), technosophia
(, the wisdom stepping forth from the right perception of arts),
and gymnotechnia (, the exercise or use of the rightly perceived
arts). The relative end is the conservation of the church, the state, and
the household through the erudition and rectitude of morals.35 The
instruction and learning in the schools must be designed to make human
beings better with regard to their intellect, will, and speech so that they
may accomplish this threefold aim: to imbue his or her intellect with
knowledge or the cognizance of the truth, his or her will with the perfor-
mance of good, and his or her tongue with eloquence.36 The aim or pur-
pose of pedagogy was not intended for the salvation of human beings.
Alsted connects this threefold aim of pedagogy with philosophy.
He acknowledges Keckermanns view of philosophy as standing for all
36Encyclopaedia, 4:1505. With emphasis on the combination of theoria and praxis,
Alsted states that although erudition is an excellent provision for lifes journey, an orna-
ment in prosperity, and a refuge in adversity, yet if it be seen in anyone not accompanied
by good conduct, it finds no favor and obtains no praise. For then it is nothing but sugar in
a sewer, wine in a poisoned vessel, or a sword in the hand of a mad person.
292 byung soo han
teaching and learning which pertains to the perfection of the intellect and
the will, and indeed of the whole human being, and also Platos definition
of philosophy as similitude to God by teaching true knowledge and good
action or the knowledge of the divine, the human, and the causes which
they may encounter.37 With reference to the various divisions of philoso-
phy used by Keckermann, Clemens Timpler, and Francisco de Toledo,
Alsted emphasizes the division of philosophy into 1) the theoretical, which
teaches the way of clearly cognizing to remove the darkness of ignorance
in the intellect, 2) the practical, which teaches the way of living well and
blessedly to remove the vice in the will, and 3) the poetical, which teaches
the way of easily learning theoria and praxis to remove the ineptitude in
the poetic intellect.38 This threefold division of philosophy corresponds to
natura, doctrina, and usus so that philosophers should develop from
nature, doctrine, and use, a threefold discipline of the natural, rational,
and moral: Through this tripartite knowledge human beings reach the
one, true, optimal God, without whom no nature subsists, no doctrine is
instructed, and no use is expected.39 This, however, does not mean that
human beings can be saved by philosophy without the grace and salvific
work of Christ. In this regard, we need to know what Alsted means by
philosophy.
Pointing out that humans were created by God and gifted with much
wisdom, Alsted defines philosophy as habitus mixed from various habits
with specifically different entities.40 Thus philosophy may not be repug-
nant to theology in that God is wisdom itself, the fountain, measure, and
norm of all wisdom. Philosophy, he further argues, must be subservient to
theology and, only if it would insult theology, should it be banished like
Hagar; for like Sarah theology remains.41 It is, for Alsted, nonsense to say
that what is philosophically true is theologically false.42 True philosophy
has God for its supreme cause and is the love of wisdom and is not just
grounded in nature and experience but more primarily in Scripture. And
it is linked with Scripture and faith in such a way that Holy Scripture can
be the principle of philosophy, although not of philosophers, because
37Encyclopaedia, 1:67. Cf. Bartholomaeus Keckermann, Operum omnium (Geneva,

1614), 1:7A.
40Encyclopaedia, 1:67, 110.
41Encyclopaedia, 1:74, 110. This allegory goes back to Clement of Alexandria, Stromata,
I.5 (PG 8:717728).
42Encyclopaedia, 1:76. Cf. Keckermann, Operum omnium, 1:68.
philosophical principles can and ought to harmonize with the light of

faith, as the most divine regula.43 Likewise, he comprehends Gods inspir-
ing of the human soul as the supreme cause of all the disciplines in the
schools. The absolute finis of all Scripture-based disciplines by themselves
is twofold: the principal and architectonic is the glory of God, and the sub-
ordinate is the eternal salvation of human beings and the restoration of
Gods image in them, a restored image of God that is chiefly located in
wisdom, justice, the sanctity of intellect, and the sanctity of will.44 Every
discipline in its own way contributes to the renewal of Gods collapsed
image in us. Notably, Alsted argues that it is God who communicates his
image to humans and also renews the collapsed image in them.45 Just as in
philosophy, so in all other disciplines, Scripture, right reason, and experi-
ence are the threefold norm of principles of cognition.46 In particular,
Scripture is regarded for every discipline as the highest principium, prin-
cipal regula of principia, and divine law from eternity and in eternity.47
Alsted further claims that Scripture, reason, and experience are regula-
tive norms and principles of the whole encyclopedia. For all fields of dis-
cipline, in addition, Scripture is the principium of principia among
cognitive principles, just as God is the principium of principia among
essential principles.48 Alsted, though acknowledging that some say there
are three principia, namely, the eternal principium in the mind of God, the
revealed principium in Scripture, and the principium introduced by the
human mind, claims that these three principia are one in reality, since
there is only one eternal reason.49 Thus Alsteds view of human beings and
philosophy or discipline should not be understood without a previous
consideration of God and Scripture as the highest norm and principium of
the whole of philosophy and of every discipline.
No Reformed orthodox theologian in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries claims that human beings can be saved by their own human
efforts. Likewise, for Alsted, the fallen, sinful human nature cannot be
saved by any school activity or by any discipline but only by Gods unfath-
omable grace. Sin cannot be swept away by any human merit but only
43Encyclopaedia, 1:77. Cf. Hotson, Johann Heinrich Alsted, 139.

44Encyclopaedia, 1:73; Triumphus, praefatio.
46Encyclopaedia, 1:76. Cf. Lambert Daneau, Physice Christiana, sive, Christiana de rerum
creatarum origine, & usu disputatio, 4th ed. (Geneva: Vignoniana, 1602), 49.
294 byung soo han
through the sacrificial blood of Jesus Christ. Academic achievement in

school should not be regarded as a meritorious basis for human salvation,
but as an aid to the sanctification of the faithful or the restoration of Gods
image in humanity. This is what Alsted meant in his encyclopedic works.
Only if a science or discipline has Scripture as its principium, might it then
be said that its subordinate finis is to intend the eternal salvation of human
beings instrumentally by revealing Gods invisible qualitieshis eternal
power and divine nature. Alsted, however, most clearly claimed that justi-
fication and santification are accomplished by the sacerdotal, prophetic,
and kingly offices of Christ.50
It is true that Alsted intended the academization of Reformation theol-
ogy to embrace all kinds of disciplines. But his intention has no Pelagian
or semi-Pelagian connection with the salvation of human beings from
sin. His encyclopedic work is rather designed to systematize and institu-
tionalize the Reformation teaching for the perfect restoration of Gods
image in fallen humanity. Alsteds enormous academization, in Mullers
estimation, is the institutionalization and codification of doctrinal and
educational principles and concerns enunciated by the Reformers.51 And
his emphasis on school education should not be taken as a suggestion of a
new way to attain human salvation and thus a departure from Reformation
teaching. Rather, Alsted would like to stress that all academic activities or
disciplines should be grounded in Holy Scripture, the revelation of God
who is the supreme wisdom and its fountain. It is in this regard that his use
of the phrase Homines natura sunt veluti tabula rasa may be properly
seen. Thus, I regard Alsteds encyclopedic work or academization of
Reformation teaching as an attempt to expand the successful Reformation
into the whole area of human academics.
51Muller, After Calvin, 109.
THEOLOGY AND PIETY IN URSINUS SUMMA THEOLOGIAE
Lyle D. Bierma
One small window through which to view the relationship between

church and school in early modern Protestantism is the Summa Theologiae
(Summary of Theology), or Catechesis maior (Larger Catechism), com-
posed by Zacharias Ursinus in 1562. Ursinus (15341583), who served as
rector of the Sapience College (seminary) in Heidelberg and professor of
dogmatics at Heidelberg University, is probably best known as the primary
author of the Heidelberg Catechism (1563). However, he was also an impor-
tant early Reformed scholastic theologian and a contributor to the rise of
Reformed covenant theology in the second half of the sixteenth century.1
The Summa Theologiae (hereinafter ST), a catechetical work consisting
of 323 questions and answers, was once thought to have been written as a
preparatory document for the Heidelberg Catechism (HC). Quirinus
Reuter, who included it in a posthumous collection of Ursinus theological
works in 1612, reports that the ST was one of two catechisms commis-
sioned by the magistrate of the German Palatinate, a smaller catechism
for children and a larger one for adults, and that a significant part of the
HC was based on these two documents.2 Three decades later, Heinrich
Alting offered a similar account in his history of the Palatinate church:
This task [of preparing the HC] was assigned in 1562 to two theologians,
Olevianus and Dr. Ursinus, both of them Germans and accomplished in
writing the German language. Each of them prepared his own draft:
Olevianus, a popular exposition of the covenant of grace; Ursinus, a twofold
catechisma larger one for those more advanced, and a smaller one for the
youth. From these two works the Palatine Catechism was composed.3
1For a full account of Ursinus life and works, see Karl Sudhoff, C. Olevianus und
Z. Ursinus: Leben und ausgewhlte Schriften (Elberfeld: Friderichs, 1857); G. Bouwmeester,
Zacharias Ursinus en de Heidelbergse Catechismus (The Hague: Willem de Zwijgerstichting,
1954); and Derk Visser, Zacharias Ursinus: The Reluctant ReformerHis Life and Times
(New York: United Church, 1983).
2Catechesis, Summa Theologiae, per quaestiones et responsiones exposita: sive capita
religionis Christianae continens, in D. Zachariae UrsiniOpera theologica, ed. Quirinus
Reuter (Heidelberg: Lancellot, 1612), 1:1011.
3Heinrich Alting, Historia ecclesiae Palatinae [1644], in Ludwig Christian Mieg,
Monumenta pietatis et litteraria virorum in re publica et litteraria illustrium selecta, 2 vols.
(Frankfurt: Johannem Maximilianum Sande, 1701), 1:189.
296 lyle d. bierma
To some extent, these early claims about the ST appear to be correct.

Although there is a much greater similarity in structure and content
between Ursinus Smaller Catechism and the HC, parallel wording can
also be found between at least twenty-eight questions and answers in the
Larger Catechism (ST) and the HC that have no counterparts in the
Smaller Catechism. More recent research has shown, however, that these
early seventeenth-century accounts of the origin and purpose of the
ST were not entirely accurate. In a 1972 study of Ursinus theological
pilgrimage from Philippism to Calvinism, Erdmann Sturm pointed to an
inaugural address that Ursinus presented on the occasion of his appoint-
ment to the chair of Dogmatics at Heidelberg University in September
1562. In that address, Ursinus noted not only that the HC was nearly
finished but also that he would begin his lectures at the university with
a summary of doctrine (summam doctrinae) that charted a middle path
between a very basic catechism, on the one hand, and a more comprehen-
sive treatment of the loci of theology, on the other. The work that best fits
this description is Ursinus catechetical Summary of Theology, or Larger
Catechism. If this identification is correct, then even though the ST exerted
some influence on the final form of the HC, its original and main purpose
was not to provide a draft for that catechism but to serve as a textbook for
theological students at the university.4
What we have in the ST, then, is an example of how one of the leading
scholastic theologians of early Protestant Orthodoxy employed a long-
standing ecclesiastical genre (catechisms) to teach theology at the highest
academic level. Our focus here will be on how Ursinus relates theology to
piety in this work, that is, how he connects Christian doctrine to the living
out of the Christian life individually and communally coram Deo. What we
shall find is that the ST bears out one of the main conclusions of Richard
Mullers decades-long research, namely, that the authors of scholastic
theological systems were frequently persons of considerable piety and,
more importantly for the historical record, also wrote works intended to
develop and support piety.5 In what follows, we shall examine, in turn,
the pastoral, personal, experiential, and practical focus of the theology of
the ST and then explore how all four of these emphases converge in the
STs doctrine of covenant.
4Erdmann Sturm, Der junge Zacharias Ursinus: Sein Weg vom Philippismus zum
Calvinismus (Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 1972), 239241, 246; Lyle D. Bierma, Translations
of Ursinus Catechisms, in An Introduction to the Heidelberg Catechism: Sources, History,
and Theology, ed. Bierma et al. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), 137139.
5Muller, S&O, 28.
theology and piety in ursinus summa theologiae 297
Pastoral
Like most Christian catechisms from the last 1600 years, the ST is essen-
tially an explanation of the Apostles Creed (Q&A 39131), the Ten
Commandments (Q&A 148210), the Lords Prayer (Q&A 224263),
and the sacraments (Q&A 274319). Moreover, like Ursinus Smaller
Catechism just before it and the HC just after it, the ST shapes its exposi-
tion of the rudiments of the Christian faith in a pastoral manner. German
piety on the eve of the Protestant Reformation had been characterized
by an intensity of religious devotion, a fear of the Devil and death, and
a quest for the perfect confessionall of which pointed to a widespread
lack of certitude of salvation among the devout.6 Protestant catechisms of
the sixteenth century, therefore, often sought to address these spiritual
anxieties by portraying the Christian message as one of assurance and
comfort, and the ST is no exception. As with the Smaller Catechism
and HC, the very first question and answer sets the tone for the rest of
the work:
Q.What firm comfort do you have in life and in death?
A.That I was created by God in his image for eternal life, and after I will-
ingly lost this in Adam, out of his infinite and gracious mercy God received
me into his covenant of grace, so that because of the obedience and death of
his Son sent in the flesh, he might give me as a believer righteousness and
eternal life. It is also that he sealed this, his covenant, in my heart by his
Spirit, who renews me in the image of God and cries out in me, Abba,
Father; byhis Word; and by the visible signs of this covenant.7
Other religions leave people in the midst of despair and death, (Q&A 7),
and even Christians in their pre-conversion state need to have the law
preached to them before the gospel so that, terrified by the knowledge of
sin and of the wrath of God, they might be stirred up to seek deliverance;
and so that they might be prepared to hear the gospel and be converted to
God (Q&A 149). But the gospel then teaches them how to be certain of
that deliverance (Q&A 35). Indeed, the gift of true faith that embraces
6Steven E. Ozment, The Reformation in the Cities: The Appeal of Protestantism to

Sixteenth-Century Germany and Switzerland (New Haven: YUP, 1975), 2232, 4956; Denis
Janz, Three Reformation Catechisms: Catholic, Anabaptist, Lutheran (New York: Mellen,
1982), 811.
7All quotations from the ST are from Zacharias Ursinus, The Larger Catechism, trans.
Lyle D. Bierma, in An Introduction to the Heidelberg Catechism, 163223 (here at 163). The
Latin text on which this English translation is based is found in August Lang, ed., Der
Heidelberger Katechismus und vier verwandte Katechismen (Leipzig: Deichert, 1907), 152199.
298 lyle d. bierma
the gospel is a firm assurance by which we are convinced that God has
graciously bestowed upon us forgiveness of sins, righteousness, and eter-
nal life (Q&A 38).
This language of comfort, certainty, and conviction is particularly prev-
alent in the STs treatment of the Apostles Creed and the sacraments,
both of which present to us in different forms the fundamental truths of
the gospel (Q&A 39, 275). When, for example, we believe in Jesus Christ,
who is the focus of the second article of the creed, we can derive from the
provisions of his threefold office a triple comfort:
that by him as our king we are given and ruled by the Holy Spirit and
defended against all dangers; that by him as our high priest we are recon-
ciled and brought to the Father, so that we can ask and expect all good
things from him; and that by him as the true prophet we are illumined with
the knowledge of the Father. (Q&A 64)
Faith in Christ as our Lord is to know for certain that we belong to Christ
(Q&A 68), and trusting in his miraculous conception and birth is to be
certain in ones heart of the sinlessness of Christ (Q&A 78). Belief in
Christs suffering, crucifixion, death, descent into hell, ascension, session,
and return in judgment also involves conviction, persuasion, and comfort
(Q&A 88, 97, 101, 103), as does believing in the Holy Spirit, the church, the
remission of sins, and the resurrection of the body (Q&A 110, 112, 127, 130).
One can even be assured of his or her election because by true faith
I embrace the grace of God offered to me, and by that most compelling
evidence I know that I have been elected by God to eternal life and will
always be kept by him (Q&A 219).
The sacraments, too, are Gods visible pledges and public testimonies
[that] assure all those who use these ceremonies in true faith that
this promise [of grace] certainly belongs to them and will be valid for
them forever (Q&A 275). By such pledges God confirms, or builds up,
faith in the hearts of the elect (Q&A 278). Baptism makes us more cer-
tain of our spiritual washing (Q&A 289), and the Lords Supper assures
us of and testifies to the certainty of our communion with Christs
body and blood as we partake of the elements (Q&A 295, 304, 308, 310).
From beginning to end, therefore, the theology of the ST has a pastoral
tone to it. Ursinus seems to want to impress upon his students, many of
whom would become ministers in the church with pastoral responsibili-
ties, that at its core the gospel is a message of assurance and comfort
to troubled souls.
Personal
Closely related to this pastoral dimension is the personal focus of the ST,
since Ursinus concern in the document is to address the spiritual strug-
gles and anxieties of real persons. Nearly half of the questions and answers
in the catechism contain pronouns in the grammatical first and second
persons (I, me, we, us, our, you). Many of these pronouns are in the first
person plural, as we see, for example, in the following question on justifi-
cation (emphasis added):
133Q.How are we justified before God in this life?
A.Through faith alone in Christ, when God out of his gracious mercy,
for us who believe, forgives our sins, imputes to us the satisfaction of
Christ as if we ourselves had done it, and on that account receives us in
grace without any of our own merits and gives us the Holy Spirit and
eternal life.
This use of the first person plural is especially prominent in the exposition
of the Decalogue, where it is emphasized that in the Ten Commandments
Moses is speaking as much to the church of the 1500s as he was to the
ancient people of Israel (Q&A 158). Apparently, Ursinus wants his stu-
dents to remember that one is never a Christian all alone but is always
connected to a community of those who share in the blessings and respon-
sibilities of the Christian life.
Nevertheless, there are key places in the ST where he does employ the
first and second person singular. We first encounter this in the opening
two questions and answers, which, as we have already seen, set a personal
and a pastoral tone for the entire catechism:
1Q.What firm comfort do you have in life and in death?
A.That I was created by God in his image for eternal life, and after I will-
ingly lost this in Adam, out of his infinite and gracious mercy God
received me into his covenant of grace, so that he might give me as a
believer righteousness and eternal life. It is also that he sealed this, his
covenant, in my heart by his Spirit, who renews me in the image of God
and cries out in me, Abba, Father.
2Q.How do you know that God has established such a covenant with
you?
A.Because I am truly a Christian.
Ursinus also shifts to the singular in the critical questions on the meaning
of remission of sins (I know for certain that because of the satisfaction of
Christ, all my sins have been forgiven me in such a way that God will never
300 lyle d. bierma
call me into judgment for them, Q&A 127) and on the assurance of
election:
219Q.But inasmuch as no one is saved except those whom God from
eternity has elected to salvation, how can you be convinced that the
promise of grace pertains to you when you dont know whether you
are elect?
A.Because by true faith I embrace the grace of God offered to me, and
by that most compelling evidence I know that I have been elected by
God to eternal life and will always be kept by him. For if he had not
elected me from eternity, he would never have given me the Spirit of
adoption.
As important as the community of the saints is in the ST, the individual
does not get lost in the crowd. The good news of the gospel is first of all
one of comfort to each believer personally, to each sinner who stands
before God in need of grace. The answers to these key questions, there-
fore, turn out to be not dispassionate doctrinal statements but living
testimonies or confessions of faith on the lips of individual believers.
Experiential
Closely related to this personal focus of the ST is, in turn, its recurring
emphasis on religious experience as a significant part of the Christian life.
For Ursinus the theological truths at the heart of the Christian faith are
not abstract propositions but realities that are lived and experienced.
The tone is set already in Q&A 1, where Ursinus evokes the words of
Romans 8:1516 in his assertion that God seals his covenant in my heart
by his Spirit, who cries out in me, Abba, Father. According to Romans
8, it is actually we who cry to the Father, but Ursinus has recast that
response as the voice of the Holy Spirit deep within the heart of a believer.
This experiential tone carries over into three of the four major sections
of the catechism: the expositions of the creed, the law, and prayer. As we
have already noted, Ursinus analysis of the Apostles Creed contains a
number of references to faith as, in part, the experience of assurance or
certainty. To believe in Jesus conception by the Holy Spirit and his virgin
birth, for example, is to be certain in ones heart of these truths and of
their impact on our salvation (Q&A 78). Belief in other doctrines of the
creed, too, involves being firmly convinced (Q&A 88), really persuaded
(Q&A 97), persuaded in our hearts (Q&A 101), sustained by this com-
fort (Q&A 103), and know[ing] for certain (Q&A 127). But Ursinus
suggests that there is more to the life of faith than just conviction or cer-
tainty by also employing the verb sentire (to feel or experience) to describe
such belief. To believe in the Son of God means to feel in ones heart by
the testimony of the Holy Spirit that we have been adopted by God as
children because of his only begotten Son (Q&A 66). Those who feel in
their hearts that they have received new life because of Christs resurrec-
tion may be said to believe in the risen Christ (Q&A 92). To believe in the
Holy Spirit and in the life everlasting, respectively, means to feel in ones
heart that the Spirit is at work in us (Q&A 112) and to experience in
our hearts already now the beginnings of eternal life (Q&A 131). And we
will know whether we are in the church of the saints if we experience
the beginnings of true faith and conversion to God in us (Q&A 124; cf.
also Q&A 222).
What exactly are these feelings and experiences of faith and conver-
sion that go beyond a firm conviction? We may get some clues from the
STs expositions of the law and prayer. Humanity, says Ursinus, was cre-
ated for the purpose of worshipping God with ones whole life in eternal
happiness (Q&A 13), a happiness that could be attained originally
through obedience to God according to the law (Q&A 14). The summary
of this obedience and law is the love of God and neighbor (Q&A 15), the
latter of which involves not just the doing of good to all but also the
desire for such good (Q&A 16). Having fallen into sin, however, uncon-
verted humanity needs to have the law preached so that they become
terrified by the knowledge of sin and stirred up to seek deliverance
(Q&A 149). And the lifelong conversion of a Christian through interac-
tion with the law includes both mortification, that is, sorrow and hatred
for our sin (Q&A 144), and vivification, which is both joy in God and a
love and burning desire for righteousness (Q&A 145). The invocation of
God in prayer, too, is a burning desire of the soul to petition God for
physical and spiritual gifts and to thank God for them (Q&A 225). Indeed,
sincere prayer is rooted in a true sense of our misery and an anxious
and ardent desire for the grace of God (Q&A 228)a desire that comes
from the Holy Spirit, who must kindle it in our hearts (Q&A 229).
Happiness, terror, stirrings, sorrow, hatred, joy, misery, and burning
desireall of these are emotions and experiences associated with the
Christians ongoing journey of faith and conversion in a life of good works
and prayer.
Practical
Finally, the STs treatment of the essentials of Christian theology has a

very practical focus. The contents of the catechism suggest that for Ursinus
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the Christian religion involves not just a set of divinely revealed truths
to be mastered by his students but also the students response to those
truths in the practice of the Christian life. Doctrine is always connected
to devotion. Built into us as image-bearers of God already at creation is
the inclination and desire of the whole person to live according to the
true knowledge of God and to worship God in eternal happiness with
ones whole life (Q&A 12, 13). To speak of God as Trinity, therefore, is not
only to confess that God is one essence in three distinct persons but also
to acknowledge that this Trinitarian God is the one in whom we are bap-
tized, and whom we are commanded to worship (Q&A 43). To believe in
Jesus Christ means to recognize not only that Christ has acted on our
behalf in fulfilling his threefold office of prophet, priest, and king but also
that we are made kings with him, who have dominion with him over all
creatures for eternity; and priests, who already now offer ourselves and all
that is ours as thank offerings to God; and prophets, who truly know and
glorify God (Q&A 64).
The sanctification of the elect, too, involves both Gods work in believ-
ers and their response. The Holy Spirit teaches the elect the will of God
through the ministry of the gospel, regenerates them, makes them tem-
ples of God and members of Christ, and preserves them for eternal life.
But all of this is so that they, in turn, might mortify the works of the flesh
[and] walk and advance in newness of life (Q&A 110). The same is true of
the church. On the one hand, it is a community of persons elected by God
for eternal life and born again by the Holy Spirit (Q&A 113). It is holy
because Christ redeems it, clothes it with his righteousness, and renews
it by his Spirit (Q&A 114). On the other hand, it is we who embrace the
gospel in faith and obedience, participate in the sacraments, and contrib-
ute whatever gifts each has received from God to the enrichment of the
whole church (Q&A 113, 116). The action verbs, therefore, that Ursinus
associates with the practice of the Christian lifelive, worship, obey,
honor, love, do good, be grateful, revere, trust, offer, acknowledge, invoke,
glorify, be content, testify, praise, meditate, confess, embrace, contribute,
proclaim, etc.all leave the reader with the impression that, like Calvins
Institutes, the ST is not just a summary of theology but a handbook on
Christian piety.
Covenant of Grace
Scholars in the past have differed greatly in their view of Ursinus role in
the rise of post-Reformation orthodoxy, particularly in how he formulated
the relationship between covenant and predestination. Some have seen in

his doctrine of covenant an attempt to palliate a harsh double predesti-
narianism inherited from Calvin.8 Others have claimed that his doctrine
of the covenant of grace, especially its human dimension, is virtually swal-
lowed up by his doctrine of predestination.9 Neither of these positions,
however, can be defended on the basis of the ST. When covenant and pre-
destination are mentioned together in this catechism, they appear wholly
compatible (see e.g., Q&A 33) but never in such a way that the human role
in the covenant is diminished or undermined (see, e.g., Q&A 224, 266).
The importance of this human dimension in Ursinus covenant of grace
is illustrated by the convergence in this one doctrine of the four emphases
we have found in the theology of the ST as a whole: pastoral, personal,
experiential, and practical. Like the other teachings in the ST, the doctrine
of covenant always has in view the spiritual needs, religious experience,
and practical living of believers, individually and communally. As we
noted earlier, the pastoral and experiential tone of the catechism comes
to expression already in the first question: What firm comfort do you have
in life and in death? What is also worth noting, however, is that the
answer to Q. 1 explains this comfort largely in terms of the covenant
of grace:
That out of his infinite and gracious mercy God received me into his
covenant of grace. It is also that he sealed this, his covenant, in my heart
by the Spirit, who renews me in the image of God and cries out in me, Abba,
Father, by his Word, and by the visible signs of his covenant.
Such covenantal assurance lies at the very heart of the gospel:
35Q.What does the gospel teach?
A.What God promises us in his covenant of grace, how we are received
into it, and how we know we are in itthat is, how we are delivered
from sin and death, and how we are certain of this deliverance.
Indeed, God instituted the ministry of the church so that through it he
might receive us into his covenant, keep us in it, and really convince us
that we are and forever will remain in it (Q&A 265). As aspects of this
ministry, both of the visible signs of [Gods] covenant offer the believer
an assurance related to this covenant of grace. The benefit we receive
from the sacrament of baptism is that throughout our lives of ongoing
8E.g., Heinrich Heppe, Dogmatik des deutschen Protestantismus im sechzehnten

Jahrhundert, 3 vols. (Gotha: Perthes, 1857), 3:139160.
9E.g., J. Wayne Baker, Heinrich Bullinger and the Covenant: The Other Reformed Tradition
(Athens: Ohio University, 1980), 203.
304 lyle d. bierma
conversion, we can be certain of the covenant established with God

(Q&A 288). And in the Lords Supper, Christ testifies that he most cer-
tainly communicates his body and blood to believers, so that the cove-
nant established with God in baptism may be valid for them forever
(Q&A 295). Ursinus responds pastorally to the spiritual anxieties of his
day in part by appealing to a biblical concept that underscores the validity
and certainty of salvation: the covenantal relationship between God and
his people.
Not surprisingly, this relationship is often cast in personal terms, first-
person singular as well as plural. My comfort in life and death is that God
receives me into the covenant of grace and seals this covenant in my heart
by the Spirit and the visible signs of this covenant (Q&A 1). How do you
know that God has established such a covenant with you? Because I am
truly a Christian, that is, one who is grafted and baptized into Christ (Q&A
2, 3). Your hope of eternal life is received from the gracious covenant
that God established anew with believers in Christ (Q&A 30). And God
wants to receive us into the covenant of grace in such a way that he does not
go against the covenant established in creation, that is, that he neither treat
us as righteous nor give us eternal life unless his law has been perfectly satis-
fied, either by ourselves or, since that cannot happen, by someone in our
place. (Q&A 135)
This covenantal language is directed at persons not in the abstract but
who are sitting in the authors own classroom and in the pews of their
future parishioners.
Finally, this pastoral, experiential, and personal approach to the doc-
trine of covenant in the ST is complemented by a strong emphasis on
practical Christian living. The covenant of grace, after all, is a mutual
promise, not simply one in which God vows to be a gracious father to
believers and give them eternal life but also one in which they in turn
pledge to accept these benefits in true faith and, as befits grateful and
obedient children, to glorify him forever (Q&A 31). The mutuality of this
covenant is highlighted every time we participate in the sacraments, the
visible signs of the covenant:
Sacraments are ceremonies instituted by God and added to the promise of
grace, so that he might represent to them the grace promised in the gospel,
that is, the communication of Christ and all his benefits; and so that, by
these visible pledges and public testimonies, as it were, he might assure all
those who use these ceremonies in true faith that this promise certainly
belongs to them and will be valid for them forever; and so that those using
them might, on their part, bind themselves to perseverance in true faith and
piety toward God. (Q&A 275)
The contours of this piety are found in the divine law, which teaches us
what God requires of [mankind] after establishing a new covenant of
grace with himthat is how he ought to conduct his life after being
reconciled to God (Q&A 10). This covenant, therefore, is valid only for
those who keep it, meaning that we are obligated not only to believe in
Christ but also to live holy lives before God. Without the fruit of good
works in our lives we can neither boast of faith nor take comfort in part-
nership in the divine covenant (Q&A 141).
Conclusion
In the mid-1990s, Richard Muller published a lengthy essay outlining his

comprehensive reappraisal of the historiography of Reformed ortho-
doxy.10 Among his ten basic premises was a challenge to the scholarship of
the previous 150 years that had detected little of the Reformations theol-
ogy of piety in the age of scholasticism that followed. Muller argued that
for many of the great Reformed scholastics of the post-Reformation
periodPerkins, Ames, Voetius, and Baxter, for exampleit is not easy
to draw a firm line between scholasticism and pietism.11 Although they
wrote technical academic treatises that employed the scholastic method,
they were also men of great personal piety and produced theological
works that emphasized piety and praxis.12
Based on our examination of the ST, Zacharias Ursinus should be added
to this list of pious scholastic theologians. While certainly a practitioner of
the scholastic method in some of his writings,13 Ursinus also composed
catechetical works like the ST and HC that, as we have seen, are pastoral
in tone and stress the interrelationship between theology and piety in the
lives of Christian believers. However, unlike the HC, which was composed
primarily for young people and lay adults, the ST was a mid-level theologi-
cal text intended for students at the seminary and university. What we
find in the ST, therefore, is a theology of piety that made its way not only
into a work by a major Protestant scholastic but also, and more remark-
ably, into the very arena in which he plied his tradethe classrooms of
the highest schools in the land.
10Muller, Calvinists I; Calvinists II.

11Muller, Calvinists II, 145.
12Muller, Calvinists II, 144146.
13E.g., Corpus doctrinae Christianae (Hanover: Aubrius, 1634).
LAW AND GOSPEL IN EARLY REFORMED ORTHODOXY:
HERMENEUTICAL CONSERVATISM IN OLEVIANUS
COMMENTARY ON ROMANS
R. Scott Clark
Introduction
Before 1513 Martin Luther (14831546) understood that God had made a
covenant whereby he was prepared to co-act with those who capitalize on
the natural endowments given by God, that to the one who does what lies
within him, God denies not grace.1 In this Pelagianizing scheme, justifica-
tion is a process in which God recognizes the sanctified as righteous on
the basis of their inherent righteousness achieved by grace and coopera-
tion with grace.
Between 1513 and 1521 Martins theology gradually underwent a series of
revolutions. At the end of the process he was articulating what we know as
the Protestant doctrine of sin, grace, the imputation of Christs righteous-
ness as the ground of justification, and faith as trusting, receiving, and
resting in Christ alone as the sole instrument of justification.
These were not the only changes in his theology, however. Concomitant
with these developments was a change in the way he read Scripture. Since
the third century most of the church most of the time had understood
Scripture to contain only one kind of speech: law. When the pre-Reforma-
tion church said gospel they meant only the new law. As early as 1513
1514, in his first course of lectures on the Psalms, Luther began to recognize
a more profound difference between law and gospel than just the degree
of grace.2 By 1518 he was expressing the substance of what we know as the
law-gospel hermeneutic. The law, he said, is a word of perdition, a word
of wrath, a word of sadness, a word of anguish, the voice of a judge and a
defendant, a word of trouble, and a word of curse. The gospel, however, is
the word of salvation, the word of grace, a word of solace, a word of joy,
1WA, 1.359. Luthers condemnation of the Franciscan pactum, in 1518, was a repudia-
tion of his earlier view. On his theological development see R. Scott Clark, Iustitia Imputata
Christi: Alien or Proper to Luthers Doctrine of Justification? Concordia Theological
Quarterly (2006): 287294.
2WA, 4:9.
308 r. scott clark
the voice of the bridegroom and the bride, a good word, a word of
peace.3 For sinners, the law, relative to acceptance with God, is bad
news because it demands what we cannot give but the gospel is good news
because it announces that God will (in the case of the Old Testament)
accomplish or has (in the case of the New Testament) accomplished in
Christ, for sinners, what the law demands. By 1532, Luther was able to say
that making this certum discrimen inter legem et Euangelion, inter prae-
cepta et promissiones (certain distinction between law and gospel,
between commands and promises) is die hchste kunst in in derr
Christenheit (the highest art in Christendom). For Luther, failure to
observe this distinction marks one as a pagan or Jew.4 Did the Reformed
accept Luthers distinction or did they become, in Luthers categories,
pagans and Jews? The question under consideration in this essay is that of
the continuity between Martin Luther and early Reformed orthodoxy on
the hermeneutical distinction between law and gospel and the develop-
ment of this principle by the Reformed in their covenant theology. As
representative example, we will discuss Caspar Olevianus (15361587)
commentary on Romans.5
There are three approaches to the question of substantial continuity
between the Lutherans and the Reformed on this point, to affirm it, to
deny it, and to ignore it. Introductory surveys of the history of interpreta-
tion frequently take the last approach. No less a Reformed stalwart than
Louis Berkhof, in his Principles of Biblical Interpretation, published after
decades of biblical and theological study, surveys the hermeneutical prin-
ciples of the Reformation but never mentions what was arguably the most
important hermeneutical principle of the Reformation, though he did dis-
cuss and affirm the distinction in his Reformed Dogmatics (1932).6 Those
handbooks that do address the law-gospel distinction typically assign it to
the Lutheran tradition.7 This ignorance of the distinction also appears in
3WA, 1:616.
4WA, 36:9, lines 9, 2829. See also Martin Luther, The Distinction Between the Law
and the Gospel: A Sermon By Martin Luther January 1, 1532, Concordia Journal 18 (1992):
153163.
5Caspar Olevianus, In epistolamad romanos notaecum praefatione Bezae (Geneva,
1579). Hereafter Romanos.
6Louis Berkhof, Principles of Biblical Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1950), 2527,
Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 4th ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1941), 612614.
7See e.g., Alan J. Hauser and Duane F. Watson, ed., A History of Biblical Interpretation:
The Medieval Through the Reformation Periods, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009),
where the editors speak of the law-gospel hermeneutic (2.51) in the context of Luther and
Melanchthon and Timothy Wengert speaks of the developing Lutheran hermeneutical
principle of law-gospel (2.326). See also D. L. Puckett, John Calvin, in Historical Handbook
law and gospel in early reformed orthodoxy 309
more historical treatments even where recognition of it would seem to be

essential. For example, John Leiths brief essay, in ecumenical dialogue
with mainline Lutherans, gave no indication whatever that, for Calvin (or
for other Reformed theologians) there is any antithesis between the law
and the gospel.8
The second approach, represented by Peter Lillback and Mark A.
Garcia, regards the distinction as solely Lutheran and even antithetical to
the Reformed hermeneutic. Lillback argues that Luthers discovery of the
law-gospel hermeneutic introduced an inescapable tension between his
doctrine of justification and his doctrine of sanctification, which problem
Calvins covenant theology was intended to resolve.9 He argues that, rela-
tive to the ordo salutis, Luthers hermeneutic saw two words in Scripture,
Law and Gospel, which required the separating of faith and grace from
law. In contrast, the covenantal hermeneutic of the Reformed created an
emphasis upon the mutually necessary presence of faith and love.10
Garcia elaborates on Lillbacks approach by contrasting Luthers uni-
versal extension and application of a Law-Gospel hermeneutic the effect
of which was to relegate all conditional passages in Scripture to the cate-
gory of Law as distinct from Gospel whereas Calvin rejected such an
approach and regarded such passages as gospel.11 Garcia concludes,
Lillback was quite correct to identify a hermeneutical disagreement
between Luther and Calvin: Luthers strict use of the Law-Gospel herme-
neutic must not be reconciled simplistically with Calvins broader and
more complicated use of similar language.12
A third approach and that advocated in this essay, represented
by I. John Hesselink, Andrew Bandstra, and Michael Horton, is to see
fundamental unity between Lutheran and Reformed traditions on the
of Major Biblical Interpreters, ed. McKim (Downers Grove: IVP, 1998), 171179 where
Calvins hermeneutic is surveyed with no recognition of the presence of a law-gospel
hermeneutic.
8John H. Leith, Creation and Redemption: Law and Gospel in the Theology of John
Calvin, in Marburg Revisited, ed. Empie and McCord (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1966), 141
151. A similar approach is evident in Wayne G. Strickland, ed., The Law, the Gospel, and the
Modern Christian: Five Views (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993), where two chapters osten-
sibly describe the Reformed approach to law and gospel but do so in purely redemptive-
historical terms with no reference to a hermeneutical distinction.
9Peter A. Lillback, The Binding of God: Calvins Role in the Development of Covenant
Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), 7071.
10Lillback, The Binding of God, 125.
11Mark A. Garcia, Life in Christ: Union with Christ and Twofold Grace in Calvins Theology
(Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2008), 75, 76.
12Garcia, Life in Christ, 77.
310 r. scott clark
distinction between law and gospel in justification but which also sees
development in the way Reformed theologians articulated that distinc-
tion when accounting for redemptive history, covenant theology, and
eschatology. Hesselink argues that when speaking of law and gospel
Calvin was more likely to be speaking in redemptive-historical rather than
hermeneutical categories.13 When speaking redemptive-historically or
covenantally, Calvin used the terms law and gospel in the traditional
way to speak of the old and new covenants or Moses and Christ. In those
cases, his emphasis tended to be on the substantial unity of redemptive
history.14
Hesselink also observes helpfully that, when Calvin wanted to speak in
hermeneutical categories, however, he used the terms promise and
curse.15 Hesselink says that a careful comparison of Luthers and Calvins
exegesis of key law-gospel passages in Galatians shows that the two
reformers are in fundamental agreement on this issue.16 Calvins com-
ments on Galatians 2:19 might well be taken to be Luthers.17 Here, he
says, Calvin is as uncompromising as Luther. There are two kinds of
promises and two kinds of righteousness: legal promises and evangelical
promises, the righteousness of works and the righteousness of faith. These
are two opposing systems which are totally unreconcilable.18 Building on
Hesselinks 1961 doctoral research on this topic, Andrew Bandstra argued
a similar case in 1976.19 Michael Hortons thorough 1997 essay consoli-
dated the case for a fundamental unity between Calvin and the confes-
sional Lutheran position on the law-gospel hermeneutic.20 In his essay
Horton suggests a trajectory of research into Reformed orthodoxy. This
paper begins to take up that task.
This essay argues that despite the various areas of genuine disagree-
ment (e.g., Christology, Baptism, the Supper, and the theory and practice
of worship) between Luther and early Reformed orthodox theologians,
the latter were not conscious of departing from Luther on the law-gospel
13I. John Hesselink, Law and Gospel or Gospel and Law: Calvins Understanding of the
Relationship, in Calviniana: Ideas and Influence of Jean Calvin (Kirksville: SCS, 1988), 1617.
14Hesselink, Law, 1723.
19Andrew Bandstra, Law and Gospel in Calvin and Paul, in Exploring the Heritage of
John Calvin, ed. Holwerda (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1976), 1139.
20Michael S. Horton, Calvin and the Law-Gospel Hermeneutic, Pro Ecclesia 6 (1997):
2742.
hermeneutic and Caspar Olevianus commentary on Romans is a clear

example of this conservation of Luthers hermeneutic.
The Law Gospel Distinction in Romans
A striking facet of Olevianus commentary on Romans, on which we focus

in this essay, is his strong concern with the doctrine of justification and
the distinction between law and gospel. Olevianus used the word iustitia
(righteousness) no fewer than 580 times in his commentary.21 He used
some form of the word justified (iustifcare) 282 times.22 Some form of
theverb to impute or the noun imputation occurs 116 times.23 Eighteen
times he used some variation of the phrase iustitia coram Deo (righ
teousness before God).24 In seven different places he discussed the righ-
teousness of Christ as extra nos.25 The expression sola fide occurs four
times but the doctrine of justification sola fide is strewn throughout the
commentary.26
For Olevianus, the central message of Romans was not predestina-
tion.27 He was a student of Calvin and a strong predestinarian, but he nei-
ther deduced his theology from the doctrine of predestination nor from
any other alleged central dogma. Rather, in certain respects, he read the
book of Romans in a way that one might have expected an orthodox
Lutheran to read it. Olevianus was a man seized by the Protestant under-
standing of the gospel of justification and that commitment was evident
from the beginning of his commentary.
Explaining Romans 1:1 he offered a summa of the gospel. He said that
the Holy Spirit affirms constantly through Paul that the gospel is
the forgiveness of sins and eternal life to be freely given to believers on
account of the Son.28 Indeed, in proper Lutheran fashion, at the outset of
the commentary he argued that, in order to understand Romans, two
21Calvin used the noun iustitia about 500 times in his commentary on Romans.
22Calvin used it about 160 times.
23Calvin used it less than 60 times.
24Calvin used similar expressions about fifteen times in his commentary on Romans
(1671 edition).
25Calvin used the expression extra nos three times.
26Calvin used the expression five times.
27Much of this section of the essay is drawn from R. Scott Clark, Olevianus and the Old
Perspective on Paul: A Preliminary Report, The Confessional Presbyterian 4 (2008): 2124.
28Romanos, 2.
312 r. scott clark
things must be understood: the gospel and the distinction between law
and gospel.29
Here we begin to see the hermeneutical function of the law-gospel
distinction in Olevianus reading of Romans. It was not simply a theologi-
cal abstraction but rather he regarded it as the teaching of Scripture to
be employed, on analogy with Scripture, in the interpretation of Scrip
ture. His understanding of both what the gospel is and what Romans
teaches about it were inextricably bound up with Luthers law-gospel
hermeneutic.
For Olevianus, as for Luther, Melanchthon, Bucer, and Calvin, the moral
law was Gods law and it was revealed in creation before the fall, as part of
a legal covenant,30 republished to national Israel, and published univer-
sally in nature and in the human conscience.31 The nature of God is
reflected in his law and the nature of the law is that it must be satisfied.
No one since Adam, including the patriarchs, prophets, or others, who
has fulfilled the law or satisfied its demands.32 The law demands works
but we are all unable to satisfy the law because of the corruption of our
nature.33
According to Olevianus, the gospel is that God has promised and Christ
has fulfilled the promise that the seed of the woman will crush the head of
the serpent.34 The history of redemption was never far from Olevianus
consciousness. He appealed repeatedly to the prophets and to the his-
tory of salvation to show the fundamental unity of the covenant of
grace. For Olevianus, it was not possible to set redemptive-historical cat-
egories against hermeneutical or theological categories. They were com-
plementary because he found expressions of the law and the gospel
throughout redemptive history.
In his comments on 1:1721 he quoted Romans 3:28 to establish his anal-
ogy of Scripture and framework for interpretation. Romans 1:1721 is about
law, righteousness, and acceptance with God. The gospel, not the law,
saves sinners and the gospel saves those who believe and the Spirit uses
29Romanos, 23.
30On Olevianus doctrine of the republication of the moral law to Israel see R. Scott
Clark, Christ and Covenant: Federal Theology in Orthodoxy, in Companion to Reformed
Orthodoxy, ed. Selderhuis (Leiden: Brill, 2013).
31Romanos, 3. This language is virtually identical to that used by Philipp Melanchthon
in his 1551 Loci communes. See MWA, 2/1.66.3767.114.
32He argued on the basis of the grammar of Isaiah 64:5 that the prophet included him-
self when he said that all our righteousness is as a menstrual rag. See Romanos, 3.
33Romanos, 3.
34Romanos, 3.
the gospel to create faith in the elect.35 The righteousness demanded by

the law, he argued, is either proper or alien, i.e., from God.36
He defined iustitia propria as a righteousness of proper strength which
is required by Gods law (written or unwritten).37 Alien righteousness is
simply that which is imputed to the believer.38 According to Habakkuk 2
and Romans 1:17 the righteousness that comes through the gospel is not
proper, therefore it is alien to us and received through faith.39
Here we see another example of Olevianus debt to Luther and another
reason why we cannot make facile distinctions between Luthers doctrine
of justification and that of early Reformed orthodoxy. The distinction
between iustitia aliena et propria was bequeathed to Olevianus not by
Calvin, who certainly taught it, but by Martin Luther beginning with his
Sermo de duplici iustitia in 1518.40 Commenting on 1:19, Olevianus again
appealed to the hermeneutical distinction. He argued,
It is to be observed that it is quite possible to distinguish between the law
and the gospel. The righteousness of God is to be sought in the gospel. For
that is perfection of the sort of sanctity which is able to stand before God
and it is called the righteousness of God not only because it is freely given by
God and on account of the Son but also because it is only able to bear the
rigor of the divine judgment.41
The distinction between law and gospel is not the distinction between old
and new but between two different paths to acceptance with God. This is
how he interpreted Philippians 3:9, 2 Corinthians 2:5, Isaiah 53, and
Jeremiah 33, each of which he quoted or cited immediately following his
reassertion of the law-gospel distinction.
Those who are aware of the current controversy in New Testament
studies about the nature of Judaism in the first century and concerning
relations between Paul and Second Temple Judaism may be interested to
hear Olevianus interpretation of Romans 3:20. The expression ex operi-
bus legis (from the works of the law) is misconstrued by the Papistae to
refer only to the ceremonial laws, so that when Paul says that no one
is justified before God by the works of the law, according to Olevianus
35Romanos, 27.
36Romanos, 28. He uses this same argument in his interpretation of Romans 3:21,
Romanos, 134.
37Romanos, 31.
38Romanos, 31.
39Romanos, 28.
40On this see Clark, Iustitia Imputata Christi, 266310.
41Romanos, 2930.
314 r. scott clark
sixteenth-century Roman opponents, he was only saying that we need not

keep the ceremonial laws any longer.42 He was not saying that we are not
justified through Spirit-wrought sanctity and cooperation with grace.43
On the contrary, Olevianus interpreted the expression ex operibus legis
to include both the ceremonial law and the other works mandated in the
Decalogue.44 He defended his interpretation by appealing to Pauls dis-
course earlier in Romans 3, where Paul cited examples of transgression of
the Decalogue not transgression of the ceremonial law.45 He carried on by
appealing to Romans 7, which he, like Calvin and the rest of the Reformed
orthodox in the period, interpreted as referring to Paul the Christian, and
to Galatians 3, all of which proves that we are not justified by the law
because the law says, Cursed is he who does not continue in all things to
do them.46 Thus he took that portion of Romans 3 as law, not gospel.
What was implied earlier in his comments on chapter 1 was now clearly
articulated. For Olevianus, the Roman Catholic and Galatian errors were
essentially the same. Gods law demands inherent righteousness. Both the
Judaizers and Romanists set up systems that purported to enable one to
obtain inherent righteousness. Whether it was by grace and cooperation
with grace was immaterial since both systems made the same fundamen-
tal mistakes. They downplayed the effects of sin, they downplayed the
nature of the demands of the law, and they failed to distinguish between
law and gospel.
This is how Olevianus interpreted Romans 3:21. Thus far in the epistle
Paul has given an extended syllogism.47 All we sinners are under condem-
nation because of our failure to obey perfectly Gods righteous law revealed
in nature and in the legalis foedus.48 The gospel, however, offers to
believers what the law demands: perfect, intrinsic righteousness. Christs
righteousness, which was intrinsic to him, is ours extrinsically, by imputa-
tion, and received through faith alone. Thus the purpose of the law is to
teach sinners the righteous judgment of God and their need for a Savior so
that they might look outside themselves in order that they might receive
by faith the righteousness offered efficaciously in the gospel, unless, of
course, they wish to remain under condemnation.49
42Romanos, 132133.
43Romanos, 133.
44Romanos, 133.
45Romanos, 133.
46Romanos, 133.
47Romanos, 134.
48Romanos, 134.
49Romanos, 134.
Thus, when Paul says, they are justified in Romans 3:24, he means to
teach, they are absolved or they receive the remission of sins freely
(), by a free gift. This is the reason that it is necessary to retain
the exclusive particle (gratis).50 Here Olevianus echoes Calvins 1548
comment on Galatians 5:6, where he said, Therefore when you move to
the subject of justification, be careful about making any mention of char-
ity or works, but hold on tenaciously to the exclusive particle.51 By
retaining the exclusive particle, Olevianus means retaining sola before
grace.
We hang on tenaciously to the exclusive particle because our justifica-
tion is owed (debitus) entirely to the sole obedience (sola ipsius obedien-
tia) of the Son of God for believers.52 All the honor is owed to him and not
to anything done by or even in us. According to Olevianus, we also hang
on tenaciously to the exclusive particle in order that our conscience
might have a firm consolation, because if the promise depends upon the
condition of our worth it is made uncertain. Wherefore it is freely by faith
in order that the promise might be firm.53
All this leads to his remarkable conclusion in his discussion of this pas-
sage when he tied Pauls doctrine of justification to the Protestant herme-
neutical breakthrough. The fourth reason Paul spoke as he did regarding
justification is:
[W]e should retain [retineatur] the distinction between the law and the gos-
pel. The law does not promise freely, but under a condition, if you shall have
done everything. And if it be that one has transgressed it only once, he has
no promise of the forgiveness of sins in the law or legal covenant. The gospel,
however, promises freely the forgiveness of sins and life not if we shall have
fulfilled the law, but for the sake of the Son of God, through faith.54
Two things are striking about this language. The first is how utterly indis-
tinguishable this passage is from anything one might read in Luther or
Melanchthon or, indeed, in the Book of Concord. To prove this assertion
one need only to compare Olevianus language with that of Philip
Melanchthons 1521 Loci communes where it says, In the whole of Scripture
there are two parts, the law and the gospel. The law reveals sin and
the gospel reveals grace. The law exposes disease, the gospel shows the
50Romanos, 148.
51John Calvin, Commentarii in Pauli Epistolas, ed. Feld (Geneva: Droz, 1992) 120.
Contrast this view with that advocated in Lillback, Binding, 125.
52Romanos, 148.
53Romanos, 148.
54Romanos, 148.
316 r. scott clark
remedy.55 It is not the case, he continued, as they commonly think that

the law and the gospel are distinguished temporally, as if the law refers to
the OT and the gospel to the NT. Rather, the law and the gospel have been
revealed in every epoch. The law has always revealed sin and the gospel
has always revealed the means by which men are justified.
This was also the language of Melanchthons Apology of the Augsburg
Confession (1530), subsequently part of the Book of Concord under
Article 4:
All Scripture should be divided into these two main topics: the law and the
promises. In some places it communicates the law. In other places it com-
municates the promise concerning Christ, either when it promises that
Christ came and on account of him offers the forgiveness of sins, justifica-
tion, and eternal life, or when in the gospel itself, Christ, after he appeared,
promises the forgiveness of sins, justification, and eternal life.56
The Latin text of the Apology speaks of the remissionem peccatorum,
iutificationem, et vitam aeternam. Variations of this expression are found
repeatedly in Olevianus works, fifteen times to be precise. Nine of those
instances are in his commentary on Romans. The verbal similarity is
impossible to miss. Because of his doctrine of the double benefit of Christ,
he introduced variations into the formula so that in one instance it might
be remissionem peccatorum et renovationem ad vitam aeternam, or
initia vitae, or in one instance he used resurrectio carnis in place of
renovatio or initia. In other words, Olevianus deliberately echoed not
only the early Protestant language of Luther and Melanchthon but there is
also no evidence that he saw any fundamental difference between his doc-
trine of justification, on this point, and that of the confessional Lutherans.
Remember that he published his commentary on Romans just one year
before the Book of Concord appeared. The Formula of Concord had been
in print for two years and Olevianus had been a participant in some heated
exchanges with confessional Lutherans. Indeed, he was the recipient of
orthodox Lutheran wrath in Heidelberg when he refused to officiate at a
mixed marriage, namely the marriage between a Lutheran girl and a con-
fessional Reformed boy, who just happened to be Johann Casmir (1543
1592), the third son of prince Frederick III (15151576), the Elector
Palatinate. His refusal to conduct that wedding cost him a job when he,
55MWA, 2/1.66.2835.
56BC, 121.56. The Latin text of the Apology is taken almost verbatim from Melanchthons
Loci communes. See Concordia Triglotta: The Symbolical Books of the Ev. Lutheran Church,
German-Latin-English. (St. Louis: Concordia, 1917), 120, 5.
with all the Reformed, were ejected from Heidelberg in 1576 on the death
of Frederick III and the accession to power of Fredericks second son,
Ludwig VI, a gnesio-Lutheran. Nevertheless, despite his personal experi-
ence and his theological misgivings about aspects of Lutheran theology,
Olevianus did not take the opportunities afforded him in several volumes
to distinguish clearly between his doctrine of justification, his hermeneu-
tic, and that of the gnesio- Lutherans, even though he had personal motive
to do so.
The second thing one notices from the passage of Olevianus above
is a form of the verb retinere. The most literal rendering is to retain
but it might just as well be translated uphold or preserve. In biblical
usage, in the Vulgate, Olevianus childhood Bible, and in Bezas Latin New
Testament, which Olevianus used for his commentary on Romans, it usu-
ally means hold fast.57 Olevianus did not say explicitly whom he had in
mind when said that the law-gospel distinction is to be retained, but,
given what we know about his context and the strong continuities between
his biblical hermeneutic and that of Luther and the Lutheran confession-
alists, there are three groups he might have had in view: the Reformed, the
Anabaptists, and the Romanists.
To speak to the first: the evidence is overwhelming, whether we look
at Calvin, or Beza, Ursinus, Zanchi, Perkins, Diodati, Gomarus, Polanus,
Wollebius, Pemble, Twisse, Owen, or Turretin, that the Reformed adopted
and used the law-gospel distinction explicitly and implicitly from the mid-
sixteenth century through the seventeenth century.58 After an extensive
search of dozens of Reformed authors in the sixteenth and seventeenth
century I can find none inveighing against Luthers law-gospel distinction.
Olevianus did occasionally speak to the Anabaptist denial of justifica-
tion sola fide et sola gratia, as in his comments on Romans 5:19, where he
condemned both Pelagius and the Anabaptists for teaching that sin
comes only through the imitation of Adam.59 His usual object of criticism
was the Romanist denial of justification sola gratia, sola fide.60 It seems
57See e.g., Robert Webber, ed., Biblia Sacra Iuxta Vulgatam, 4th ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche
Bibelgesellschaft, 1969), Exod. 9:2, Job 2:3 and Theodore Beza, ed., Iesu Christi D. N. Novum
Testamentum Sive Novum Foedus (Geneva: 1565), Luke 8:15, John 20:23, Hebrews 3:6.
58See R. Scott Clark, Letter and Spirit: Law and Gospel in Reformed Preaching, in
Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry: Essays By the Faculty of Westminster Seminary
California, ed. Clark (Phillipsburg: P&R, 2006).
59Clark, Letter and Spirit, 199.
60To see a comparison of Olevianus doctrine of justification with that of his German
Jesuit counterpart, Peter Canisius, see chapter 7 of R. Scott Clark, Caspar Olevian and the
Substance of the Covenant (Grand Rapids: RHB, 2008), 181209.
318 r. scott clark
most likely that when he wrote about the necessity of holding on to the
law-gospel distinction he had in mind his Romanist opponents who, in his
view, had let go of a biblical distinction. Another way of putting this would
be to say that, for Olevianus, the law-gospel distinction was so basic, so
fundamental, that he would not imagine that anyone in the Reformed
church would even bring it into question.
Finally, let us consider the last place where Olevianus discussed the
law-gospel distinction explicitly, in his comments on Romans 10:1. He
wrote of the
distinction between legal righteousness, which, because it teaches perfect
obedience and promises life under the condition of the impossible (Rom. 8,
which is impossible from the law) for it is not possible for us to apprehend
eternal life thus, however fast we may run; and the distinction between the
righteousness of faith offered in the gospel, which is not only possible but
also easy [facilis], of course, for the believer, of whom also there is to be a
beginning with a denial of proper righteousness.61
For Olevianus, the law is one principle. It is conditioned upon, as he said,
perfect obedience to a perfect, unyielding demand for righteousness.
This he called legal righteousness. Adam had the potential for achieving
such legal righteousness, but he refused. We children of Adam do not have
the potential to achieve such righteousness but the demand continues
unabated because the divine nature has not changed and the demands of
justice have not changed.
For Olevianus, what the law demands, the gospel gives. Perhaps the
most striking word in this passage is the adjective facilis (easy). To be sure
Olevianus was no proponent of what today is called easy believism or
sometimes cheap grace. He was a vigorous doctor of the double benefit,
i.e., that we are justified by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ
alone, in order that we may be renewed and sanctified and conformed to
Christ by grace, through faith. For Olevianus, the Christian life begins and
flows out of the gospel of justification. It begins by looking outside of one-
self (extra nos). The Christian life consists of self-denial but it begins with
the denial of proper righteousness. The expression proper righteous-
ness was a reference to the Romanist doctrine that we are justified
because and to the degree we are sanctified, to the degree we possess
inherent, intrinsic or proper righteousness.
The Protestants agreed that there needed to be a righteous man with
perfect, personal, inherent righteousness and condign merit, and that
61Clark, Caspar Olevian, 485.

man, they said was the God-Man Jesus Christ. His inherent righteousness
is iustitia aliena to us and it becomes ours when it is imputed to us and
received through faith alone.62 In short, for Olevianus, our justification
was hard for Christ. It cost him perfect obedience in our place but it is easy
for us who have only to trust in Christ the righteous.
It is evident from the opening pages of Olevianus Romerbrief and
throughout his exposition of the other Pauline epistles that those who
wish to juxtapose the confessional Reformed and Lutheran biblical-
hermeneutical systems cannot do so without ignoring Olevianus.
Conclusion
In January 1547, the delegates to the Council of Trent issued thirty three
canons on the doctrine of justification. Canon 11 categorically rejected the
doctrine justification only on the basis of the imputation of Christs righ-
teousness in favor of the infusion of charity into the heart as the basis of
justification. With equal clarity canon 12 denied explicitly the Protestant
doctrine that faith, in the act of justification is nothing but confidence in
the divine mercy, which forgives sins for Christs sake.
These canons, categorical rejections of the Reformation doctrine of jus-
tification, arose from a particular and ancient way of reading Scripture.
That reading of Scripture was that it is all law and all gospel, that the law
is the gospel and the gospel is the law. They were merely two sides of the
same divine Word.
Since the Reformation there have been two irreconcilable ways of read-
ing Scripture. Either it contains throughout one word, law, or two words:
law and gospel. From Luthers hermeneutical breakthrough in the second
decade of the sixteenth century through the seventeenth century there
was a strong consensus among confessional Lutheran and Reformed
Christians that Luther was correct. There were challenges to the pan-
Protestant consensus. The Arminians raised questions in the early seven-
teenth century. Richard Baxter would challenge the consensus in the
mid-seventeenth century and the Scottish neonomians would fall away
from Protestant hermeneutical orthodoxy in the eighteenth century.63
62See Romanos, 27, 30, 134, 141, 160.

63Regarding Arminius and the Remonstrants on justification see W. R. Godfrey,
Tensions Within International Calvinism: The Debate on the Atonement at the Synod of
Dort, 16181619 (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1974), 4043; and J. V. Fesko, Beyond
Calvin: Union with Christ in Early Modern Reformed Theology (15171700) (Gttingen: V&R,
320 r. scott clark
The title of this paper suggests that the law-gospel distinction belonged
to early Reformed orthodoxy. Was Olevianus hermeneutical and theo-
logical Lutheranism unique or was his theology representative of early
Reformed orthodoxy? The scope of this paper precludes any survey but
the evidence is quite strong for the conclusion that Olevianus doctrine,
hermeneutic, and praxis of the law-gospel distinction was by no means
unique. It was, in every phase of Reformed orthodoxy and in every geo-
graphical place, a fundamentum.
Caspar Olevianus commentary on the book of Romans, read in its con-
text, stands as a strong indicator of the hermeneutical continuity between
Luther and Reformed orthodoxy. In it Olevianus articulated an intention-
ally and precisely anti-Tridentine doctrine of justification because he
embraced an anti-Tridentine hermeneutic. As far as he knew his was the
hermeneutic of his teachers Theodore Beza and John Calvin, his Heidelberg
colleague Zacharias Ursinus, and Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon
before them, and most importantly of all, that of Romans itself.
2012), 276284. On Baxter, see R. Scott Clark, How We Got Here, in Covenant, Justification,
and Pastoral Ministry, 15n27.
LAURENCE CHADERTON: AN EARLY PURITAN VISION FOR
CHURCH AND SCHOOL
Joel R. Beeke
Laurence Chaderton (ca. 15361640) was the spiritual patriarch of the

Puritan movement that emanated from Cambridge University and ush-
ered in renewal to the church in Britain, the Continent, and the New
World. Combining rigorous academic discipline, a fifty-plus-year career in
teaching and educational administration, warm spirituality, and endear-
ing love, he influenced a rising generation of both ministers and magis-
trates. Yet he remains a largely unknown figure, standing in the backdrop
of the very leaders he mentored. While the published works of Chaderton
are few,1 some very significant unpublished notes remain,2 as well as a
small but meaty body of secondary literature on his life.3
1Laurence Chaderton, An Excellent and Godly SermonPreached at Pauls Cross the

XXVI Daye of October, An. 1578 [hereafter Excellent] (London: Barker, [1578]); A Fruitfull
Sermon, Vpon the 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. & 8. verses of the 12. Chapiter of the Epistle of S. Paul to the
Romanes [hereafter Fruitfull] (London: Walde-graue, 1584); De justificatione coram Deo
et fidei perseverantia non intercisa, published in a bundle of treatises by Matthew Hutton,
et al., ed. Anthony Thysius under the title, Brevis et dilucida explicatiode electione,
praedestinatione ac reprobatione (Harderwijk, 1613). The authorship of the anonymous
Fruitfull Sermon will be discussed below. Many thanks to Paul Smalley for his research
assistance on this article.
2For example, there are Chadertons papers in Pembroke College Library, Cambridge,
MSS LC.II.2.164, and Lambeth Palace Library, MS 2550. There are also his handwritten mar-
ginal notes in a number of extant books.
3William Dillingham, Vita Laurentii ChadertoniUna Cum Vita Jacobi Usserii (London,
1700); ET: William Dillingham, Laurence Chaderton (First Master of Emmanuel), trans. and
ed. E.S. Shuckburgh (Cambridge: Macmillan and Bowes, 1884); John G. Mager, The Life
of Laurence Chaderton, Puritan, 15361640 (MA thesis, Washington University, 1949);
H.C. Porter, Reformation and Reaction in Tudor Cambridge (Cambridge: CUP, 1958), 235
242; Everett H. Emerson, English Puritanism from John Hooper to John Milton (Durham:
Duke, 1968), 102108; Patrick Collinson, The Religion of Protestants: The Church in English
Society 15591625 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982), 151152; Rebecca S. Rolph, Emmanuel College,
Cambridge, and the Puritan Movements of Old and New England (Ph.D. diss., University
of Southern California, 1979), 2331, 42140; Peter Lake, Moderate Puritans and the
Elizabethan Church (Cambridge: CUP, 1982), 2554, 116168, 243261; Arnold Hunt,
Laurence Chaderton and the Hampton Court Conference, in Belief and Practice in
Reformation England: A Tribute to Patrick Collinson from His Students, ed. Wabuda and
Litzenberger (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), 207228; Sarah Bendall, Christopher Brooke, and
Patrick Collinson, A History of Emmanuel College, Cambridge [hereafter, Bendall,
Emmanuel] (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1999), 3042, 177186. Rolph, Lake, and Hunt are espe-
cially valuable for quotations of Chadertons unpublished notes.
322 joel r. beeke
This essay will first summarize Chadertons life; second, examine

Chadertons work at Cambridge; and third, explore his view of church
offices as expressed in his Fruitfull Sermon on Romans 8:38 (1584).
The Life of Laurence Chaderton
Laurence Chaderton was probably born in 1536, in Oldham, near Man

chester. His father was of an ancient and honored lineage with consider-
able wealth, and was devoted to the pre-Reformation faith.4 It was only in
1534 that the Act of Supremacy declared the English monarch to be the
churchs head instead of the pope. During Chadertons childhood, he saw
Edward VI reign briefly as a reforming king and Queen Mary drive many
Protestants into exile.
Initially a poor student more interested in hunting and hawking,
Laurences interest in reading revived under a skillful tutor. He entered
Christs College in 1562, four years after Elizabeth was crowned Queen. He
engaged in archery and wrestled against Richard Bancroft (15441610),
saving him from harm during a violent town and gown brawl, which won
him a valuable ally for later days when Bancroft became Archbishop of
Canterbury.
Chaderton also came into the sphere of influence of the developing
Puritan movement. In the 1560s, men such as Thomas Cartwright and
Edward Dering taught in Cambridge, while future Puritan pastors like
Richard Greenham, Richard Rogers, and Walter Travers studied alongside
of Chaderton. Queen Elizabeth was consolidating her hold on the church
by insisting on uniformity of practice among the clergy, enforced by
Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury.5
Chaderton was thrust into this bubbling pot of controversy as a young
undergraduate. Through study and struggle of soul, Chaderton became
convinced of the Reformed faith. His father, dismayed by the change,
sought to move him from the university to the Inns of Court to study law,
with a promise of 30 a year. When he declined the offer, he was sent a
shilling, a wallet, and the advice to beg for a living.6 But Chaderton perse-
vered in his newfound faith, graduating BA in 1567, becoming a fellow of
4Various sources identify his father as Thomas Chaderton or Edmund Chaderton. For
Thomas see Dillingham, Chaderton, 28; Emerson, English Puritanism, 102. For Edmund
see F.R. Raines in Dillingham, Chaderton, 31; Bendall, Emmanuel, 31.
5Emerson, English Puritanism, 815.
6Dillingham, Chaderton, 4.
an early puritan vision for church and school 323
the college the next year, and graduating MA in 1571. He served as lecturer
(or preacher) at St. Clements Church, Cambridge, for fifty years, preach-
ing the Bible with zeal for conversion and personal piety.7 Gabriel Harvey
summed up Chadertons preaching with the word methodicala very
Puritan term.8
Chaderton married Cecelia Culverwell in 1576 after establishing him-
self financially.9 The story is told that the minister accidentally used the
name of the brides sister in the ceremony, to which Chaderton exclaimed,
No, no; it is Cecelia I want!10 His wife was a very pious, modest, and
sensible woman, with whom he lived in the closest affection for about fifty
years.11 She died in 1631. They had one child, Elizabeth, who married
Abraham Johnson.12
Collinson says that Chaderton became the pope of Cambridge puritan-
ism.13 Rebecca Rolph writes, His great influence resulted from his erudi-
tion, character, high ideals, political tact, teaching ability, and probably
not least, his remarkable longevity.14 In the 1570s and 1580s, Chaderton
busied himself at Christs College in various posts. In 1578, he was created
BD. In 1581, he engaged in a controversy with Peter Baro (15341599), a
French professor of theology at Cambridge, over the nature of justifying
faith.15
Sir Walter Mildmay (d. 1589), the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Privy
Councilor under Queen Elizabeth, was zealously seeking a way to raise up
Reformed preachers of the gospel. He drafted Chaderton in 1584 to be the
first master of Emmanuel College.16 When Chaderton had an offer for a
position with ten times the financial remuneration, Mildmay told him
that if he would not be the master, there would be no college. Chaderton
took the plunge.
When John Whitgift (ca. 15301604) became Archbishop of Canterbury
in 1583, he led a systematic suppression of nonconformity in the church,

8G. Gregory Smith, ed., Elizabethan Critical Essays, 2 vols. (Oxford: OUP, 1904), 2:281.
12On Chadertons Culverwell relations, see Porter, Reformation and Reaction, 23135.
13Patrick Collinson, The Elizabethan Puritan Movement (Berkeley: University of
California, 1967), 125.
14Rolph, Emmanuel, 42.
16Bendall, Emmanuel, 42: Sir Walter Mildmays deed of foundation was dated May
25th 1584, his statutes for the college, October 1st 1585. By December 1587, it was possible
to clear away the builders rubble and to hold a ceremony of dedication.
324 joel r. beeke
including attempts to reform the church along the lines of Presbyte

rianism.17 It was in this context that the anonymous Fruitfull Sermon
(1584) was published. Chaderton was an active Presbyterian who helped
organize an elder-based discipline in the 1580s and tended to avoid wear-
ing the surplice and kneeling at communion.18 As Peter Lake has written,
Puritan concerns about church order were driven by the intensely evan-
gelical impulse of shaping the church for the sake of edification.19 The
classis movement fell apart in the 1590s through the pressure of Archbishop
Whitgift and the offensiveness of the Marprelate tracts (15881589) against
the bishops.20
In 15951596, Cambridge was engulfed in a controversy over the sover-
eignty of divine grace. William Barrett publicly opposed the Reformed
doctrines of predestination, assurance, and perseverance of the saints;
under fire, he left Cambridge and converted to Roman Catholicism.21 The
Lambeth Articles (1595), which Chaderton signed along with seven other
college heads, sought to safeguard the Reformed orthodoxy of Cambridge.22
Though never incorporated into the Anglican Articles of Religion, the
Lambeth Articles did influence the Irish Articles of Religion (1615), which
in turn were a major source for the Westminster Confession of Faith
(1647). Baro became embroiled in this controversy, which forced him to
leave Cambridge.
After Elizabeth died and James ascended to the throne, Chaderton
attended the Hampton Court Conference (January 1604) as one of four
representatives of Puritan concerns about the doctrine and liturgy of the
church.23 The king called the conference in response to the Millenary
Petition for reformation in the churchs ministry, discipline, and prayer

18Emerson, English Puritanism, 103. See Lake, Moderate Puritans, 46; Bendall,
Emmanuel, 179.
19Lake, Moderate Puritans, 23.
20Emerson, English Puritanism, 2526. See Queen Elizabeth I, A Proclamation against
Certain Seditious and Schismatical Bookes and Libels (London: Barker, 1588 [1589]).
21Bendall, Emmanuel, 4041; Rolph, Emmanuel, 102.
23On the Hampton Court Conference and its context, see Roland G. Usher, Recon
struction of the English Church, 2 vols. (New York: Appleton, 1910), 1:285333; 2:331365.
M.H. Curtis, Hampton Court Conference and Its Aftermath, History 46 (1961): 116; Stuart
B. Babbage, Puritanism and Richard Bancroft (London: SPCK, 1962), 4373; Frederick
Shriver, Hampton Court Re-visited: James I and the Puritans, JEH 33.1 (1982): 4871;Patrick
Collinson, The Jacobean Religious Settlement: The Hampton Court Conference, in Before
the English Civil War, ed. Tomlinson (New York: St. Martins, 1983), 2751; K.C. Fincham,
Ramifications of the Hampton Court Conference in the Dioceses, 16031609, JEH
36.2 (1985): 208227; Peter White, Predestination, Policy, and Polemic: Conflict and
book. The classic (but biased) record of the Hampton Court Conference is
William Barlows The Sum and Substance of the Conference.24 Barlow
reports that Chaderton requested of the king not to compel godly minis-
ters to use the surplice and the sign of the cross in baptism. The king is said
to have replied that men quiet of disposition, honest of life, and diligent
in their callings could request exemptions from the bishop, but men of a
turbulent and opposite spirit would be forced to conform.25 However,
Chaderton was rebuked for the practice of sitting communions in
Emmanuel College (instead of kneeling to receive the Lords Supper).26
After the Hampton Court Conference, the Puritan cause suffered. By
November 1604, Richard Bancroft had replaced Whitgift as Archbishop of
Canterbury. He was zealous and severe in demanding strict conformity.
Chadertons friendship with Bancroft, having once saved the Archbishops
skin in their undergraduate days, shielded him from some of the political
liabilities of his own Puritanism. Chaderton himself did not wear the sur-
plice until ten months after the Hampton Court Conference, when the
king gave an order to remove him if he continue[d] obstinate.27
In the midst of the negative fallout for the Puritans, the Hampton
Court Conference did implement one of their requests: the production of
a new revision of the Bishops Bible based upon the Hebrew and Greek
texts with comparison being made to the Tyndale, Matthew, Coverdale,
Great, and Geneva Bibles. In 1611, this translation was published and
became known as the Authorized Version or the King James Version.
Chaderton, a good Hebrew scholar, was one of seven men who worked
on Chronicles to Song of Solomon.28 All the men on the team would work
independently on a text and then meet together to choose the best trans-
lation.29 Chadertons handwritten notes were still visible years later in
a Hebrew Bible with Rabbinic commentaries published by Daniel
Bomberg.30
Consensus in the English Church from the Reformation to the Civil War (Cambridge: CUP,
1992), 140152; Hunt, Laurence Chaderton, 207228.
24William Barlow, The Svmme and Svbstance of the Conference, which, it pleased his
Excellent Maiestie to have with the Lords, Bishops, and other of his Clergieat Hampton
Court, Ianuary 14, 1603 (London: Windet, 1604).
25Barlow, Svmme and Svbstance, 99100, sig. O2r-v.
26Barlow, Svmme and Svbstance, 102103, sig. O3v-O4r.
27Hunt, Laurence Chaderton, 219.
28Gordon Campbell, Bible: The Story of the King James Version (Oxford: OUP, 2010), 35,
39, 4950.
326 joel r. beeke
In 1613, Prince Charles came to the school with Frederick, Prince Elector
Palatine and virtually forced the venerable professor to accept the honor
of Doctor of Divinity.31 It is said they almost had to break down the door of
his library to get him to come out.32 Around 1618, he let go of his lecture-
ship at St. Clements Church, being about 82 years old and having preached
there for almost fifty years. Forty ministers signed a letter pleading with
him not to resign, attesting to Gods saving blessing upon his preaching.
Dillingham said that his preaching was marked by diligence and consis-
tency; he preached on nearly the entire New Testament.33 Sadly his ser-
mons were not preserved for future generations.
Chaderton resigned his mastership of Emmanuel College on 26 October
1622, exhorting the fellows to mutual peace, humility, and dependence
upon the grace of God.34 The resignation of Chaderton was skillfully man-
aged so as to guarantee passing the baton to John Preston and thus con-
tinue the Puritan succession. He gave himself to a quiet, disciplined life of
private study in Cambridge. In his old age, he could still read his Greek
New Testament in small print without glasses, and in his Hebrew Bible
the smallest point did not escape his sight.35
Chaderton lived to see three grandsons and one step-grandson gradu-
ate MA from Emmanuel College.36 He died on 13 November 1640, over one
hundred years old. Thus Everett Emerson dubs him the Puritan
Methuselah.37 His moderate Puritan stance led him to teach Reformed
and Presbyterian doctrine, though not to openly resist the powers that be,
but instead, as he wrote, to pray for the change.38
Chadertons Work at Cambridge
The Church of England faced a dire lack of ministerial competence in the

latter half of the sixteenth century. In 1551, John Hooper examined 311
31Dillingham, Chaderton, 11. From late 1612 to early 1613 Frederick V (15961632) visited
England to marry Elizabeth, daughter of King James I.
34Thomas Ball claimed that the fellows and others pressured Chaderton to resign, but
Dillingham rejected that as invention or imagination. See Thomas Ball, The Life of the
Renowned Doctor Preston, ed. Harcourt (Oxford: Parker, 1885), 7986; and Dillingham,
Chaderton, 1516.
36Porter, Reformation and Reaction, 235.
clergy and found that 168 could not repeat the Ten Commandments and
thirty-one did not know the author of the Lords Prayer.39 Edward Dering
remarked decades later that scarce one parish of an hundred had a godly
minister capable of rightly fulfilling his office.40 Chaderton inherited
Derings concerns and gave his life to raising up gospel preachers. Lake
wrote, In many ways he can be regarded as Derings successor.41
Chaderton lamented that the church suffered everywhere from swarms
of idle, ignorant, and ungodly curates and readers, who neither can, nor
will, go before the dear flock of Christ in soundness of doctrine, and integ-
rity of life.42 To meet this need, he trained great Puritan leaders at
Emmanuel College such as Arthur Dent, William Perkins, and Arthur
Hildersam. He also promoted the Ramist method for theology and preach-
ing, which influenced Perkins and his student, William Ames, whose
Marrow of Theology exemplifies Ramist analysis.43
Chaderton believed that the preaching of the Bible was a special means
of grace blessed by God, even more useful than the printed page. He wrote
that the reading of a sermon is not half as profitable as hearing it preached,
for written material lacks the zeal of the speaker, the attention of the
hearer, [and] the mighty and inward working of his Holy Spirit which
God promises to the preaching of the Word.44 Therefore the greatest work
of the college was the training of ministers, which is precisely what the
statutes of Emmanuel College said.45
The breadth of Chadertons influence is illustrated by the students
under his mastership. In its first two decades of operation (15841604),
Emmanuel College trained 832 men. In 1621, a year before Chadertons
retirement, the college had 260 members. That is not to say that all these
men became ministers; in fact, only a third entered ordained ministry and
a substantial number became lawyers and magistrates. The college was
39Later Writings of Bishop Hooper, ed. Nevinson (Cambridge: Parker, 1852), 130, 151.
40Edward Dering, epistle to the reader of A Briefe and Necessarie Catechisme or
Instruction, in Workes, More Large than Ever (London: Linley and Flasket, 1597), sig. A3v.
41Lake, Moderate Puritans, 25. On Edward Dering see Patrick Collinson, A Mirror of
Elizabethan Puritanism: The Life and Letters of Godly Master Dering, in his Godly People:
Essays on English Protestantism and Puritanism (London: Hambledon, 1983), 288323.
42Chaderton, Excellent, C3r. See Mal. 2:7.
43Wilbur S. Howell, Logic and Rhetoric in England, 15001700 (New York: Russell &
Russell, 1961), 179, 206207, 222, 210.
44Laurence Chaderton, To the Christian Reader, in An Excellent and Godly Sermon,
A3v.
45Statute 21, in The Statutes of Sir Walter Mildmay Kt Chancellor of the Exchequer and
One of Her Majestys Privy Councillors; Authorized by Him for the Government of Emmanuel
College, trans. and intro. Stubbings (Cambridge: CUP, 1983), 60.
328 joel r. beeke
thus a culture-shaping force in producing and positioning Puritan leaders

in callings sacred and secular.46
Emmanuels influence reached across the Atlantic. Of the approxi-
mately one hundred Cambridge men who immigrated to New England
from 1629 to 1640, thirty-three were of Emmanuel College, including
Thomas Hooker, John Cotton, Isaac Johnson, Nathaniel Ward, John Ward,
Nathaniel Rogers, Samuel Stone, Thomas Shepard, Richard Saltonstall,
Simon Bradstreet (husband of the poet Anne), and John Harvard, name-
sake of Harvard College.47 Thus it was that this oak scattered acorns of
gospel ministry across England and the New World.
Training a minister of the gospel was no small task. Chaderton felt that
every minister must be able to teach sound doctrine by the true interpre-
tation of the word and to confute all contrary errors by unanswerable
arguments and reasons.48 For a minister to be competent in this high
calling, he must be well qualified in Hebrew and Greek, rhetoric, logic, the
whole Bible to compare Scripture with Scripture, scholarly commentaries,
ancient church councils, and secular history.49 They must hold disputa-
tions on all the principal questions in controversy between us and the
papists and other heretics.50 Such requirements highlight what Lake calls
the central role to be played by the university in the propagation of true
religion.51
Chaderton not only connected young men with godly tutors at
Cambridge but also used his network of friendships in the Puritan broth-
erhood to find pulpits for graduates and (as much as in his power) defend
them from anti-Puritan authorities.52 Furthermore, he organized proph-
esyings where ministers would gather, several would preach, and then all
would discuss the doctrine and its manner of application so as to sharpen
each others preaching skills.53 He himself had participated in a study
group with John Carter, Lancelot Andrewes, Ezekiel Culverwell, John
Knewstub, and others, where after prayer one man would comment on
the Greek or Hebrew terms, another on the grammar, another the logic,
46Bendall, Emmanuel, 45, 4748.

47Porter, Reformation and Reaction, 241242.
53Lake, Moderate Puritans, 43; Collinson, The Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 126127.
See also Paul S. Seaver, The Puritan Lectureships: The Politics of Religious Dissent, 15601662
(Stanford: Stanford UP, 1970).
another the sense and meaning, and another the doctrine of a Scripture
text.54 Chaderton brought this practice of conference into the academy
for the training of new preachers and theologians.55
Yet religion was not simply a matter of knowledge, skill, and organiza-
tion. Chaderton said that faith is not the bare naked knowledge of Gods
revealed truth, but a sure and certain persuasion of the heart grounded
upon the promises of God and wrought in me by the Holy Ghost whereby
I am persuaded that whatsoever Christ hath done for mans salvation he
hath done it not only for others but also for me.56 This is nearly an exact
quotation of the Heidelberg Catechism (Q. 21), showing the linkage
between the Puritans and the continental Reformed.57
The ministry is a spiritual worknot merely a form of education but a
means of supernatural experience that Chaderton said changes our affec-
tions by the power of the Spirit whereby all the faculties of his mind are
moved.58 The college statutes indicated that fellows should select preach-
ers for churches based on who was best endowed with those gifts which
the Holy Spirit bestows upon the true pastor.59 Chaderton said, They
shall hear his [Christs] voice by his ministers. Therefore he will send his
minister to gather and call his sheep. Preaching is nothing less than the
voice of Christ by which we shall be brought to Christ.60
Yet Chaderton did not place the power of salvation in the hands (or
voice) of the minister. He made a distinction between the calling of the
minister of God and of God himself, saying, The second calling is the
voice of God himself which is applied to the inward ear of the inward
man. This is the office of God himself and of his Spirit; salvation belongs
to the electing God.61 Lake writes that Chaderton held the orthodox
position on predestination unto salvation by grace alone.62 Chaderton
said that while men have wills, yet the changing of our will, and making it
54Samuel Clarke, The Life and Death of Master John Carter, in The Lives of Thirty-two
English Divines Famous in Their Generations for Learning and Piety (London: Birch, 1677),
133.
55Bendall, Emmanuel, 5051.
56Chaderton, lectures on John, cited in Lake, Moderate Puritans, 127.
57Chadertons Presbyterian contemporaries Thomas Cartwright, Samuel Culverwell,
and Robert Wright were students in Heidelberg in the early 1570s. See Bendall, Emmanuel,
35.
59Statute 38, in The Statutes of Sir Walter Mildmay, 82; Bendall, Emmanuel, 26.
330 joel r. beeke
unto gooddo proceed only from the Spirit of regeneration.63 Christ pur-
chased all good thoughts and desires by His death, and the Spirit gives
them.64
Chaderton said that ministers of the sovereign Savior must preach true
doctrine in plain evidence of the Spirit, and power.65 Many men stuff
their sermons with unnecessary technicalities or showmanship,66 when
instead they should preach heavenly doctrine after a heavenly and spiritual
manner.67 God rejects preaching that entertains rather than convicts and
converts men to God.68 Ministers must serve with contempt of all earthly
praise and zeal of Gods glory.69 And they must do all this in tender love
for the flock, with gentleness like nursing mothers and pleading fathers.70
This was Chadertons vision for the ministry of the Word. This was the
product that his school aimed to construct. He knew that such a ministry
would bear the reproach of the world; but if the Lord Jesus was hated by
men for His preaching, in the same way His servants will be slandered
hence, Chaderton said, cometh these slanderous names of puritan and
precisian.71
William Bedell (15711642) remembered Chaderton in a more positive
way. Writing in 1628 to James Ussher, he recalled how, in his days as a
student at Emmanuel College, that good father Dr. Chaderton taught
him the arts of dutiful obedience, and just ruling.72 Chaderton taught
men by precept and example to be servants faithful in their stewardship.
Chadertons View of Church Offices
In this final section of the essay, I wish to give focused attention to the
sermon in which Chaderton gave strong expression to his Presbyterian
views. In the classis movement in the late sixteenth century, English min-
isters sought to set up a system of Presbyterian collegiality among pastors
under the umbrella of the official (and still episcopal) church. From their
63Chaderton, Excellent, C8v [no pagination].

64Excellent, C7v-C8v [no pagination].
65Excellent, F4r [no pagination].
66Excellent, F6v-7r [no pagination].
67Excellent, F5v [no pagination].
68Excellent, F6r [no pagination].
69Excellent, F8r-v [no pagination].
70Excellent, G2r.
71Chaderon, lectures on John, cited by Lake, Moderate Puritans, 132.
72William Bedell, letter of 15 April 1628, in The Whole Works of the Most Rev. James
Ussher (Dublin: Hodges, Smith, and Co., 1864), 15:398.
perspective, they were trying to form the wings of a biblical church inside
the chrysalis of unbiblical traditions.
Chaderton operated within this episcopal system. William Sancroft
went so far as to claim that Chaderton often professed that they who
dislike the government by bishops would bring in a far worse both for
church and state.73 However, as our biographical sketch has indicated,
Chadertons private writings strongly favored Presbyterianism versus
episcopacy. He regularly attended Presbyterian synods; indeed, he some-
times led them as moderator. The participants regarded him as an expert
regarding questions of Presbyterian church order.74 We find this ecclesio-
logical order expressed firmly in the sermon we now consider.
The Fruitfull Sermon on Romans 12:38 was published anonymously in
1584. It consists of 80 pages, octavo, and would have taken approximately
two hours to preach as written. The preacher said my time is almost
spenton page 69!75 It was evidently a popular tract. A sermon preached
in 1590 to confute it noted that there had already been diverse impres-
sions of the Fruteful Sermon, that is, more than one printing.76 Emerson
writes that the sermon went through four editions and was regarded as
an authoritative statement of Puritan principles, being cited by Dudley
Fenner in 1587 and John Udall in 1588.77
While acknowledging that Chaderton had Presbyterian beliefs, Rolph
finds the sermon too harsh in its criticism of the Anglican hierarchy for
the moderate Cambridge academic, and hypothesizes that it might instead
originate from daring Edward Dering.78 However, it was widely believed
at the time that Chaderton was the author. Lake and Collinson offer the
testimony of four Separatists in the 1590s and 1600s that attributed the
sermon to Chaderton,79 and separatists were not the only ones to say
so. George Cranmer (15631600), grand-nephew of Archbishop Thomas
Cranmer and student of Richard Hooker, made critical remarks on
Mr. Chatterton in the fruitful sermon.80
73Bendall, Emmanuel, 36.

75Chaderton, Fruitfull, 69.
76Thomas Rogers, A Sermon vpon the 6. 7. and 8. Verses of the 12. Chapter of S. Pauls
Epistle vnto the Romanes; Made to the Confutation of So Much Another Sermon, Entituled,
A Frutful Sermon (n.p.: Windet, 1590), A1v.
77Emerson, English Puritanism, 103. Neither Fenner nor Udall identified the author.
79Lake, Moderate Puritans, 2627; Collinson, The Religion of Protestants, 151n36.
80George Cranmer, Notes on the Sixth Book of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, in The
Works of that Learned and Judicious Divine, Mr. Richard Hooker, 2 vols. (New York: Appleton,
332 joel r. beeke
Lake writes, The actual text of the sermon corresponds almost exactly
with Chadertons other known attitudes and in fact provides a beautiful
example of the moderate, respectable puritan attitude to presbyterian-
ism.81 We do well, however, to bear in mind the caution that Chaderton
may not have authorized its publication nor had opportunity to revise
what may be the notes of an auditor. Nor do we know when he preached
it prior to its publication in 1584. Part of the severity of its language linking
episcopacy to the antichrist and whore of Babylon could perhaps be
attributed to his more youthful days. Chaderton would not be the only
person whose basic beliefs endure unchanged but whose manner of
expression mellows with age. But the following observations may be made
about the doctrine of the Fruitfull Sermon.
First, it teaches absolute truth on the basis of the divine authority of
Scripture. The sermon opens with an assertion that Romans 12:38 con-
tain a perpetual law, touching the government of Christs church, and
warning that while keeping this law is the safety of the body, the break-
ing of it is the destruction thereof.82 Though written by Paul, the apostle
was only the scribe writing the Lords words, the penman of the Lords
inditement, just as Moses was the writer of Gods commands.83 Of its
principles this sermon said that Christ himself is the author and no
man.84 If we add to the doctrine of the Scriptures, then we dishonor
Christ as perfect governor of his church.85
Thus Chaderton had a high view of Scripture, regarding it as the Word
of God. The apostle had the authority to give a law in the name of
Christ which binds the church even to the coming of Christ. For his
teaching did not proceed from himself, or any other mortal man, but only
from the Lord of hosts, whose apostle he was.86 The teaching of the apos-
tles was the law of Christ, and hence not a matter of changing customs or
culture, but perpetual and sufficient.87 They are the eternal decrees of
Christ.88 The church must not dam up the life-giving waters of divine
1844), 2:125. Cranmer disputed Chadertons interpretation of him that teacheth to be a

doctor, him that exhorteth to be pastor, him that distributeth to be a deacon, him that
ruleth a lay elder, him that showeth mercy a widow. He was plainly referring to this
sermon.
83Fruitfull, 2. To indite is to compose, write, or dictate what is to be written.
84Fruitfull, 77.
85Fruitfull, 78.
86Fruitfull, 3.
87Fruitfull, 7779.
88Fruitfull, 72.
grace or muddy them with mans inventions, and popish traditions.89

Like the noble Bereans (Acts 17:11), the hearers of a teacher must search
diligently to confirm that the doctrine they receive is true and soundly
and purely gathered out of the Word.90 Chaderton said, Faith leaneth
only upon the Word.91
Second, the sermon teaches faithfulness in our callings and submission
to proper human authorities for the public good. Each person has a place in
the structure of society where he must serve with contentment, using the
gifts God provides.92 Like soldiers in an army, each one should keep his
place in the ranks lest disorder and sorrow result.93 Lake writes, Chaderton
outlined the doctrine of callings, which saw society as an interdependent
whole with each person given a finite social role to which he ought assidu-
ously to keep. For both the role and the gifts necessary to fulfill it come
directly from God.94
This is no social or political radicalism, but a vision for a carefully
ordered and hierarchical society where all live in the wisdom of discreet
moderation.95 The wise man of a low position will no more attempt to
pluck the crown from the kings head than a heavy stone flies up into the
sky.96 Collinson wrote of Chadertons view of society, Order should be
preserved by each member respecting his proper place.97 Yet he was no
utopian; he realized that from the twin fountains of self-love and ambi-
tion a corrupt stream poisoned all fallen mankind with envy towards
those above us, strife with our peers, and contempt for those below our
social status.98 The proper posture of all men from the highest to the low-
est is to bow down before the majesty of God and seek the humble
graces of the Holy Spirit.99 Let each one use his gift for the public good and
not try to stretch it farther beyond his calling.100
As Paul wrote in Romans 12:45, the church is a body with many differ-
ent members and different offices.101 Each member must have his office
89Fruitfull, 7. The streams of water here are biblical church officers.

90Fruitfull, 60.
91Fruitfull, 61.
92Fruitfull, 11.
93Fruitfull, 16.
97Collinson, The Religion of Protestants, 151.
99Fruitfull, 24.
100Fruitfull, 28.
101Fruitfull, 3234.
334 joel r. beeke
and only one office.102 The Lord gives to each one his vocation, to be as it
were his standing place, out of which he should not step one foot.103
Every member belongs to the others and must serve for the benefit of
all.104 Collinson wrote, In the view of this presbyterian, the disorder of
society was due to a profound and structural disorder in the Church.105
He therefore made an extended appeal to the queen and her councilors to
implement what he believed to be biblical church principles.106
Third, the sermon teaches the distinct offices of pastors, teachers (or doc
tors), rulers, deacons, and attenders upon the poor. Chaderton derives these
public offices from Romans 12:68. These are gifts of God which the peo-
ple of God must receive.107 The sermon compares each office to part of the
body: God hath given us in great mercy pastors and doctors to be our
eyes, to lead and direct us in the ways of truth and holiness: elders, and
deacons to be our hands, to keep us and hold us in the way, and also to
reach unto us those things we want: attenders upon us, to be our feet
when we are not able otherwise to do.108
Therefore the Church of England is maimed in its lack of biblical
officers and is monstrous in the multiplications of unnatural members,
like a body with only one leg but two heads. Chaderton boldly declared,
Archbishops, bishops, deans, archdeacons, deacons, chancellors, com-
missaries, officials, and all such as be rather members and parts of the
whore and strumpet [prostitute] of Rome.109
This Puritan and Presbyterian viewpoint appears in Chadertons hand-
written marginal notes in various books. In margins of the 1559 Ordinal
(book of liturgical rites for ordaining church officers), he wrote that the
work and ministry of a bishop is all one ministry with the priest, and
episcopacy is no ministry ordained by Christ. The ministers should be
chosen by the people, not appointed merely by the bishop.110 In the mar-
gins of one of William Barlows sermons (published in 1606), Chaderton
wrote regarding presbyters and bishops, Yes, the names are distinct, not
their office, or function.111 Where Barlow had written of bishops being
102Fruitfull, 3841.
103Fruitfull, 13.
104Fruitfull, 4650.
105Collinson, The Religion of Protestants, 151. See Chaderton, Fruitfull, 17, 7273.
107Fruitfull, 5153.
108Fruitfull, 48.
109Fruitfull, 3637.
110Hunt, Laurence Chaderton, 215; Rolph, Emmanuel, 7778.
ordained, Chaderton wrote elected.112 Thus his views on church gov-

ernment remained fundamentally the same from the reigns of Queen
Elizabeth I to King James I.
The Fruitfull Sermon explains the function of the true offices: A prophet
is a minister of the Word of God, which abideth in the true and sincere
interpretation thereof, to the edification of his own peculiar flock.113
There are two kinds of prophets: doctors and pastors. The doctor is a
teacher who expounds the canonical Scriptures in true doctrine.114 The
pastor applies that doctrine by exhortation and administers the sacra-
ments.115 In these two offices, Chaderton observed the wisdom and mercy
of God who has provided us with ministers to address the two parts of the
soul: the mind in its darkness and ignorance and the heart in its rebel-
lion and enmity against God.116
It is interesting to note that in 1588, the society of Emmanuel College
assigned two of its senior fellows to focus upon exhortation and applica-
tion of doctrine to the students and administering the sacraments, and
two senior fellows to give themselves to teaching sound doctrine and con-
futing error. This reflects the division of labor between pastors and teach-
ers. Chaderton was directed to focus on preaching to reflect his great
gifts.117
The pastor must apply his exhortations with discernment and discrimi-
nation, giving milk to some and meat to others, exhorting rich and poor,
slave and free, educated and uneducated. He must lead the sheep to
wholesome food, heal the sick, bring home the straying, and strengthen
the weak. He must rightly divide the Word (2 Tim. 2:15). To the weak he
brings promises of divine mercy, the godly he exhorts to make progress,
and the wicked he exhorts to repentance by the everlasting judgments of
God. In all things, he seeks to feed, feed, feed the flock of God with the
Word of God.118 Lake says, There could be no clearer statement of the
evangelical core of the puritan impulse than that.119
Next we pass from the ministers of the Word to other officers. There
is the deacon, who distributes the shared generosity of the church to the

114Fruitfull, 57.
115Fruitfull, 61.
116Fruitfull, 64.
336 joel r. beeke
poor.120 There are ruling elders, who include the pastors and doctors, and
assist them in admonishing the unruly, and encouraging the good.121
There are also widows appointed to help the poor and immigrants.122
Fourth and lastly, this sermon teaches that proper church government
glorifies God in Christ. He said, Christ the king and governor of his church,
must rule it till the coming of himself by his own offices and laws.123 All
the members of the body should have one head, Jesus Christnot a pope
or bishop.124
The author realized that his point will cause him to be slandered of the
papists and others, with the devilish sect of Puritans: we are thought to
bear scarce good will unto her Majesty. He declared my love and affec-
tion towards my sovereign, indeed his willingness to die to preserve the
queens life.125 But Christ is the king of kings, and prince of princes, and
gave the offices of the church in the day of his coronation, when he led his
enemies in triumph, to show the glory of his kingdom, and his princely
power, and therefore we dare not lightly regard His order for His church.126
Chaderton ends with a prayer that only the glory and victory of Christ,
our only, king, prophet and priest, may be established, to whom with the
Father and the Holy Ghost, three persons and one eternal God, be all
praise, glory and honor, now and forever. Amen.127
Conclusion
In Laurence Chaderton we find a man of strong convictions regarding the

proper structure of the Church of England, yet also a man of remarkable
moderation in his willingness to operate within the existing episcopal sys-
tem. What motivated him to do so? In the end it appears that his abiding
passion was the vision of training men who would proclaim the Scriptures
to his nation. Making the gospel of Christ his great priority and believing
that preaching was the great means of applying the gospel to sinners, he

121Fruitfull, 6768.
122Fruitfull, 70.
123Fruitfull, 78. Cf. p. 12.
124Fruitfull, 4145.
125Chaderton, Fruitfull, 45. The devilish sect of Puritans probably refers to the hereti-
cal Cathari, an ascetic, Docetic sect, for Puritan is an English rendering of the Greek katha
roi or pure ones.
126Fruitfull, 65.
127Fruitfull, 80.
poured out his long life into a university education that prepared minis-
ters to serve Christ in England. Though many passing through the halls of
Emmanuel College ended up in legal professions, this too satisfied his pur-
pose, for the magistrates were nursing fathers and nursing mothers to
the gospel ministry (Isa. 49:23).
Chaderton carried out this vision with remarkable academic and
administrative gifts, aided by his network of relationships with both fam-
ily and friends. His legacy was over a thousand men trained and sent
outand all the lives they have affected even to this day. In 1899,
J.B.Peacewrote in the Emmanuel College Magazine, We must recognize
in the personal influence of Chaderton perhaps the finest endowment any
college ever enjoyed.128
128Cited in Rolph, Emmanuel, 31.

THE DANZIG ACADEMIC GYMNASIUM IN
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY POLAND
Dariusz M. Bryko
The Polish city of Gdask (Danzig) played a crucial role in sustaining

Protestantism in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which in the
post-Reformation period had permanently turned toward Catholicism
and slowly began to limit the religious tolerance that the Konfederacja
Warszawska (1573) had once granted Polish Protestants. In the sphere of
education, the Gdaskie Gimnazjum Akademickie (Akademisches
Gymnasium Danzig), or Danzig Academic Gymnasium, became well
known for training young Protestants not only from Poland-Lithuania but
also from abroad. Under the leadership of the Reformed theologian Jakub
Fabricius from 15801629, the Danzig Gymnasium reached a high aca-
demic status (it was sometimes even compared to a university), and pro-
duced several excellent theologians, philosophers, and scientists of early
modern Europe. The gymnasiums list of alumni includes Peter Crger
(15801639), Johann Botsack (16001674), Abraham Calov (16121686),
Johannes Hevelius (16111687), Jakob Teodor Klein (16851759), Andreas
Gryphius (16161664), Christian Hoffmann von Hoffmannswaldau
(16161679), Heinrich Khn (16901769), Gottfried Lengnich (16891774),
Michael Christoph Hanow (16951773), and Daniel Gralatha (17081767),
as well as its most famous alumnusand, later, professor of philosophy
Bartholomus Keckermann (15721609).
In this brief essay, I would like to draw a historical sketch of Keckermanns
immediate context and thus supply English historiography with some
necessary but missing historical and biographical information, in the
hope of contributing to a better understanding not only of Keckermanns
surroundings but also of the complexity of Reformed Christianity in the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.1
1Celebrating the 450th anniversary of the Danzig Gymnasiums establishment, Polish

scholars have produced five massive volumes with primary and secondary literature, as
well as many illustrations, concerning the school. Volumes 14 were published in 2008,
Volume 5 in 2012: Gdaskie Gimnazjum Akademickie, ed. Kotarski, et al., 5 vols. (Gdask:
Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Gdaskiego, 20082012). Hereafter GGA.
340 dariusz m. bryko
Since 1457 Gdask had enjoyed special privilege in the Polish kingdom,
as King Casmir IV Jagiellon had granted it autonomy for its opposition to
the Teutonic Order in Prussia. This privilege limited the Polish kings rights
toward Gdask and gave the city independent jurisdiction, legislation,
and administration. After the incorporation of Royal Prussia into the
Kingdom of Poland, Gdask continued, with some changes, to enjoy a
limited independence, confirmed by the successive kings of the vast
Commonwealth. Gdasks unique status allowed it to exercise more reli-
gious freedom and it soon became a major stronghold of Protestant
Christianity in the country. Further, due to its economic prosperity and
coastal location, Gdask also became an attractive destination for an eth-
nically diverse population that included Jews, Germans, Dutch, and even
Scots. Culturally, German language dominated in the city, but citizens of
Gdask were able to share Polish and German languages, and, despite
hailing from various cultures, often found themselves united by the
Protestant confessions and the Polish Crown. The majority of the inhabit-
ants were Lutheran, but Gdask also was home to a significant Reformed
minority that exercised great influence; thus many Reformed found the
city to be a safe place in otherwise Catholic-dominated Poland-Lithuania.2
Daniel Kaaj, a persecuted Reformed pastor and later superintendent of
the Reformed Church in Lithuania, preached at Gdasks Koci Piotra i
Pawa (St. Peter und Paulus Kirche). Kaaj describes in the following poem
the town that had granted him safety:
In a wordGdask has all fortune
A precious jewel in the Polish crown
An abundant marine food pantry
A lighthouse for those lost at sea
A guard and a key to the Baltic Sea
And what is most important: a treasury of Gods Word!3
2For more information on Gdasks religious and political situation, see Katarzyna
Cielak, Midzy Rzymem, Wittenberg, a Genew. Sztuka Gdaska jako miasta podzielonego
wyznaniowo, (Wrocaw: Fundacja na Rzecz Nauki Polskiej, 2000); Maria Bogucka,
Przemiany ustrojowe i spoeczne (15701655) in Historia Gdaska, vol. 2, part 2.5 (Gdask:
Wydawnictwo Morskie, 1982), 543578; Maciej Ptaszyski, Kto tu rzdi? Spr midzy
Gdaskiem a Stefanem Batorym o charakterze wadzy w szesnastowiecznej
Rzczypospolitej, Odrodzenie i Reformacja w Polsce 67 (2003): 89103.
3Daniel Kaaj, Klimakteryk Heroiczny to jest sze dziesiat y trzy poematw (Gdask:
David Freidrich Rhet, 1673), 3r. (facsimile available, ed. and transcribed by Edmund
Kotarski, Zakad Narowdowy im. Ossoliskich, 198). For more information on Kaaj and his
theology, see my book, The Irenic Calvinism of Daniel Kaaj (d. 1681): A Study in the History
and Theology of the Polish-Lithuanian Reformation (Gttingen: V&R, 2012).
the danzig academic gymnasium in 17th century poland 341
The Danzig Gymnasium was not the only school in the Commonwealth to
offer a Protestant education: there were two others in Royal Prussiain
Elblg (Elbing) and Toru (Thorn)as well as in other parts of Poland-
Lithuania, such as Pozna (Posen), Zotoryja (Goldberg), Kryw, and
Pinczw, to mention a few; and, of course, there was the famous Akademia
Rakowska, or Racovian Academy, that hosted the Socinian school.4
The initiative to establish the school in Gdask originated with the city
council, which recognized the need for an institution that could not only
educate the local youth but also strengthen Protestantism in the city. The
building for the gymnasium came from a dissolved Franciscan monastery
that its last superintendent, Johann Rollau, passed on to the council on
30 September 30 1555. Interestingly, the agreement between Rollau and
the council included special provision for two Franciscan monks, who
retained their right to continue living in the former monastery building.5
The gymnasium was officially opened on 13 June 1558, with a dedicatory
speech by Johann Hoppe, a former professor and rector of the nearby
Krlewiec (Knigsberg) University and Chemno (Kulm). Rector Hoppe
presided over the school, which initially did not possess the status of gym-
nasium, from 1558 to 1560, and hired only four instructors.6 The initial goal
was to conduct education following Renaissance and Reformation mod-
els, bringing up youth in piety and eloquence. In these early stages of the
schools development, next to studying Scripture, students were required
to read ancient pagan writings and master Latin and Greek.7 The next rec-
tor, Henrich Moller, served for seven years (15601567). In that time he
expanded the curriculum and brought teachers of mathematics as well as
the well-known poet Achacy Cureus, the Latin teacher Michael Retellius,
and a Hellenist, Klemens Friccius. Moller also started a school theater,
with students acting in plays based on biblical and classical texts; this
increased the schools popularity in the city, as locals could attend the
plays the students performed.8
Moller and the next rector of the gymnasium, Andreas Franckenberger
(15571589), both studied under Phillip Melanchthon (14971560) and
shaped the schools curriculum influenced by the their famous master.9
4Lech Morzecki, Gdaskie Gimnazjum Akademickie. Zarys dziejw, in GGA, 1:14.

5Morzecki, Gdaskie, 14.
7Jzef Budzyski, Dawne humanistyczne Gimnazjum Akademickie w Gdasku w XVI
i XVII, in GGA, 4:26.
8Budzyski, Dawne, 26.
9Mariusz Brodnicki, Filozofia w Gdaskim Gimazjum Akademickim in GGA,
1:184185.
Franckenberger governed the school between 1567 and 1576 and further
expanded and formalized the curriculum; the school officially reached
the status of a gymnasium and published statutes, titled Constitutio
nova Gymnasii Dantiscani (1568). Jzef Budzyski, in his discussion of
the constitution, comments on an increasing Melanchthonian influence
in which philosophical studies accompanied the study of Scripture.
Medicine, astronomy, law, ethics, and dialectics also were added. Further,
Franckenberger advocated public and private disputations, stressed the
study of Greek and Latin, and even included Hebrew. This expansion of
philosophical studies was not done at the expense of piety, which early
modern scholarship considered inseparable from proper study. Thus
Franckenbergers statutes included a lengthy treatment of the practical
expectations the school had of its students, including discussions of
honor, proper behavior, modesty, and even hospitality. Moreover, every
day of study was to begin with morning devotions and brief Bible and cat-
echism study in Latin (or German for the lower grades), which the top
three classes were to use for instruction as well as common conversation.10
Finally, Franckenbergers statutes continued to adapt to the needs and
demands of the school and were published in various editions until 1759.11
His service was appreciated enough to earn him a professorship of rheto-
ric and history in Wittenberg.12
After Franckenbergers resignation and departure to his prestigious
new post, the Gdask City Council struggled for nearly four years to find a
worthy substitute who could take on the leadership of the school, and the
young gymnasium began to experience some decline. Finally, in 1580, the
council decided to call Jakub Fabricius (or Schmidt, 15801629), the son of
one of the council members and an alumnus of the gymnasium. Despite
these seemingly nepotistic connections, Fabricius was well qualified to
undertake the task: he had been educated in Bremen, Wittenberg,
Heidelberg, and Basel, and shortly before taking the academic post he had
served in the prestigious Mariacki Church (Marienkirche). His service for
the Gdask school lasted almost half a century; he governed it and taught
theology courses until his death in 1629. Fabricius became the longest-
serving rector in the whole history of the gymnasium and the only one
who was native to the cityall the future rectors were to come from out-
side of Gdask.
10For analysis of the document see Budzyski, Dawne, 2731.

Theology always had played an important role in the history of the

school; however, Fabricius gave theology even higher prominence in the
curriculum and even in administration. When, in 1585, Fabricius took over
teaching theology from Michael Coletus (a proponent of Lutheran ortho-
doxy and doctrinal opponent of Fabricius) the role of rector become per-
manently tied to the role of theology professor, who was also required to
preach at the witej Trjcy Church (Trinitatiskirche)a church that
quickly became affiliated with the school and known for its Reformed
worship and doctrine.
Shortly after Fabricius assumed the chair of theology, a conflict between
the gnesio-Lutheran ministers and the more Reformed ministers exploded
when, in 1586, Peter Praetorius, a man known for his Calvinist orientation,
was ordained to ministry with the firm support of the gymnasium and the
city council. Since most of the city sided with the gnesio-Lutherans, the
conflict escalated, leading to riots that resulted in a temporary shutdown
of the school and even an army intervention to preserve peace in the city.
The gymnasium was reopened shortly after the conflict ended, but the
debates between gnesio-Lutherans and Reformed continued. These dis-
putes provide important backdrop to the future operation of the gymna-
sium, for Fabricius and his Reformed professors came under constant
attack from conservative Lutherans. Polish historiography mentions an
incident in which Keckermann once had to escape his opponents by
dressing in womens clothes.13 After Fabricius death the gymnasium
quickly reverted to the gnesio-Lutheran camp. The next two rectors,
Johann Botsack and Abraham Calov, were known for their Lutheran ortho-
doxy and later for their contribution to the fiasco of the Colloquium
Charitativum (1645), a significant irenic endeavor by King Wadysaw IV
Waza to bring about religious unity and peace in the Commonwealth.14
Fabricius himself outlines the history of the conflicts with the gnesio-
Lutherans in his Historia Notulae Geanensis15 and we learn more about
theological aspects of the disputes in Reformatus augustanus written by
his assistant and the vice-rector Georg Pauli (15851650).16 Further, in
13Maria Bogucka, ycie codzienne w Gdasku XVI i XVII w. (Warszawa: Pastwowy

Instytut Wydawniczy, 1967), 162.
14Benjamin T.G. Mayes, Syncretism in the Theology of Georg Calixt, Abraham Calov,
and Johannes Musaus, Concordia Theological Seminary Quarterly 68.4 (2004): 291317.
15This manuscript is mentioned by Sawomir Kocielak, Szermierze Teologii z
Gimnazjum Gdaskiego, in GGA, 1:334. We were, however, unable to locate it.
16Georg Pauli, Pauli Reformatus augustanus, id est, apologia pro dictatis suis scholasticis,
Georgius quibus, reformatae religioni addictos Augustanae Confessionis socios esse, solide
Denkschrift des Rektors Fabricius ber das Schulsystem des Gymnasiums,

1628 r., the seventy-eight-year-old Fabricius produced a memoir in which
he describes his tiresome tenure, spending a considerable amount of time
defending his controversial curricular reforms, which included expanding
the gymnasiums lower grades in order to offer basic courses in writing and
reading.17 This reform came under criticism because it dispensed with the
need for private tutors, or so- called corner schools (winkelschulen),
which were not associated with the gymnasium but benefited from its
existence. In effect, many local educators and even the citys mayor, Arndt
von Holten, argued that Fabricius was undercutting the economic stability
of the educational system and trying to monopolize it.18 Fabricius
defended himself by arguing that young students usually were coming
from very diverse economic and educational backgrounds (thus many
were unprepared to enter the gymnasium), and that the present arrange-
ment of tutors was unhelpful in overcoming the gaps. He argued that the
purpose of his reform was to create a more unified educational system and
believed this was the only way to guarantee the success of the gymnasi-
ums two final grades, which prepared students for further university
studies.19
According to Nadolski, Fabricius insistence on this controversial expan-
sion of the lower grades prevented the school from achieving its highest
academic potential. Fabricius became so preoccupied with reform that he
neglected to further develop the upper two grades, and thus failed to uti-
lize fully the presence and popularity of the internationally known
Keckermann. He also strongly disagreed with Keckermanns pedagogical
proposals to elevate philosophys role in the curriculum.20
probaverat, opposita paraballetairo Joannis Botsacci (Bremen: Villiers, 1637); Kocielak,

Szermierze Teologii z Gimnazjum Gdaskiego, 334.
17The Polish translation of the German original was provided by Bronisaw Nadolski in
Gdaskie Gimnazjum Akademickie: Ksiga pamitkowa dla uczenia czterechsetnej rocznicy
zaoenia Gimnazium Gdaskiego, 1558-1958 (Gdynia: Wydawnictwo Morskie, 1959), 243
276. Nadolski located the German original in the National Archive in Gdask and notes
that the text was transcribed by Wanda Klesiska and attached at the end of an essay about
metaphysics (300, 42/174). More recently the text has been published again in the original
German and in a new Polish translation, in GGA, vol. 2.
18Bronisaw Nadolski, Memoria rektora Gimnazjum Gdaskiego Jakuba Fabriciusa z
r. 1628, in Gdaskie Gimnazjum Akademickie (1959), 243.
20Nadolski, Memoria rektora Gimnazium Gdaskiego, 249252; Morzecki,
Gdaskie, 24. Sawomir Kocielak, Szermierze teologii z Gimnazjum Gdaskiego, in
GGA, 1:336.
Others have discussed Keckermanns philosophy of education and

noted its influence on the Protestant universities in Europe and the New
World, so there is no need to comment further on these topics here.21
However, following Richard A. Muller, we can simply quote Keckermann,
who argued that true philosophy in no way contradicts theology, since
nothing truly known of Gods power or divinity can be repugnant to theol-
ogy. Keckermann writes, In sum, the natural knowledge of God is not con-
trary to the supernatural, knowledge gained from nature is not repugnant
to knowledge gained by grace, the book of nature does not overturn the
book of scripture: therefore neither does philosophy conflict with theol-
ogy.22 This captures well Keckermanns position, which was in no sense
trying to overturn the role of theology or scrutinize it with reason or sci-
ence. In Keckermanns view, both supernatural and natural revelation
were true and complemented each other; studying them together created
a curricular system that could be termed both truly Christian and truly
academic. Fabricius, on the other hand, promoted the more conventional
approach. Perhaps due to his disputes with gnesio-Lutherans (who already
saw the Reformed approach as too philosophical, compromising basic
biblical doctrine with manmade knowledge), he was unable to appreciate
the approach of his famous colleague that in no sense contradicted
Reformed orthodoxy.
Keckermann, who taught in Gdask for only seven years (16021609),
instructed three yearlong courses in philosophy, which often included lec-
tures in logic, physics, ethics, politics, economics, geometry, and other dis-
ciplines.23 Due to his differences with Fabricius he never became a rector
or even pro-rector (contrary to what some English sources suggest), failing
to be honored with an important administrative role by his own alma
mater. However, his influence on students was powerfulmany of them
had come to Gdask only because of Keckermann, and his students were
the cream of the crop of the Danzig Gymnasium. One of these was
Heinrich Nicolai (16051660), who became a well-known philosopher and
21Muller, After Calvin, 122136; Howard Hotson, Johann Heinrich Alsted 15581638:
Between Renaissance, Reformation and Universal Reform (New York: OUP, 2000); Joseph
Freedman, The Career and Writings of Bartholomew Keckermann (d. 1609), Proceedings
of the American Philosophical Society 141.3 (1997): 305364; William T. Costello, The
Scholastic Curriculum at Seventeenth Century Cambridge (Cambridge: HUP, 1958).
22As quoted in Muller, After Calvin, 128, from Keckermanns Operum omnium quae
extant (Geneva, 1614), vol. 1, col. 70G-71A.
23For the most comprehensive analysis of Keckermanns thought, see Danilo Facca,
Bartomiej Keckermann i filozofia (Warszawa: Polska Akademia Nauk Instytut Filozofii i
Socjologii, 2005).
a future rector of the gymnasium. Another famous Reformed thinker who

had some indirect influence on the school, after Keckermann, was the
Bohemian theologian and philosopher Jan Amos Komensk (15921670),
whose residency in nearby Elblg brought him within close proximity to
the school. Johann Mochinger (16031652), a professor of rhetoric at
Danzig Gymnasium, edited the German version of Komensks Ianua lin-
guarum and reviewed his work Didactica magna. A great supporter of
Komeski and the seventh rector of the school, Johann Maukisch (who
governed the gymnasium from 1651 to 1669) was also greatly influenced by
the Bohemian philosopher.24
Despite disputes with the gnesio-Lutherans and disagreements with
Keckermann, the gymnasium flourished under Fabricius and experienced
its greatest development, reaching a nearly academic status and establish-
ing a reputation that benefited the school for centuries. In fact, it contin-
ued to operate until the Second World War. Budzyski states that in 1580
the gymnasium had only 65 students, but by 1600 that number had
increased to over 200 students and 7 instructors.25 Between 1644 and 1650
the number of students grew above 900, with the highest number of grad-
uates reaching 168 in 1644.26 Altogether, between 1580 and 1655, the num-
ber of students reached 5713, only half of whom were from the city of
Gdask.27

ARMINIUS ON FACIENTIBUS QUOD IN SE EST AND LIKELY
MEDIEVAL SOURCES
J.V. Fesko
Introduction
Identifying the source of an idea in an early modern theologian can be a

challenging task, especially with a controversial figure such as Jacob
Arminius (15601609). Arminius was accused of introducing heterodox
teaching into the Reformed churches of the Netherlands. His detractors
believed he was under the influence of Roman Catholic thought through
the works of Thomas Aquinas (12251274), Francisco Surez (15481617),
and Luis de Molina (15351600).1 A form of this allegation surfaced against
Arminius when he was accused of teaching the medieval maxim,
Facientibus quod in se est Deus non denegat gratiam (Do what is in you
and God will not deny his grace).2
This essay explores the question of whether Arminius held to the faci-
entibus. The essay will prove that Arminius did teach it and that the likely
source of the idea is an eclectic patchwork of medieval theologians, which
confirms the claims of Richard Muller; namely, Arminius reintroduced the
facientibus to Protestant theology. A corollary of proving this thesis, in line
with the theme of this collection of essays, is to show that early modern
theologians such as Arminius employed ideas from the past tradition. This
pattern of using old ideas is not peculiar to Arminius, as it was also com
mon to the Reformed tradition.3 But in the case of Arminius, the essay will
show that every idea from the past was not esteemed as equally as others.
In other words, Arminius use of the facientibus shows continuity with
themedieval past, a link that was not welcomed by his Reformed peers.
The essay examines the state of the question, a survey of Arminius use of
1Richard A. Muller, Arminius and the Scholastic Tradition, CTJ 24.2 (1989): 266.
2On this idea see Heiko A. Oberman, Facientibus quod in se est Deus non Denegat
Gratiam: Robert Holcot, O.P. and the Beginnings of Luthers Theology, HThR 55.4 (1962):
317342; Oberman, The Harvest of Medieval Theology: Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval
Nominalism (1963; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), 132134; Muller, DLGT, 113, s.v. facere quod
in se est.
3See, e.g., Irena Backus, ed., The Reception of the Church Fathers in the West, 2 vols.
(Leiden: Brill, 2001), 2:627744, 8391038.
348 j.v. fesko
the facientibus in its historical context, and will then suggest the likely
medieval sources from which Arminius gleaned the facientibus.
State of the Question
John Mark Hicks

Within Arminius studies there is a sliver that has dealt with the specific
question of Arminius understanding of the facientibus. In his 1991 essay
John Mark Hicks appeals to Arminius use of the beggar analogy to dem
onstrate that faith is the gift of God and that the sinner is passive in the
reception of Christs righteousness. Hicks claims, Whether one refers to
laying hold or holding out an empty hand, the point is that faith is a
human act enabled by grace and it contains no merit within itself. Calvin
and Arminius are agreed on these points.4 In all fairness, Hicks does not
enter into a protracted examination of Arminius use of the beggar anal
ogy but simply points out that the Dutchman employed this figure to illus
trate the gracious nature of salvation as well as to show his agreement
with John Calvin on this point.
Richard A. Muller
Richard Muller has come to different conclusions. Muller has not devoted
a specific essay to the subject but in three different places briefly treats the
question. In his dictionary of theological terms, Muller contends that
Arminius reintroduced the facientibus into Protestant theology.5 In an
essay on the federal motif in Arminian theology, Muller highlights
Arminius understanding of the role and necessity of obedience in the
new covenant. The necessity of obedience, argues Muller, is related to
Arminius synergistic understanding of Gods grace and the sinners will in
the act of regeneration. Muller points to Arminius qualified acceptance
of the facientibus as evidence of Arminius synergism. Specifically, his view
of the universal prevenient grace, according to Muller, gives Arminiussote
riology a synergistic cast at the nexus between fallen human will and the
divine grace of regeneration.6 In a different essay Muller draws attention
4John Mark Hicks, The Righteousness of Saving Faith: Arminian Versus Remonstrant
Grace, EJ 9.1 (1991): 3031.
5Muller, DLGT, 113, s.v. facere quod in se est.
6Richard Muller, The Federal Motif in Seventeenth Century Arminian Theology,
NAKG 62.1 (1982): 107.
arminius on facientibus quod in se est 349
to this point in his explanation of Arminius use of the beggar analogy.

Muller contends that Arminius does advocate the necessity of grace and
faith for a persons salvation; he then mentions the beggar and offers the
following analysis: The analogy of the beggar, however, together with the
assumption that human nature may be ready to receive faith, does bear a
certain resemblance to the dynamic of the late medieval maxim, facienti
bus quod in se est, Deus non denegat gratiam.7 The combination of the
qualified acceptance of the facientibus together with the always-ready
beggar present two key pieces of evidence, that in Mullers judgment,
qualifies Arminius as a synergist.
Keith Stanglin
Stanglins analysis of Arminius is set in the broader context of his doctrine
of assurance and does not focus directly upon the particular issues sur
rounding the facientibus. Nevertheless, Stanglin offers analysis of Armin
ius Declaration of Sentiments before the States General.8 The Declaration
is important because it comes from Arminius late in his life and therefore
offers a glimpse at a number of theological topics from Arminius mature
thought. Beyond these observations, Stanglin offers brief analysis of
Arminius use of the facientibus. Stanglin keenly highlights the polemical
context in which the facientibus was attributed to Arminius; if his oppo
nents could link him to this catch-phrase, then they could argue that his
theology was Roman Catholic and semi-Pelagian and perhaps that
Arminius was under the influence of the Jesuits or Pelagius himself.9 In
contrast, Stanglin argues that Arminius believed that the facientibus was
legitimate if Gods grace preceded, accompanied, and followed the
believer in his regeneration and subsequent Christian life. Such a qualifi
cation, contends Stanglin, separates Arminius understanding of the faci-
entibus from earlier medieval renditions of the same.10
On this point Stanglin takes issue with Mullers reading of Arminius
and places doubt upon the contention that Arminius reintroduced
the facientibus. But if Arminius did reintroduce the concept, Stanglin
believes that his version is different from medieval Roman Catholic views,
7Richard Muller, The Priority of the Intellect in the Soteriology of Jacob Arminius,
WTJ 55.1 (1993): 60.
8Keith Stanglin, Arminius on the Assurance of Salvation: The Context, Roots, and Shape
of the Leiden Debate, 16031609 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 11.
9Stanglin, Arminius, 82.
10Stanglin, Arminius, 83.
350 j.v. fesko
particularly that of Gabriel Biel (ca. 14201495). Additionally, Stanglin

argues, Arminius should not be portrayed as attempting to rescue an
orthodox meaning for the phrase. He seems to have no positive affinity for
it, but only uses it here apologetically contra his opponents.11
Summary
The literature on Arminius and the facientibus is admittedly small, but
reveals two different readingsone that places his doctrine in an
Augustinian trajectory (Hicks and Stanglin) and another that contends
that Arminius is synergistic and hence, semi-Pelagian (Muller).12 These
readings center upon two key questions. First, how does Arminius use the
specific phrase? Second, how does Arminius employ the analogy of the
beggar? Answers to both of these questions will prove the thesis that
Arminius reintroduced the facientibus and provides the platform to inves
tigate likely sources for this teaching.
Arminius on facientibus quod in se est in Context
Qualified Acceptance
In his Apology Against Thirty-One Articles, Arminius addresses the charge
that he embraced the facientibus. He quickly dismisses a Pelagian version
of the accusation, namely that a person can do good works without the
assistance of divine grace. Arminius writes, It never came into our minds
to employ such confused expressions as these, which, at the very first sight
of them, exclude grace from the commencement of conversion. Instead,
Arminius argues, We always and on all occasions make this grace to pre
cede, to accompany and follow; and without which, we constantly assert,
no good action whatever can be produced by man. Arminius even argues
that Adam in his pre-fall state required the grace of God to do good.13 In
fact, Arminius reverses the accusation and claims that anyone who argues
that Adam was able, apart from divine grace, to do good would be guilty of
11Stanglin, Arminius, 83n40.

12Though it should be noted that use of the facientibus does not automatically commit
a theologian to a particular soteriologythe statement must be read in the broader con
text of a theologians work. See David C. Steinmetz, Luther in Context (1986; Grand Rapids:
Baker, 1996), 6162.
13Jacob Arminius, Apology Against Thirty-One Theological Articles, XVII, in Works, 2:19.
Apologiaadversus Articulos quosdam Theologicos, in Opera, 158159.
promoting Pelagianism. Arminius therefore dismisses the accusation as

an absurdity.14
However, despite his dismissal of the accusation, Arminius does accept
the facientibus in the following manner:
But this article excludes primary grace with sufficient explicitness, when it
says, To him who does what is in himself. For if this expression be under
stood in the following sense, To him who does what he can by the primary
grace already conferred upon him, then there is no absurdity in this sen
tence, God will bestow further grace upon him who profitably uses that
which is primary.15
Arminius adopts the facientibus so long as the sinners ability to do what is
in him is preceded by Gods grace. Along these lines Arminius asks, How
can a man, without the assistance of divine grace, perform anything which
is acceptable to God, and which he will remunerate with the saving reward
either of further grace or of life eternal?16 Arminius clearly affirms the
necessary antecedent grace of God. In this context, there is no explicit
indication of synergism in Arminius soteriology.
The Beggar Analogy

But elements of synergism do surface in Arminius explanation of the
nature of faith. Arminius writes,
A rich man bestows, on a poor and famishing beggar, alms by which he may
be able to maintain himself and his family. Does it cease to be a pure gift,
because the beggar extends his hand to receive it? Can it be said with propri
ety, that the alms depended partly on the liberality of the donor, and partly
on the liberty of the receiver, though the latter would not have possessed the
alms unless he had received it by stretching out his hand? Can it be correctly
said, because the beggar is always prepared to receive, that he can have the
alms, or not have it, just as he pleases? If these assertions cannot be truly
made about a beggar who receives alms, how much less can they be made
about the gift of faith, for the receiving of which far more acts of divine grace
are required!17
The use of the illustration is not, in and of itself, evidence of synergism.
Rather, the fact that Arminius claims that the beggar is always prepared to
receive (semper paratus sit pauper ad accipiendum) reveals an element of
14Apology, XVII (Works, 2:1920; Opera, 158159).

17Apology, XXVII (Works, 2:52; Opera, 176).
352 j.v. fesko
synergism. This is not a mere slip of the pen on Arminius part, as else
where he is explicit on this point. In his Private Disputations Arminius
writes,
But that special concurrence or assistance of grace [auxilium gratiae], which
is also called co-operating and accompanying grace, [gratia cooperans et
concomitans] differs neither in kind nor in efficacy from that exciting and
moving grace which is called preventing and operating [praeveniens et oper-
ans], but it is the same grace continued. It is styled co-operating or con
comitant, only on account of the concurrence of the human will, which
operating and preventing grace has elicited from the will of man. This con
currence is not denied to him to whom exciting grace is applied, unless the
man offers resistance to the grace exciting.18
Arminius clearly states that if a persons will concurs with prevenient
grace, then more grace is given unless he resists the prevenient grace. In
other words, Gods grace is not denied to those who do what is in them.
This analysis can be confirmed by a comparison with other similar expres
sions from the immediate historical context.
Contextual Comparisons
The use of the beggar analogy does not immediately render a theolo
gian guilty of synergism.19 In Reformed works before, during, and after
Arminius life, theologians commonly employed this analogy in their
discussions on the doctrine of faith. In his lectures on the Heidelberg
Catechism Zacharias Ursinus (15341583) explains that when a person is
justified by faith alone, it is not by meriting said faith but only by receiving
it. Ursinus writes, When it is said, This beggar is enriched only by receiv
ing alms, all works and merits are excluded therefrom, yea, even the very
acceptance of alms, in as it is viewed as a merit.20 In another commentary
on the catechism Jeremias Bastingius (15511595) explains, Last of all true
faith being as a hand, whereby I receive Christ unto myself, it can no more
be said being considered in itself to deserve at Gods hand righteousness
and life, than the hand of a leprous man does deserve, that a man that is
18Arminius, Priv. Disp. LXX.vi (Works, 2:451; Opera, 431).

19E.g., Martin Luther, Wir sein pettler, in WA TR, 5:317318 (no. 5677); cf. Heiko A.
Oberman, Wir Sein Pettler. Hoc Est Verum. Covenant and Grace in the Theology of the
Middle Ages and Reformation, in The Reformation: Roots and Ramifications (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1994): 91115, esp. 105108.
20Ursinus, Commentary, 332; Ursinus, Corpus Doctrinae Orthodoxae, sive Catecheticarum
explicationum (Heidelberg: Rhodii, 1616), 357.
clean should reach an alms unto it.21 In his Body of Divinity James Ussher
(15811656) explains that faith justifies as an instrument, or hand of the
soul stretched forth, to lay hold on the Lord our righteousness, and that
faith is only the instrument to convey so great a benefit unto the soul, as
the hand of the beggar receives the alms.22 Likewise, Westminster divine
Thomas Goodwin (16001680) explains the passive nature of faith with
the beggar illustration: It is faith that is only a receiver, that is, it does
nothing else but receive; it returns not. Does the hand of a beggar that
takes alms, return any thing to the man that gives? No, it only takes it.23
The presence and use of the beggar analogy per se is no immediate indica
tor of synergism, as Ursinus, Bastingius, Ussher, and Goodwin all employ
the illustration and maintain a monergistic soteriology.
But what does stand out in contrast to Arminius is that these four sam
pled theologians do not argue that the beggar is always ready to receive.
Reformed theologians held that Gods gratia praeveniens (prevenient
grace) was necessary for a sinners conversion, as did Arminius. The differ
ence between Arminius and the Reformed is that the former believed that
prevenient was resistibilis (resistible), whereas the latter believed grace
was irresistible (gratia irresistibilis). The Reformed believed that preve
nient grace was given exclusively to the elect whereas Arminius held that
it was given universally to all.24 The contrast between the Reformed and
Arminius on this point arises in a comparison between the latters beliefs
and the declarations of the Synod of Dordt (16181619).
Dordt states that the effects of the fall upon human nature were devas
tating: He brought upon himself blindness, terrible darkness, futility, and
distortion of judgment in his mind; perversity, defiance, and hardness in
his heart and will; and finally impurity in all his emotions.25 The Canons
also state, All people are conceived in sin and are born children of wrath,
unfit for any saving good, inclined to evil, dead in their sins, and slaves to
sin; without the grace of the regenerating Holy Spirit they are neither will
ing nor able to return to God, to reform their distorted nature, or even to
21Jeremias Bastingius, An Exposition or Commentarie Upon the Catechisme

(Cambridge: Legat, 1595), fol. 125; Bastingius, In Catechesin Religionis Christianae
Commentarii (Dordtrecht: Caninius, 1588), 206.
22James Ussher, A Body of Divinity: or the Sum and Substance of Christian Religion (1645;
London, 1702), 174.
23Thomas Goodwin, An Exposition of the First and Second Chapters of Ephesians, in
Works (London: T.G., 1681), serm. XXII (p. 298).
24Muller, DLGT, 132, s.v. gratia praeveniens, gratia resistibilis.
25The Canons of the Synod of Dort, 16181619, III/IV.1, in Creeds and Confessions of Faith
in the Christian Tradition, ed. Pelikan and Hotchkiss (New Haven: YUP, 2003), 2:583.
354 j.v. fesko
dispose themselves to such reform.26 Given humanitys fallen nature, God

must regenerate in a saving and efficacious way. God only regenerates his
chosen ones so that the elect are certainly, unfailingly, and effectively
reborn and do actually believe.27 Theodore Beza (15191605) gives a pithy
description of humanitys condition when he writes, For, in all this, we are
more than dumb, deaf, and blind through the corruption of our nature. It
would be no more possible for us even to which to believe than it would be
for a dead man to fly.28
By way of contrast, in his Declaration of Sentiments, Arminius explains
how he defines grace: It is an infusion (both into the human understand
ing and into the will and affections,) of all those gifts of the Holy Spirit
which appertain to the regeneration and renewing of mansuch as faith,
hope, charity, etc; for, without these gracious gifts, man is not sufficient to
think, will, or do any thing that is good. Arminius argues the necessity of
grace both for the converted sinner and for the one who needs conversion;
he stipulates, I ascribe to grace the commencement, the continuance and
the consummation of all good. However, Arminius identified the crux of
the debate over freedom of the will: For the whole controversy reduces
itself to the solution of this question, Is the grace of God a certain irresist
ible force? Arminius replies in the negative: With respect to which,
Ibelieve, according to the scriptures, that many persons resist the Holy
Spirit and reject the grace that is offered.29
Beyond the issue of the efficacy of grace, Arminius also believed that
supernatural prevenient grace was not limited to the elect but universally
dispensed through Gods providence: We preserve the distinction of the
goodness which is in [creatures], (1.) According to their nature, through
creation: (2.) According to grace, through the communication of super
natural gifts, and elevation of dignities: (3.) According to the right use both
of nature and grace. Yet we ascribe the last two also to the act of provi
dence.30 This position is different than the common Reformed view,
exemplified by Francis Junius (15451602), who argues for a universal and
particular providence, of which the former deals with nature and the later
with grace. Particular providence is specifically according to the good
26CoD, III/IV.2, in Creeds, 2:584.

27CoD, III/IV.1112.
28Theodore Beza, The Christian Faith, trans. James Clark (Lewes: Focus Christian
Ministries, 1992), IV.v; Beza, Confessio Christianae Fidei (Geneva: Crispini, 1570), 18.
29Dec. Sent., IV (Works, 2:664; Opera, 122).
30Priv. Disp. XXVIII.v (Works, 2:367; Opera, 372); Muller, Arminius, 236, 250.
pleasure of God given only to the elect.31 Similar formulations appear in

the works of Amandus Polanus (15611610), Johannes Wollebius (1589
1629), William Perkins (15581602), and is also reflected in the declarations
of Dordt quoted above.32
One area that reveals some of the exegetical foundation for Arminius
understanding of the facientibus is his exegesis of Romans 7. In the broad
contours, Reformed theologians typically identified the person described
in this debated passage as regenerate man, who is under grace, not under
the law. In his commentary on Romans, for example, Calvin explains that
the man in view is one who has already been regenerated and that the
conflict between doing good and choosing evil does not exist in man until
he has been sanctified by the Spirit of God.33 The annotations produced
by the Synod of Dordt on Scripture argue that Romans 7:114 addresses
thepower of law and sin in the corrupt and unregenerate man but that
at vv. 14ff refer to mans regenerate state as one delivered from the domin
ion of sin.34 The Westminster Assemblys Annotations offer a similar
interpretation.35
Arminius, on the other hand, argues that Romans 7:14ff refers to an
unregenerate person living under the law, not under grace.36 Arminius
defines what it means to be unregenerate:
But an unregenerate man isnot only he who is entirely blind, ignorant of
the will of God, knowingly and willingly contaminating himself by sins with
out any remorse of conscience, affected with no sense of the wrath of God,
31Francis Junius, Theses Theologicae Leydenses et Heydelbergenses, XVII.3, in Opuscula

Theologica Selecta, ed. Abraham Kuyper (London: William and Norgate, 1882), 158; Muller,
Arminius, 244245.
32Amandus Polanus, The Substance of Christian Religion (London: Oxenbridge, 1595),
4950, 87; Johannes Wollebius, Compendium Theologiae Christianae, I.xxviii.1, in Reformed
Dogmatics, ed. and trans. Beardslee (Oxford: OUP, 1965); William Perkins, A Golden Chaine
(London: Alde, 1592), XXXV (fol. P3v-P4r).
33John Calvin, Romans and Thessalonians, trans. Ross Mackenzie (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1995), comm. Rom. 7:14 (pp. 148149); Richard Muller, Scimus enim Quod Lex
Spiritualis Est: Melanchthon and Calvin on the Interpretation of Romans 7.1423, in Philip
Melanchthon (14971560) and the Commentary, ed. Wengert and Graham (Sheffield: SAP,
1997): 230231.
34Theodore Haak, The Dutch Annotations Upon the Whole Bible (London: Rothwell
et al., 1657), comm. Rom. 7:14.
35Annotations Upon all the Books of the Old and New Testament (London: Evan Tyler,
1657), comm. Rom. 7.14. Cf. Joel E. Kim, History and Exegesis: The Interpretation of
Romans 7.1425 from Erasmus to Arminius, in Always Reformed, ed. Clark and Kim
(Escondido: WSC, 2010), 154172.
36Jacob Arminius, A Dissertation on the True and Genuine Sense of the Seventh Chapter
of the Epistle to the Romans, Intro (Works, 2:490; Opera, 825).
356 j.v. fesko
terrified with no compunctious visits of conscience, not oppressed with the

burden of sin, and inflamed with no desire of deliverancebut it is also he
who knows the will of God but does it not.37
The detrimental effects of sin do not rule out the presence of all goodness
in the unregenerate. In several places Arminius argues that there is some
good in the unregenerate.38 This residual good is natural to fallen human
ity, though it is present only because of Gods grace. Arminius writes, But
these things, and others, (if any such there be,) are attributed to the unre
generate, without any injury to grace and the Holy Spirit; because they are
believed to be, in those in whom they are found, through the operation of
grace and of the Holy Spirit.39
One of the chief good acts that Arminius has in mind is the unregener
ate persons response to the law of God. He argues that the ideal response
to the law is love, not servile fear. But all things considered, even the fear
of punishment is better than nothing. Arminius explains this point with a
quotation from St. Augustine:
Therefore, lest the devil take possession of thy heart, let this servant [fear]
have the precedence in it, and preserve a place within for his lord and master
who will soon arrive. Do this, act thus, even from fear of punishment, if you
are not yet able to do it from a love of righteousness. The master will come,
and the servant [fear] will depart; because when love is perfected, it casts
out fear.40
This quotation bears a resemblance to the facientibus, as the fear-stricken
person does what is in him to please the master, and the master responds
with more grace by driving out fear. Considering that Arminius attributes
these powers to the unregenerate person, it illustrates how he is different
from his Reformed peers; the beggar is always ready to accept the gift of
faith because of Gods universal prevenient grace, a grace that can be
resisted. Arminius construction is not Pelagian, but it does fall into a semi-
Pelagian category.
Potential Sources
From whom did Arminius glean these theological commitments, namely

the universality of supernatural prevenient grace thus enabling fallen
37Diss. Rom., pt. I (Works, 2:498; Opera, 830831).

38Diss. Rom., pt. I, comm. Rom. 7.1819 (Works, 2:53031; Opera, 848).
39Diss. Rom., pt. I (Works, 2:542; Opera, 855).
40Diss. Rom. (Works, 2:542; Opera, 855).
humanity to embrace faith and salvation? The most likely answer comes
from a number of medieval theologians, including Biel, Aquinas, and
Lombard and the belief in the creational (or providential) dispensation of
prevenient grace.41
The idea of universal prevenient grace is not common to Reformed the
ology as previously demonstrated by the citations from Junius and Dordt.
Calvin, for example, rejects the idea when he writes:
This grace the Lord deigns not to give to any person promiscuously, accord
ing to the observation commonly attributed, if I mistake not, to Occam, that
it is denied to no man who does what he can. Men are to be taught, indeed,
that the divine benignity is free to all who seek it, without any exception; but
since none begin to seek it, but those who have been inspired by heavenly
grace, not even this diminutive portion ought to be taken from his praise.
This is the privilege of the elect, that, being regenerated by the Spirit of God,
they are led and governed by his direction.42
Several comments are in order regarding Calvins statement against the
facientibus. First, Arminius read, cited, and owned copies of Calvins
Institutes, as is evident in his writings as well as the auction catalog of his
library.43 Second, the idea that Calvin rejects (universal prevenient grace)
is the very idea that Arminius promotes. Third, Calvin incorrectly identi
fies the source of the facientibus as William of Ockham (ca. 12871347),
but the source is actually Biels commentary on Lombards Sen
tences.44Nevertheless, Calvin marked a path back to the middle ages and
Biels theology. And, given the nature of commenting on the Sentences,
Calvins remark would have given Arminius a signpost to the medieval
conversation.
Hence, there is no specific need to connect the source of universal pre
venient grace exclusively to Biel alone. Biels comments originate with
Lombards own position on creational prevenient grace. Lombard explains,
for example, that fallen humanity is in need of Gods grace to heal and free
the will from the effects of sin.45 Lombard then draws a comparison
41Cf. Muller, Arminius, 235268.

42John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Allen, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1949), II.iii.10; Calvin, Institutionis Christianae Religionis (Geneva: Stephanus,
1559).
43C.O. Bangs, ed., The Auction Catalogue of the Library of J. Arminius (Utrecht: HES,
1985), 16, 20.
44Calvin, Institutes (Battles/McNeil), 304n27.
45Peter Lombard, The Sentences, trans. Guilio Silano, 4 vols. (Toronto: PIMS, 2008), dist.
II.xxvii.2; Lombard, Sententiae in IV Libris Distinctae, 2 vols. (Grottaferrata: Collegii S.
Bonaventurae Ad Claras Aquas, 1981).
358 j.v. fesko
between rain and divine grace. The earth receives rain, but this rain should
not be confused with the earth, seed, or fruit that arises as a result of the
rain. In similar fashion:
The rain of divine blessing is freely poured into the earth of our mind, that
is, the choice of our will, that is, it is inspired by gracewhich God alone
does, and not man with him. By this grace, the will of man is bathed so as to
germinate and produce fruit, that is, it is healed and prepared to will the
good, according to which the grace is called operating; and it is assisted to do
the good, according to which the grace is called co-operating. And that grace
is not unsuitably termed virtue, because it heals and aids the infirm will of
man.46
Lombard links providence and the dispensation of grace as that which
heals the will of man and enables him to choose that which is good. And
in the same context, Lombard acknowledges the concept of prevenient
grace: And that prevenient grace, which is also a virtue, is not the use of
free choice, but rather the good use of free choice comes from it. It is ours
from God, not from ourselves.47
The connection between prevenient grace and providence also appears
in Biels thought. But to understand Biels arguments a brief rehearsal of
two medieval theological terms is necessary. Aquinas argues that grace
should be divided into two categories gratia gratis data (freely given grace)
and gratia gratum faciens (sanctifying grace).48 He explains that sanctify
ing grace is the grace by which man himself is united to God and freely
given grace is the grace by which one man cooperates with another so
that he might be brought back to God. Aquinas further stipulates, how
ever, that the freely given grace is bestowed to humanity beyond their
capacity of nature and merit and is distinguished from sanctifying grace,
which makes sinners pleasing and acceptable to God.49 For Aquinas,
both forms of grace are given to the church, as sanctifying grace is for
the individual and freely given grace is for the common good of the
wholechurch.50
These terms are important because of the way Biel uses them in con
junction with his understanding of divine providence. Unlike Thomas,
who links these two forms of grace to the church and its ministry, Biel
46Lombard, Sentences, dist. II.xxvii.2.

47Lombard, Sentences, dist. II.xxvii.8.
48Thomas Aquinas, ST, vol. 30, The Gospel of Grace (New York: Blackfriars, 1972),
IaIIae.111.1.
49ST, IaIIae.111.1.
50ST, IaIIae.111.5.
identifies the freely given grace with fallen humanitys natural abilities.51
In a sermon Biel distances himself from Pelagian teaching and argues for
a twofold grace of God, which is given to creatures apart from merit as a
gift. But Biel states that without this grace, all are unable to think, live, or
act.52 On this feature of Biels doctrine, Oberman comments,
Thus Biel allows for the gift of the gratia gratis data [freely given grace], so
closely identified with the gifts of creation that it in this manner performs
functions which man, not only in principle but as a matter of fact, can per
form himself. And however strongly Biel speaks about mans misery result
ing from original sin, the preparatory grace of God is not understood as
mans last and only hope, but as a divine intervention in the natural order
which points to the freedom of God to relieve man in particular cases from
the arduous but possible task of preparing himself.53
In his exposition of the mass, a book owned by Arminius, Biel makes a
similar type of argument when he maintains that the Eucharist has uni
versal saving effects even upon the creation itself:
That bread is well called pan, which means everything, because it bestows
on man the pilgrim everything that relates to salvation. For by his fall man
ruined everything. He violated the beautiful order established by his maker.
Through disobedience he despised his God; he accused his neighbor, flesh of
his flesh and bone of his bone; in himself he subjected reason, the wills
guide, to appetite. Therefore, he required a triple remedy to make perfect
recompense: a sacrifice to placate God; the diffusion of charity by which he
might communicate with his neighbor; grace to restore the order in himself.
The bread of Christ, the most excellent sacrament, confers all these. For it is
the offering of a sacrifice to God, a communion in charity with the neighbor,
viaticum and refreshment for oneself.54
For Biel, man ruined everything in the fall and the Eucharist restores every-
thing. Grace is universally dispensed.55 Others have likewise concluded
51Oberman, Medieval Theology, 138.

52Gabriel Biel, Sermones Dominicales Gabrielis Biel Spirensis Hyemales Estiuales De
Tempore Sermones Medicinales (Hagenau, 1510), serm. XXIX; Oberman, Medieval Theology,
138n59.
53Oberman, Medieval Theology, 140; cf. Gabriel Biel, Collectorium in IV Libros
Sententiarum Guillelmi Occam (1501; Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1977), II dist. 28.1a3
dub.2N. Biel takes issue with Gregory of Rimini (ca. 13001358), an Augustinian who
believed that sinners need freely given grace for every good act (Biel, Sententiarum, II dist.
28.1A; Oberman, Medieval Theology, 140n64).
54Gabriel Biel, Canonis Missae Expositio, I,7, as quoted in Lawrence F. Murphy, Gabriel
Biel and Ignorance as an Effect of Original Sin in the Prologue to the Canonis Missae
Expositio, AR 75 (1984): 52; cf. Biel, Canonis Missae Expositio, ed. Oberman and Courtenay,
vol. 1 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag GMBH, 1963), prologus (p. 7).
55Murphy, Gabriel Biel, 52.
360 j.v. fesko
that Biel reduces the freely given grace (gratia gratis data) to the general
providence of God.56 What was common in the middle ages was very
uncommon in Arminius Reformed context. The similarities between
Arminius and these medieval doctors on universal prevenient grace
through creation and providence support Mullers contention that
Arminius reintroduced the facientibus to Protestant theology.57
Conclusion
In this brief exploration of Arminius and the facientibus, we have com

pared the Dutchmans views and exegesis against his own immediate his
torical context, which demonstrated that Arminius did not directly learn
the doctrine from his Reformed context. Rather, the likely source is that
Arminius mined medieval theology for alternative ideas to what he
learned from his Reformed context. Evidence of Arminius spadework is
evident throughout his works as he makes positive and negative reference
and citations not only to contemporaries but also to medieval and patris
tic writers.58 Also, given the auction catalog from his library, Arminius was
in personal possession of a number of medieval volumes, including
Lombards Sentences, Biels Canonis Missae Expositio, and the Summa of
Aquinas, which would have given him easy access to these ideas.59
However, although beyond the scope of this essay, there are other indica
tors that medieval theologians were the fount from which Arminius drew
the facientibus, such as Biels contention that faith is notitia, and Arminius
own priority of the intellect in his doctrine of faith.60 Given the surveyed
evidence, pace Hicks and Stanglin, it appears that Mullers thesis is cor
rect: Arminius reintroduced the facientibus to Protestant theology and he
drew this idea from Biel, Aquinas, and Lombard in an eclectic manner.61
56John L. Farthing, Thomas Aquinas and Gabriel Biel (Durham: Duke, 1988), 159.
57Muller, Arminius, 235.
58E.g., Arminius, Dissertation, Pt. 1, Rom. 7:1819 and The Ancient Fathers, in Works,
2:529544, 552559.
59Muller, Arminius and the Scholastic Tradition, 266; Bangs, Auction Catalogue, 4, 5.
60Muller, Priority of the Intellect, 5572; Murphy, Gabriel Biel, 56; Paul van Geest,
Aquinas or Augustine? On the sources of Gabriel Biels Canonis Missae Expositio,
Zeitschrift fr Antikes Christentum 11.1 (2007): 76, 80; G.R. Evans, Robert Kilwardby, Gabriel
Biel, and Luthers Saving Faith, in The Medieval Theologians, ed. Evans (Oxford: Blackwell,
2001), 360361; Ulrich G. Leinsle, Introduction to Scholastic Theology, trans. Miller
(Washington: CUAP, 2010), 239240.
61Muller, Priority of the Intellect, 71; Muller, Arminius, 268.
BONA CONSCIENTIA PARADISUS:
AN AUGUSTINIAN-ARMINIAN TROPE
Keith D. Stanglin
The modest revival of interest in and study of the Dutch theologian Jacob
Arminius (15591609) in the last three decades owes much to the efforts of
Richard A. Muller, who in 1988 called for a new perspective on the theol
ogy of Arminius. Although Arminius has been a sort of ancillary project to
his larger agenda on early modern Reformed theology, Mullers important
1991 monograph and many illuminating articles on Arminius have demon
strated how much remains to be done for historians and theologians who
wish to understand Arminius and the movement he inspired. In short,
Muller has clarified Arminius relationship to the Reformed tradition and
has shown that he was a key figure in the early development of Protestant
scholasticism, revealing that there is much more to Arminius penetrating
theology than a controversy about predestination.1
In addition to Arminius unqualified and eminent position as a Prot
estant scholastic, like most Reformed scholastics of his day, he stressed
that the Christian faith was incomplete without the practice of piety. He
was a minister at heart, preaching and pastoring in Amsterdam for fifteen
years (15881603), more than twice the length of his later tenure as a theol
ogy professor in Leiden (16031609). In fact, his particular emphasis on
good worksfor instance, his high expectation for sanctification along
with the acknowledgment that sin can precipitate a fall from graceset
him apart from many of his Reformed contemporaries and reinforced
their charges of semi-Pelagianism against him.2 The prominence of right
living for Arminius is summed up well in his oft-cited motto, which is the
topic of this essay: bona conscientia paradisus (a good conscience is para
dise). In this essay, the historical problems surrounding Arminius motto
will be described, then the origin of the motto and its historical trajectory
1I have documented the contribution of Muller to Arminius studies more fully in Keith
D. Stanglin, Arminius and Arminianism: An Overview of Current Research, in AAE, 813.
2These issues related to sanctification are treated in Keith D. Stanglin, Arminius on the
Assurance of Salvation: The Context, Roots, and Shape of the Leiden Debate, 16031609
(Leiden: Brill, 2007), 115142; Keith D. Stanglin and Thomas H. McCall, Jacob Arminius:
Theologian of Grace (New York: OUP, 2012), 170176.
362 keith d. stanglin
will be discussed, and finally, brief observations regarding Arminius

thoughts on conscience will be presented.
Historical Problems
There are two initial historical problems with the motto, bona conscientia
paradisus. First, although it has been described by several biographers as
Arminius motto, it is difficult actually to trace the motto directly to
Arminius himself. In his extant works, Arminius neither proclaimed the
phrase as his motto nor wrote these three words in sequence. The first
biographical sketch of Arminiusthe funeral oration delivered by his
friend Petrus Bertius (15651629)says nothing of a motto. The first bit of
positive evidence comes from a print of Arminius done by the Leiden art
ist, Willem van Swanenburg (15801612). This earliest surviving image of
Arminius was published in a collection of prints in 1609. The second edi
tion, which appeared in 1613, added the motto in all capital letters into the
oval frame surrounding Arminius bust.3 This is the first appearance in
print of this motto being connected with Arminius. The motto was often
included in subsequent prints and portraits.
What about the first literary reference? Having checked the first
Remonstrant history, written by Joannes Uytenbogaert in 1646, I did not
find a reference to this motto.4 Rather, the first literary reference that con
nects this phrase to Arminius is found in volume two of Geeraert Brandts
four-volume History of the Reformation in the Low Countries, first published
in 1674. A Remonstrant minister charged by the Remonstrant Brotherhood
with documenting their history, Brandt (16261685) wove many new sto
ries about and epistolary excerpts from Arminius into his account of
recent Dutch ecclesiastical history. After reporting Arminius death,
Brandt wrote, As a motto (sinspreuk) he used these words, BONA
CONSCIENTIA PARADISUS, the good conscience is a Paradise.5 An image
3These prints are reproduced in Marijke Tolsma, Iconographia Arminiana: Portraits

from 1609 until ca. 1850, in AAE, 241242.
4Joannes Uytenbogaert, Kerckeliicke historie, vervatende verscheyden gedenckwaerdige
saecken, 2nd ed. (Rotterdam: Naranus, 1647).
5Geeraert Brandt, Historie der Reformatie, en andre kerkelyke geschiedenissen, in en
ontrent de Nederlanden, vol. 2 (Amsterdam: Rieuwertsz, 1674), 108, emphasis original: Tot
een sinspreuk voerde hy dese woorden, BONA CONSCIENTIA PARADISUS. De goede con-
scientie is een Paradijs. ET: The History of the Reformation and Other Ecclesiastical
Transactions in and about the Low-Countries, from the Beginning of the Eighth Century,
Down to the Famous Synod of Dort, vol. 2 (London: Wood, 1721), 63.
bona conscientia paradisus: an augustinian-arminian trope 363
of Arminius, based on the original Swanenburg print, appears a few pages

earlier in G. Brandts book, with a poem by Brandt across the bottom and
the Latin motto centered across the top.6
The first full-scale biography of Arminius was published posthumously
in 1724 by G. Brandts son, Caspar Brandt, also a Remonstrant minister.
After he recorded Arminius death and presented a brief physical descrip
tion of his subject, he also mentioned the motto (symbolum) of Arminius.7
The placement of the motto within the biography, along with the distinct
and unexplained format in upper-case letters, reflects Caspars depen
dence, in this case, on his fathers account. James Nichols, the English
translator of Arminius, transferred these words of C. Brandt verbatim into
his biographical appendix that appeared in the first volume of Arminius
Works in 1825. Now in English, but with the same familiar format, Nichols
translated the motto: A GOOD CONSCIENCE IS A PARADISE.8 The next
biography of Arminius was by J.H. Maronier, another Remonstrant minis
ter. Like his predecessors, Maronier noted the motto of Arminius toward
the end of his account, after describing the death and physical description
of Arminius. Maronier only added that this was the motto of his seal
(zegel).9 Maroniers account in this section follows that of the younger
Brandt point for point, and there is little evidence of independent research
regarding the motto. Like C. Brandt and James Nichols, it appears that
Maronier was merely passing on what he inherited ultimately from the
elder Brandt. For the last 300 years, a host of other writers have likewise
attributed this motto to Arminius.
The most recent biographer of Arminius, Carl Bangs (19222002),
departed from three centuries of convention and simply omitted any
mention of the motto. The reason for the omission is not clear, but for
such a thorough biographer to leave this oft-repeated detail untouched
implies that he felt the motto played no significant role in the life of
Arminius. It is interesting, then, that the description of Arminius motto in
the biographies seems to be based primarily on G. Brandts account
from 1674 (65 years after Arminius death), and the earliest connection of
the motto with Arminius appears on a print from 1613, though it is not
6G. Brandt, Historie, 86. The print also appears in Tolsma, Iconographia Arminiana,
243. A different print that lacks the motto appears in Brandt, History, 49.
7Caspar Brandt, Historia vitae Iacobi Arminii, 2nd ed., with preface and notes by Johann
Lorenz von Mosheim (Braunschweig: Meyer, 1725), 202203. ET: The Life of James Arminius,
trans. John Guthrie (Nashville: Stevenson and Owen, 1857), 378380.
8James Nichols, in Arminius, Works, 1:310, emphasis original.
9J.H. Maronier, Jacobus Arminius: Een biografie (Amsterdam: Y. Rogge, 1905), 339.
specifically designated as his motto. The first account of Arminius life by

Bertius and the latest, definitive biography by Bangs both say nothing of
the motto.
In light of Maroniers comment about the motto of his seal, perhaps
the only remaining route to pursue would be Arminius own ring, whose
seal contained the three-horned coat-of-arms and with which he formed
the wax seal on his letters.10 The ring was in the possession of the
Remonstrant professor Abraham des Amorie van der Hoeven (17981855),
also a descendant of Arminius, whose family donated it to the Boymans
Museum in Rotterdam in 1890. Unfortunately, in 1971 this ring was stolen
from the Rotterdam museum in which it resided.11 An extant photograph
of the ring, however, reveals the seal but contains no inscription.12 If the
motto appeared on the underside of the ring, there is no way to know now.
But whatever Maronier meant by the motto of Arminius seal, it was not
visible on the seal itself. These observations are not to suggest that the
motto is a chimera or has no connection whatsoever to Arminius. Rather,
I am only demonstrating that it is more difficult than it first appears to
trace this motto directly to Arminius.
Second, even if it is granted that Arminius consciously chose this motto
for himself, the immediate origin of it is unclear. Eric Cossee writes that
the motto is said to originate from Aemilius.13 This Theodorus Aemilius,
also known as Dirck Amelgersz, was the otherwise obscure priest of
Oudewater who became the patron and tutor for the young, fatherless
Jacob Arminius before the latter went abroad to study.14 But I am not
aware of any documentation for the origin of Arminius motto in Aemilius.
10The ring is mentioned in Gedenkschrift van de viering van het 250-jarig bestaan der
Remonstrantsche Broederschap, te Rotterdam (Rotterdam: Wyt & Zonen, 1869), 36. See also
G.J. Hoenderdaal, De theologische betekenis van Arminius, NTT 15 (1960): 91. Hoenderdaal
contrasts the ring of Arminius, which then was located in the historisch museum te
Rotterdam, with the wedding ring of Episcopius. The latter is still worn by Episcopius
successor, the Remonstrant professor of theology, on special occasions.
11This theft has not been widely publicized, and I became aware of it in the course of
this research. Wilhelmus Hermanus Vroom, Het wonderlid van Jan de Witt en andere vader-
landse relieken (Nijmegen: SUN, 1997), 47, only mentions that de ring is niet meer
aanwezig.
12My thanks go to Liesbeth van der Zeeuw, curator of art and applied arts, Museum
Rotterdam, for her assistance in locating the photograph of this zegelring and its certificate
of authenticity. The photograph matches the wax seal impression from this ring, which is
still visible on many of the letters of Arminius extant in the university libraries of Leiden
and Amsterdam.
13Eric H. Cossee, Arminius and Rome, in AAE, 74.
14On Aemilius, see Carl Bangs, Arminius: A Study in the Dutch Reformation, rev. ed.
(1985; repr., Eugene: W&S, 1998), 3334, 384386.
The Remonstrant professor G.J. Hoenderdaal (d. 1998) was known to

credit the motto to Aemilius, but his reason for doing so is not clear. The
only plausible connection appears in Bertius funeral oration for Arminius,
in which he states that Aemilius took frequent opportunities of exhorting
[Arminius] to lay aside and reject all consideration of worldly matters,
and to view himself as devoted (adsereret) to God and his own con
science.15 Despite this indication of Aemilius impact, his connection
with Arminius motto is tenuous; Arminius surely heard about the impor
tance of conscience from other teachers and in other settings as well.
What is beyond doubt is that this statement and the sentiment it reflects
precede Arminius.
The Background of Arminius Motto
Whether or not bona conscientia paradisus was Arminius explicit motto,

it undoubtedly was attached to Arminius image by 1613 and to his biogra
phy by 1674, and, for ease of reference, we may continue to designate it as
Arminius motto. And whether or not it had its immediate origin in
Aemilius instruction, it may be possible to trace its more remote origins
in the preceding Western tradition. An exact citation may be difficult to
find, but the sentiment can be found in nearly direct quotations in a
number of writers. Before limiting the search to Christian authors, it
must be acknowledged that serious reflection on the conscience predates
Christianity, much of which approaches the sentiment of the motto. For
example, when the ancient Corinthian ruler Periander (d. 585 bc) was
asked what freedom is, he replied, A good conscience.16 The concept of
the moral conscience that was developed in Plato became the object of
deeper reflection in Epicurean and especially Stoic philosophy.17 But the
association of the conscience with paradise in particular certainly nar
rows the scope of possible antecedents, for the term paradise is not native
15Petrus Bertius, De vita et obitu reverendi et clarissimi viri D. Iacobi Arminii oratio. Dicta
post tristes illius exsequias XXII. Octob. Anno M.D.C.IX., in Arminius, Opera, fols. 002r; Works
1:1718.
16Joannes Stobaeus, Anthologium, III.xxiv.12, ed. Wachsmuth and Hense (Berlin:
Weidmann, 1894), 3:604: , .
17For a helpful, recent summary of the important developments on conscience in the
Western tradition, see Richard Sorabji, Graeco-Roman Origins of the Idea of Moral
Conscience, in Archaeologica, arts, iconographica, tools, historica, Biblica, theologica, philo-
sophica, ethica (Louvain: Peeters, 2010), 361383.
to the West. Paradise comes from an Old Persian word meaning a walled
enclosure or a garden of some sort (walled or not). As a post-exilic Hebrew
loanword, it is used three times in the later writings of the Old Testament
(Nehemiah 2:8; Song of Songs 4:13; and Ecclesiastes 2:5). The word was
brought into the Greek language at least as early as Xenophon (ca. 431354
bc), whose Anabasis describes Persian royal gardens with this word. The
loanword is also used in the LXX in several places, for example, in Genesis
2 to describe Eden. The word has an exclusively religious, heavenly mean
ing in all three of its uses in the New Testament (Luke 23:43; 2 Corinthians
12:4; Revelation 2:7).18 Paradisus entered Latin via Greek and its use is pre
dominantly Christian. This is all to say that one should not expect to find
pre- or non-Christian Latin writers, and not many Greek writers, using
paradise in the context of conscience.
Indeed it is in the church fathers where conscience is first clearly linked
with paradise. Since the theme of paradise looms large in the narrative of
Genesis 23, it is not surprising to find extended reflection on this theme
in commentaries on these biblical texts. As far as I can tell, Augustine was
the first church father explicitly to link the idea of paradise with con
science. The first step to achieving this connection is his allegorical inter
pretation of paradise in the creation narratives, already disclosed in his De
Genesi adversus Manicheos. In his examination and application of the first
couples expulsion from the garden, he wrote, In my opinion, the blessed
life is signified by the word paradise.19 A hint of this figurative interpreta
tion of paradise may be found in Sirach 40:27: The fear of the Lord is like
a paradise () of blessing.20 In his later commentary on the
18See Joachim Jeremias, , in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament,

vol. 5, ed. Friedrich (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967), 765773; James H. Charlesworth,
Paradise, in Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 5, ed. Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992),
154155.
19Augustine, De Genesi adversus Manicheos libri duo II.xxii.34 (CSEL 91:158): moratus
est autem contra paradisum, in miseria, quae utique beatae vitae contraria est. nam bea
tam vitam paradisi nomine significatam existimo. ET: On Genesis, in Augustine, Works,
1/13:95.
20Of course, Augustine was not the first to employ an allegorical method with regard to
paradise. Subsequent to Sirach, Philo of Alexandria, Allegorical Interpretation of Genesis II,
III, I.xiv.4546 (Cambridge: HUP, 1929), 174176, says that virtue is tropologically called
paradise. Cf. Origen, De principiis, IV.iii.1, in PG 11:377A, who notes the need to allegorize
paradise: And who is so silly as to believe that God like a human farmer planted paradise
in Eden in the east, and made in it a visible and palpable tree of life? Ambrose of Milan,
De paradiso III.12 (CSEL 32/1:272): Therefore paradise is a certain fertile land, that is, a
fertile soul, planted in Eden, that is, in a certain pleasurable or well-tilled land, in which
there is delight of soul. Ephraem the Syrian, Hymns on Paradise, trans. Sebastian Brock
(Crestwood: St. Vladimirs Seminary, 1990).
creation accounts, Augustine gave a more detailed treatment of paradise

and plainly revealed his hermeneutical method: he interprets paradise
both literally (corporaliter) and figuratively (spiritaliter).21 After his discus
sion of paradise in the creation accounts, Augustine was led to deal later
with Pauls mention of paradise in 2 Cor. 12:4 and what paradise means for
believers. It is here that he expressed a thought in terms almost verbatim
with Arminius motto: So it is not only the third heavenwhatever that
is, assuredly something great and sublimely gloriousbut also in a person
the joy of a good conscience is paradise (laetitia bonae conscientiae par-
adisus est). Thus the church is also rightly called paradise for holy people
living temperately, righteously, and piously.22 The agreement of thought
and vocabulary with Arminius later motto is striking.
This Augustinian tropological reading of the paradise of Genesis 23
was known also in medieval interpretation. For instance, Hugh of
St.-Victor (ca. 10961141), preaching about this concept, said,
Beloved, examining these things tropologically, that is, morally, we say that
the man is formed by God when he is justified, and is placed in paradise,
while he is stationed in the secure delight (iucunditate) or delightful security
of a good conscience. For, by paradise full of pleasure [Gen. 2:8], what do we
understand better than the human mind full of security, from the confi
dence of a good conscience? A secure mind is like a continual feast [Prov.
15:15]. Therefore, by that terrestrial glory of paradise, we grasp (accipimus)
nothing more correct than the good conscience of the righteous.23
Hugh went on to say that the earthly paradise signifies the spiritual, good
things of our good conscience.24 William of St.-Thierry and Bernard of
Clairvaux (twelfth century), mutual friends familiar with this interpre
tation, both wrote of Adams expulsion from the paradise of a good
conscience.25
The same Augustinian interpretation became reasonably widespread
in late medieval preaching. For example, the Benedictine monk Pierre
21Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim VIII.i.1 (CSEL 28/1:229); Augustine,

Works, I/13:346.
22Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram XII.xxxiv.65 (CSEL 28/1:430; Works, I/13:503). Cf. the
discussion of this passage in a different context in Mark Glen Bilby, As the Bandit Will I
Confess You: Luke 23.3943 in Early Christian Interpretation (Ph.D. diss., University of
Virginia, 2012), 118120.
23Hugh of St.-Victor, Sermones centum, XLIII (PL 177:1012B-C).
24Hugh of St.-Victor, Sermo XLIII (PL 177:1012D).
25William of St.-Thierry, Meditativae orationes, IV, (PL 180:216D). Cf. idem, Expositio
altera super Cantica Canticorum, cap. 1 (PL 180:507C). Bernard of Clairvaux, Parabolae, I (PL
183:757C).
Bersuire (Berchorius) (ca. 12901362), who offered tropological interpreta

tions of the entire Bible, after suggesting various possibilities for allegoriz
ing, declared that paradise is the conscience of a righteous man.26
Another example comes from the Franciscan preacher Bernardinus
Senensis (13801444), who, in a sermon on good and evil conscience, said,
A clean conscience is a garden of pleasures, that is, an earthly paradise.
Here indeed paradise signifies a clean conscience. And just as in that
paradise the tree of life was planted, so in such a conscience through love
the life-giving tree, Jesus Christ, was planted.27 A final late medieval
example of this theme appears in Johannes Trithemius (14621516), who
was abbot in Sponheim from 1483 until 1506. Among the sermons he
preached in Sponheim, one is preserved On the Serenity of Conscience,
which contains many similes describing a good conscience. Among these
comparisons he noted, A good conscience is the dwelling place of the
Holy Spirit and a terrestrial paradise of all favors.28 Later in the same ser
mon, he declared that a good conscience is a fertile field of virtues and
the sweet and pleasing smell of the paradise of God.29
The same link between conscience and paradise appears in some later
Protestant writers, particularly within the English Reformed tradition.
Arminius own English contemporary, William Perkins (15581602), built
on the allegory of Genesis 3, as did his late medieval predecessors. Perkins
wrote,
26Pierre Bersuire, Bibliorum moralitates, 2 vols. (Antwerp: Hieronymus Verdussius,

1610), 1:78: Vel dic quod paradisus est conscientia viri iusti alta, secreta, illum inata, irri
gata. The allegory continues with figurative readings of the other elements of the Genesis
account.
27Bernardinus Senensis, Quadragesimale de evangelio aeterno, feria III, sermo lii, art. 2,
cap. 1 (Venice: Juntas, 1591), 524F-G: Conscientia munda, est hortus delitiarum, id est,
paradisus terrestris. Paradisus autem est locus in Orientibus partibus constitutus. Et dici
tur paradisus Graece, hortus Latine, Edon Hebraice, quod Latine delitiae interpretatur.
Coniuncta autem haec duo sonant hortum delitiarum. Hic quidem paradisus significat
conscientiam mundam, quae pollet affluentia gratiarum, et fluit in delitiis suavissimis
supernorum. In quibus delectatur, sicut in omnibus divitiis. Et sicut in illa paradiso planta
tum est lignum vitae: sic in tali conscientia complan[t]atum est per amorem vitale lignum
Iesus Christus. Some of these phrases are dependent on William of St.-Thierry, Speculum
fidei, in PL 180:367B-C: Conscientia earum paradisus voluptatis est, pollens affluentia gra
tiarum, et castis sanctarum deliciis virtutum.
28Johannes Trithemius, Sermones et exhortationes ad monachos Ioannis Tritemii abba-
tis Spanheimensis, homilia XXV, in Opera Thomae a Campis (Paris: Ioannes Roigny, 1549),
part 2, fol. 49v: Conscientia bona spiritus sancti est habitaculum, et paradisus terrestris
omnium gratiarum.
29Johannes Trithemius, Sermones, hom. XXV, fol. 50r: Conscientia bona virtutum ager
est fertilis, et odor paradisi dei dulcis atque suavis.
Every man is as Adam, his good conscience is his paradise; the forbidden
fruite is the strong desire of these earthly things; the serpent is the olde
enemy the devil: who if hee may be suffered to intangle us with the love of
the world, will straight way put us out of our paradise, and barre us from all
good conscience.30
In accord with the tropological paradise that has nothing to do with physi
cal location, Perkins then described how the apostle Paul could be con
tent even in prison. Perkins extensive reflections on the conscience
inspired later generations of Puritan moral casuistry.31 But, more specifi
cally, some Puritans also took note of Perkins allegory. Richard Sibbes
(15771635), for example, preached a sermon that first appeared in print in
1629, in which he said, By his [Satans] envy and subtlety we were driven
out of paradise at the first, and ever since he envies us the paradise of a
good conscience. He cannot endure that a creature of meaner rank than
himself should enjoy such happiness.32 Later, in 1653, the Puritan Thomas
Watson (ca. 16201686) followed the thought of Perkins when he wrote,
In case of imprisonment, Paul had his prison-songs, and could play the
sweet lessons of contentment, when his feet were in the stocks; one calls
it bonae conscientiae Paradisus, the Paradise of a good conscience; and if it
be so, then in prison we may be in Paradise.33
After surveying the evidence, one can identify a common trajectory of
interpretation. From Augustine through the late medieval era and into the
post-Reformation period, there is a consistent tropological hermeneutic,
often couched in the genre of sermon, which compares life in the unspoiled
paradise of Genesis 2 to a pure conscience, while expulsion from the gar
den is likened to a guilty conscience.34 For his part, Arminius not only
30William Perkins, A Discourse of Conscience (Cambridge: John Legate, 1596), 169.

31For later Puritan examples of cases of conscience, see Richard A. Muller, Covenant
and Conscience in English Reformed Theology: Three Variations on a 17th Century Theme,
WTJ 42.2 (1980): 308334.
32Richard Sibbes, The Danger of Backsliding, in The Complete Works, vol. 7 (Edinburgh:
James Nichol, 1864), 410. Cf. Mark E. Dever, Richard Sibbes: Puritanism and Calvinism in
Late Elizabethan and Early Stuart England (Macon: Mercer University, 2000), 198.
33Thomas Watson, The Art of Divine Contentment (n.p.: Seeley, 1829), 204.
34Cf. this consistent sentiment with that of the Nadere Reformatie figure, Cornelis
Elleboog (Elleboogius), who, having taken his fixation with all things corporeal to unprec
edented heights, reportedly put his unique twist on the motto in the following way:
Paradijs niet alleen is de goede conscientie, maer besonder is been van mijn benen en
vlees van mijn vlees. This quotation from Gen. 2:23 is no doubt an allusion to Elleboogs
unrequited love for Anna Maria van Schurman and his own regretful acknowledgment
that the nuptial paradise enjoyed by the original couple was beyond his grasp. For the best
recent account of Elleboogs life and thought, see R.A. Mylius, In the Steps of Voetius:
Synchronic Contingency and the Significance of Cornelis Elleboogius Disputationes de
owned the works of Augustine, but he also cited De Genesi ad litteram,

which shows his familiarity with the document and the likelihood that he
was aware of Augustines treatment of paradise.35 In addition to his flu
ency in Augustine, he may have had passing knowledge of the medieval
piety that expanded on this Augustinian trope. Arminius tropological
interpretation of paradise is evident in his brief comment on Luke 23:43:
It is not necessary that Paradise should here be understood as the third
heaven or the eternal residence (sedes) of the blessed; for it denotes gener
ally a place of felicity.36 Thus, even if he did not explicitly advocate the
motto that is now associated with him, if his writings are any indication,
Arminius would have consented with this expression which was so quickly
and fittingly attached to him.
Arminius on Conscience
Along with the tropological interpretation of paradise, Arminius writings

also confirm the more general significance he attached to the right under
standing and use of conscience, even apart from any direct consideration
of the motto. He used the word conscientia (Latin) or conscientie (Dutch)
at least 240 times in his writings. It is impossible both to provide an
exhaustive account of Arminius view of conscience and to compare and
contrast it with his predecessors and contemporaries in the space allot
ted.37 Instead, in conclusion, and with a view toward future research pos
sibilities, I will offer only brief examples of what Arminius meant by
conscience and why maintaining a good conscience was so important.
Arminius wrote no treatise on conscience, neither did he give a formal
Tetragrammato to the Analysis of His Life and Work, in Scholasticism Reformed: Essays in
Honour of Willem J. van Asselt, ed. Wisse et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 92102.
35In addition to other individual works of Augustine, Arminius owned a six-volume
Opera Augustini published in Paris in 1541. See The Auction Catalogue of the Library of J.
Arminius, facsimile ed. with an intro. by Carl Bangs (Utrecht: HES, 1985), 3. For a citation of
De Genesi ad litteram, see Arminius, De vero et genuino sensu cap. VII Epistolae ad Romanos
dissertatio (Opera, 862; Works 2:556).
36Arminius, Apologia D. Iacobi Arminii adversus articulos quosdam [XXXI] theologicos
in vulgus sparsos, art. X (Opera, 150; Works 2:4).
37For introductory comparison, see the informative studies by Michael G. Baylor,
Action and Person: Conscience in Late Scholasticism and the Young Luther (Leiden: Brill,
1977); Bernhard Lohse, Conscience and Authority in Luther, in Luther and the Dawn of the
Modern Era, ed. Oberman (Leiden: Brill, 1974), 158183; Jos E. Vercruysse, Conscience and
Authority in Luthers Explanation of the Fourth Commandment, in Luther and the Dawn
of the Modern Era, 184194; David Bosco, Conscience as Court and Worm: Calvin and the
Three Elements of Conscience, JRE 14.2 (1986): 333355.
definition of it. But he did reveal in his various writings what he felt to be
the valuable functions of conscience.
One use of conscience comes in the context of a witness or testimony.
In this respect, Arminius followed the language of Paul, who appealed to
the conscience in this very manner (Rom. 2:15; 9:1; 2 Cor. 1:12). The con
science bears witness, in a sense, alongside ones own knowledge. I
know, Arminius wrote in a letter, and I have conscience as a witness (tes-
tem), that I have not said or done anything to give him [his colleague,
Gomarus] a cause of offense.38 Although the appeal to conscience as a
solemn testimony is by no means unique to Arminius, as this example
reflects, it was an important function for someone who was being accused
by vocal colleagues and churchmen of operating with ulterior motives and
clandestine heterodoxy. In other words, in a volatile political and ecclesi
astical context in which his integrity was sometimes on trial, the appeal to
the witness of conscience was no meaningless oath, but instead was a
necessary bulwark that affirmed his vocation and honor.
Arminius occasionally used conscience also in the context of freedom
and binding or obligation. Typically the question is one of freedom with
regard to religious belief or practices, again, as it is used by Paul (1 Cor.
8:712; 10:2529). In this sense, the function of the conscience is truth-
seeking, and often concerns the freedom or restriction of religion by
earthly authorities. For example, Arminius spoke disparagingly of those
churches that change their laws of religion and seek to bring into subjec
tion and compel the consciences of believers.39 It is also in this sense that
the later Remonstrants stressed so much the value of freedom of con
science, a theme anticipated by Arminius, but exalted to new heights by
his successors.40
Finally, and most importantly, for Arminius, good conscience had to do
with good works and the life of sanctification. Conscience functioned as a
38Arminius, Praestantium ac eruditorum virorum epistolae ecclesiasticae et theologicae,

2nd ed., preface by Philip van Limborch (Amsterdam: Wetstenium, 1684), epistola 74, p. 141
(Works 1:261). Cf. Ep. ecc. 101, p. 185 (Works 1:295); Arminius, Disputatio privata LIX.14
(Works 2:434).
39Arminius, Oratio de componendo dissidio religionis inter Christianos, habita ab auc-
tore VIII. Feb. 1605 [sic] cum rectoratum deponeret (Opera, 80; Works 1:456).
40See Carl Bangs, Recent Studies in Arminianism, Religion in Life 32.3 (1963): 424425;
G.J. Sirks, Arminius pleidooi voor de vrede der kerk (Lochem: Uitgave de Tijdstroom, 1960),
59. G.J. Heering speaks of the Remonstrant concept of the godsdienstig-zedelijk autono
mie der persoonlijke conscientie in Gerrit Jan Heering and G.J. Sirks, Het seminarium der
Remonstranten driehonderd jaar, 16341934 (Amsterdam: Lankamp & Brinkman, 1934),
2126. Cf. James Calvin Davis, William Ames Calvinist Ambiguity over Freedom of
Conscience, JRE 33.2 (2005): 335355.
moral compass that provided positive guidance to believers. A good con

science means living in a holy and modest manner.41 In the context of a
judicious synod that Arminius anticipated, he described the participants
good conscience as consisting in not asserting what they consider to be
false, nor in concealing what is true (although it may be against them and
their party), nor in pressing for certainties things doubtful even to them
selves.42 Of more concern than the positive guidance, though, were
believers who sinned against conscience.43 Repeatedly sinning against
conscience lays waste (vastare) the conscience, grieves the Holy Spirit,
and brings eternal condemnation.44
Unlike his Puritan contemporaries, Arminius offered no elaborate
casuistry, but his concerns for conscience functioning as a guide in the life
of sanctification mirror those of many of his Reformed contemporaries,
concerns that would remain prominent in seventeenth-century English
Puritanism and the Dutch Nadere Reformatie. If one purpose of the Puritan
cases of conscience was to steer between antinomianism and nomism, as
Muller has suggested,45 Arminius also finds a place within this tradition,
pushing the boundaries of Reformed soteriology with his nomistic empha
sis on a common theme: the joy, or paradise, gained by bona conscientia.
41Arminius, Orationes tres de theologia, quas ordine habuit auctor cum lectiones suas
auspicaretur, Oratio prima (Opera, 27; Works 1:323).
42Arminius, Oratio de dissidio (Opera, 89; Works 1:520521).
43Arminius, Disputatio publica VIII.6 (Works 2:159).
44Arminius, Articuli nonnulli XX.58 (Opera, 961; Works 2:725).
45Muller, Covenant and Conscience, 308334.
A PROMISE FOR PARENTS: DORDTS PERSPECTIVE ON
COVENANT AND ELECTION
W. Robert Godfrey
The Synod of Dordt (16181619) was a national synod of the Dutch

Reformed Church as well as an assembly of Reformed theologians from all
over Europe who gathered in the Netherlands to defend the historic
Calvinistic doctrine of predestination and related doctrinal matters. The
response of the synod to the Arminian challenge on predestination is con-
tained in the First Head of Doctrine of the Canons of Dordt. Articles 116
and 18 of that First Head developed the doctrine of election in a system-
atic, biblical, and pastoral manner. But Article 17 seems out of place in the
development of the doctrine:
Since we are to judge of the will of God from His Word, which testifies that
the children of believers are holy, not by nature, but in virtue of the covenant
of grace, in which they together with the parents are comprehended, godly
parents ought not to doubt the election and salvation of their children
whom it pleases God to call out of this life in their infancy (Gen. 17:7; Acts
2:39; 1 Cor. 7:14).1
While this article may initially seem surprising, this study will show that it
answered a potentially damaging charge about predestination that had
been made against Reformed theology in the Netherlands and spoke to a
significant pastoral problem in the churches. Even more, Article 17 is a
window through which we can see how the fathers at Dordt understood
the relationship between covenant and election, through the specific
question of the salvation of covenant children. In this article, the Synod
asserted its confidence that election could be known through the cove-
nant and that the covenant was grounded in election. The Synods confi-
dence reflected its understanding of the relation between time and
eternity, between human history and divine decrees, between the visible
1The text of the Canons of Dordt can be found in CC 3:550597; P.Y. DeJong, ed., Crisis
in the Reformed Churches (Grand Rapids: Reformed Fellowship, 1968), 230262; and Psalter
Hymnal (Grand Rapids: CRC, 1959), 4466. The Scripture references, which are not cited by
Schaff, do not appear in the official Latin text of the Canons, but are printed in the margin
of the original Dutch text.
374 w. robert godfrey
and the invisible church, between the promise offered to faith and salva-
tion applied to the elect. A careful look at Article 17 gives us an opportu-
nity to see more clearly their thinking on these great themes and is a
mostappropriate topic with which to honor Dr. Richard A. Muller for his
many extraordinary contributions to understanding seventeenth-century
theology.
Several questions face us in this study. First, what historical circum-
stances led the Synod of Dordt to make this theological affirmation about
covenant children in the first place? Second, what insight does this article
give us into Dordts theology on the relation between covenant and elec-
tion? And finally, how did Dordt use biblical evidence to support its con-
clusions? Our task then is to trace the historical career of Article 17 and
then briefly to examine its theological core and its biblical character.
Historical Career
What, then, was the historical background to Article 17? The discussion of
the salvation of infants became serious in the Netherlands ten years before
the Synod of Dordt.2 It arose as part of the growing criticism directed
against the Dutch theologian and Leiden professor, Jacobus Arminius. In
1608 an anonymous document was circulated in the Netherlands attribut-
ing in 31 articles various errors to Arminius and his colleague Adrian
Borrius (15651630). Articles 13 and 14 maintained that Borrius had taught
that Original Sin will condemn no man. In every nation, all infants who
die without actual sins, are saved.3 Arminius responded to these 31 arti-
cles in his The Apology or Defense. This response possibly was circulated
in manuscript form in 1609.4
In his Apology Arminius began his discussion of articles 13 and 14 by
defending Borrius saying he had never publicly taught what the articles
attributed to him, but had discussed such questions privately. Arminius
maintained that there were theological arguments which seemed to
2For information on some earlier discussion of this issue in the Netherlands, see Erik
A. de Boer, O, ye Women, Think of Thy Innocent Children, When They Die Young! The
Canons of Dordt (First Head, Article Seventeen) between Polemic and Pastoral Theology,
in Revisiting the Synod of Dordt (16181619), ed. Goudriaan and van Leiburg (Leiden: Brill,
2011), 261290.
3Cited by Jacobus Arminius, The Apology or Defense, in The Writings of James
Arminius, trans. James Nichols, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1977), 1:317.
4Carl Bangs, Arminius (Nashville: Abingdon, 1971), 300.
dordts perspective on covenant and election 375
substantiate the position attributed to Borrius and that the arguments

must be answered before charges of heresy could be madea defensive
strategy used by Arminius. He acknowledged that ancient theology was
against Borrius, but noted that it was also against his orthodox Reformed
critics since ancient theology taught only baptized infants would be saved.
He cited Franciscus Junius, one of his professorial predecessors at Leiden,
as an orthodox theologian who agreed with Borrius and then concluded
his discussion with this observation:
behold the kind of dogma which is believed by them [his critics]. All the
infants of those who are strangers from the covenant are damned and of the
offspring of those parents who are in the covenant, some infants that die are
damned, while others are saved. I leave it to those who are deeply versed in
these matters, to decide, whether such a dogma as this ever obtained in any
church of Christ.5
Arminius cleverly attempted to turn the tables on his Reformed oppo-
nents. They had raised against him his weak stand on original sin, opening
him to the charge of Pelagianism. He responded by focusing attention
away from himself and onto the Reformed view of children. Arminius
implied that his Reformed opponents held a callous doctrine unknown in
the church: that some covenant children dying in infancy are damned.6
This controversy, like many of those in Arminius life, continued after
his death late in 1609. Indeed, the issue of children dying in infancy sur-
faced very soon in the famous petition for toleration and protection that
more than forty followers of Arminius signed in 1610, known to history as
the Remonstrance. The most famous part of this Remonstrance was its
five-point positive summary of Arminian or Remonstrant theology.7 But
the Remonstrance is a longer document also containing a five-point rejec-
tion of those teachings among the Reformed to which the Arminians par-
ticularly objected.8 The Arminians summarized the second point of the
teachings they rejected:
5Arminius, Apology, 321.

6There are a number of studies on the history of the doctrine of infant salvation. The
most useful for this study was B.B. Warfield, The Development of the Doctrine of Infant
Salvation, in his Studies in Theology (New York: OUP, 1932), 411444. See also R.A. Webb,
The Theology of Infant Salvation (Harrisburg: Sprinkle, 1981) and Lewis Bevens Schenck,
The Presbyterian Doctrine of Children in the Covenant (New Haven: YUP, 1940). For a Roman
Catholic discussion see, Peter Gumpel, S.J., Unbaptized Infants: May They Be Saved? The
Downside Review 72.230 (1954): 342458.
7See CC 1:545549 and DeJong, Crisis, 207209.
8For a brief summary of this five-point rejection, see CC 1:516517.
That God (so others teach) who willed from eternity in himself to make a
decree to choose some men and to reprobate others, has considered the
whole human race, not only as created, but also as fallen and depraved in
Adam and Eve our first ancestors, and again cursed. Out of this fall and
destruction he has determined to save some and to make them holy through
his grace and to prove his mercy. And he determined to let others, the young
as well as the old, indeed even some children of covenant members, and
those baptized in the name of Christ, dying in childhood, remain in the
curse through his righteous judgment, to the declaration of his righteous-
ness. He determined both without regard for repentance and faith in the one
or impenitence and unbelief in the others. For the accomplishment of these
decrees God also uses such means through which the elect necessarily and
unavoidably become holy and the reprobate necessarily and unavoidably
must be lost.9
Here the Arminians reiterated the charge first leveled by Arminius that the
Reformed theology taught damnation for some covenant infants dying in
infancy.
In 1611 the States of Holland arranged a conference at The Hague (the
Collatio Hagiensis) between the Reformed and the Arminians to discuss
the issues dividing them as summarized in the Remonstrance. The confer-
ence began with the Arminians reiterating their own position and their
critique of certain Reformed teachingsincluding their allegations about
Reformed teaching on covenant infants.
The Reformed responded to the Arminians with a statement and
defense of their own position which came to be known as the Counter
Remonstrance.10 They summarized their own theological position in
seven points. Six of the points were basically directed to stating the
Reformed alternative to the five positive points of the Arminians. The sec-
ond point, however, responded to the second criticism of the Reformed in
the Remonstrance. Clearly the Reformed were very sensitive on this mat-
ter of children and so in their brief statement declared:
that not only adults who believe in Christ and accordingly walk worthy of
the gospel are to be reckoned as Gods elect children, but also the children of
the covenant so long as they do not in their conduct manifest the contrary;
and that therefore believing parents, when their children die in infancy, have
no reason to doubt the salvation of these their children.11
9Translated from the text given in Jacobus Trigland, Kerklijcke Geschiedenissen begri-
jpende de geschillen in de Vereenichde Nederlanden voorgefallen (Leiden, 1650), 525.
10Printed in DeJong, Crisis, 211213.
11DeJong, Crisis, 211.
The centrality given this assertion shows that the Reformed were aware of
the theological and especially pastoral importance of the question about
covenant children. In an era of high infant mortality the Reformed may
have feared that the popularity of their cause would be damaged if the
Arminian polemics went unchallenged.
The Arminians, in their reply to the Counter Remonstrants, gave thanks
to God that the Reformed were not teaching the eternal loss of such cov-
enant children. Yet the issue surfaced one more time at the Hague confer-
ence. The Counter Remonstrants stated sharply that it is entirely untrue
that it was taught by common preachers that some small children of cov-
enant members, dying in infancy, would be left in the curse.12 This decla-
ration is further evidence of Reformed concern about the polemical
damage that could be done to their cause by this issue.
At the Synod of Dordt (16181619) the Arminians again raised the issue.
Certain Arminians, summoned to judgment, were asked by the Synod to
give their views of the theology of the Remonstrance. On the first article,
dealing with predestination, the Arminians presented their opinions in
ten points, the final two of which spoke of children. The Arminians
affirmed in thesis nine:
All the children of believers are sanctified in Christ, so that no one of them
who leaves this life before the use of reason will perish. By no means, how-
ever, are to be considered among the number of the reprobate certain chil-
dren of believers who leave this life in infancy before they have committed
any actual sin in their own persons, so that neither the holy bath of baptism
nor the prayers of the church for them can in any way be profitable for their
salvation.
Thesis ten stated:
No children of believers who have been baptized in the name of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit, living in the state of infancy, are reckoned
among the reprobate by an absolute decree.13
The theology of thesis nine is very similar to the Reformed statement on
children in the Counter Remonstrance. The thesis is also similar to the
language of the final form of the Canons of Dordt I.17 and the conclusion
of the Canons. Thesis ten declared that no children of believers were rep-
robate. Such a statement may have been designed, like many actions of
12Schriftelicke Conferentie, gehouden in sGravenhaghe inden Iare 1611 (The Hague, 1612),
38. This conference is better known in the literature as the Collatio Hagiensis.
13DeJong, Crisis, 224.
the Arminians at Dordt, to try to cause division among the delegates to the
Synod. The Arminians knew that the issue of reprobation was a difficult
one and by linking it in their thesis to the sensitive matter of covenant
children they may have hoped to set the orthodox debating with one
another. Their thesis cleverly sought to undermine the Calvinist doctrine
of reprobation because according to it Esau as a covenant child would not
have been reprobate by an absolute decree. Whatever the precise motiva-
tion of the Arminians, their theses clearly put the issue of covenant chil-
dren before the Synod for its consideration. They forced the foreign
delegates from Great Britain, Germany, and Switzerland, who may have
been unfamiliar with the issue as it had been debated in the Netherlands,
to face the question.
The records of the Synod of Dordt (printed in the Acta Synodi) enable
us not only to read the final determination of the Synod as we find it in
Canons of Dordt I.17, but also to see various preliminary expressions of
opinions among the delegates. The working procedure of the Synod had
each delegation draft its own response to the Arminians. These opinions
(or Judicia) were used as a basis for the final Canons. Since the various
responses were printed in the Acta, they show how each of the delegations
addressed the issue of covenant children.
The delegations actually produced twenty-one sets of opinions on the
question of election as raised in the first article of the Remonstrance.14
Ten of these Judicia did not deal with election in relation to children at
all.15 The foreign delegations which were silent may not have been fully
informed about the history of the discussion in the Netherlands.16 The
silence of some Dutch delegations, however, is harder to understand.
Perhaps some of the Dutch delegates were unwilling to allow the Arminians
to set the agenda for all the topics discussed. They may also have thought
that the topic did not deserve so much prominence.
Eleven Judicia (four foreign and seven Dutch) did speak to the issue of
election and children. The British delegation rejected any notion
that there is no election of children dying before they have the use of
14The Synod also received two letters from Reformed theologians that evaluated the
Arminian theology. One was from Pierre Du Moulin, see Acta Synodi NationalisDordrechti
habitae Anno MDCXVIII et MDCXIX (Dordrecht, 1620), 1:289300, and the other was from
David Pareus, see Acta, 1:207239.
15The Palatinate, Hesse, Geneva, Emden, Gelderland, North Holland, Zeeland,
Friesland, Groningen, and the Walloon churches. The letter of David Pareus is also silent.
16Yet some, David Pareus for example, were familiar with the printed material coming
from the Collatio Hagiensis.
reason.17 They argued that if the Arminians defined election in terms of

foreseen faith, then infants could not be saved. But the British affirmed
that the Scripture showed that some infants were saved and elect.
Arminian theology, they concluded, showed how one error led to another.
The British did not go on to express themselves on the matter of the chil-
dren of believers dying in infancy, which is somewhat surprising. The
British were usually quite sensitive to the pastoral implications of theol-
ogy. They clearly saw the absurdity of the Remonstrant position, but if it
was thrown in as an apple of discord, the British did not bite. (The colleges
of Utrecht and Overijssel took essentially the same position as the British.
The same is also true of the letter to the Synod from the great French theo-
logian, Pierre du Moulin.)
The Helvetian delegation (from German-speaking Swiss cities) also
answered the Remonstrants saying that infants as well as adults were sub-
ject to election and reprobation. They expressed their views on covenant
children in this way:
In respect to the infants of the faithful, since God by virtue of the covenant
of grace is their God, and since Paul calls holy those children of at least one
faithful parent, and since the Lord of heaven proclaims that such children
are the heirs of the heavenly kingdom, if they should die in infancy before
the years of discretion, we hope the best for them: We do not doubt that the
angels, those ministers and most beloved spirits of that tender age, to whom
God always exhibits his face, were especially sent forth for them and most
promptly perform in their service.18
This language of the Helvetians was the most restrained of any of the del-
egations that spoke to this issue. In their own Judicium they did not speak
as confidently as either the Arminians or the final form of the Canons.
They did later, however, join with all other members of the synod in
endorsing the Canons of Dordt.
The Nassau delegation expressed itself in language similar to that of the
Canons: Although God could damn infants on account of original sin,
Christian parents ought by no means to doubt the salvation of their
infants: because the promise was made to them and their children.19
The Bremen delegation also stated its confidence strongly:
We determine about the children of believers only that those who die before
the age of doctrinal understanding are loved by God and are saved by the
17Acta, 2:10.
18Acta, 2:40.
19Acta, 2:44.
same good pleasure of God on account of Christ, through Christ, and in

Christ as the adult: therefore they are holy from the relation of the covenant,
the reality of which is confirmed by grace when they are initiated by sacred
baptism and put on Christ.20
The delegation of Dutch professors wrote:

There is a great difference between those infants born to parents in the cov-
enant and those not born in the covenant we conclude that the children
of believers dying in infancy ought to be reckoned elect since they are gra-
ciously taken away by God from this life before they have violated the condi-
tions of the covenant. We are of the opinion that the children of unbelievers
born outside the church of God, ought to be left to the judgment of God.
For those who are outside, God will judge, 1 Corinthians 5:13.21
This judgment was written by Johannes Polyander, Antonius Thysius, and

Antonius Walaeus. Their colleague, Sibrandus Lubbertus, expressed his
agreement with their statement but went on to write his own statement.
He did not go as far as his colleagues, but focused his response more par-
ticularly on answering the Arminians. He expressed himself in two theses:
first, some who are polluted only by original sin are passed over by God in
eternal election,22 and second, there is election of some infants and rep-
robation of others. He supported this second thesis by saying of Acts 2:39,
the promise pertains to infants of the Church.23
Professor Franciscus Gomarus also wrote his own theses on the first
article. He was motivated to do so primarily by his own supralapsarianism
which differed from the infralapsarianism of his four professorial col-
leagues. On infants he wrote,
We piously believe that the infants of true believers, covenanted to God
through Christ are also elect, if they die before the use of reason, from the
formula of the covenant: I am your God and the God of your seed (Genesis
17 and Acts 2:39). But if they should attain to the use of reason, we recognize
only those to be elect who believe in Christ, indeed according to the Gospel,
only these are saved.24
20Acta, 2:63.
21Acta, 3:1011.
22Acta, 3:20. This thesis may be a link to the origins of the controversy in the Netherlands
if Bangs supposition (Arminius, 300) is correct that Lubbertus was the author of the
Thirty-One Articles against Arminius in 1608.
23Acta, 3:20. Polyander, Thysius, and Walaeus also expressed their agreement with the
statement of Lubbertus.
24Acta, 3:24.
The delegates from South Holland also spoke to this issue. One member of
the delegation was Festus Hommius, the principal author of the Counter
Remonstrance. Their Judicium stated that all children were subject to
damnation for original sin and that the children of believers reaching ado-
lescence sometimes are reprobate. Further, whether reprobation can be
true of the children of believers dying in infancy without actual sins, they
judge that it ought not to be curiously inquired into: but because the testi-
monies of Holy Scripture exist which destroy all occasion for faithful par-
ents to doubt the election and salvation of their infants, they judge that
these promises ought to be accepted: such as those found in Genesis 17:7,
Matthew 19:14, Acts 2:39, 1 Corinthians 7:14, and similar texts.25 While the
first part of their statement might appear to be equivocating, their con-
cern was to avoid vain speculation and to rest their theology solely on bib-
lical evidence. The language was as confident as that of the Canons.
Finally, the delegates from Drenthe judged that believing parents might
have certain hope of the salvation of their children dying in infancy
based on the good affection of God revealed in Scripture.26
The final form of Canons of Dordt I.17 reflected many of the concerns
expressed in the theses of the delegates.27 Article 17 reflected that the lead-
ership of the Synod and the Synod as a whole believed that they needed to
make a pastoral statement on the question of covenant children dying in
infancy and that Reformed theology needed to vindicate itself against the
false charges made by the Arminians. The final form of the article demon-
strated the Synods concern to judge the issue on the basis of Scripture and
its conviction that the Scripture was clear in testifying that the children of
believers were holy on the basis of the covenant of grace. This covenantal
relationship assured Christian parents that their children who died in
infancy were saved and elect.
The conclusion of the Canons returned to this subject. In rejecting cer-
tain doctrines falsely attributed to the Reformed, the conclusion repudi-
ated the teaching that many children of the faithful are torn, guiltless,
from their mothers breasts, and tyrannically plunged into hell: so that nei-
ther baptism nor the prayers of the Church at their baptism can at all
profit them.28 The conclusion at this point, like the Canons throughout,
25Acta, 3:39.
26Acten ofte Handelinghen des Nationalen Synoditot Dordrecht (Leiden, 1621), 3:120.
27For a discussion of the drafting process on Article 17, see de Boer, O, ye Women,
282285.
28CC 3:596.
rejected any notion of divine tyranny or that any were condemned guilt-
less or that the ministry of the church was useless. The language of the
conclusion in part was designed to react to the Arminian ninth thesis on
the first article. In part that language was designed to repudiate Arminian
misuse of some celebrated words of John Calvin.
John Calvins work in general certainly had a great influence on the del-
egates to Dordt. But as they drew up the conclusion one of his sentences
in particular was of concern to them. Calvin in his De occulta dei providen-
tia had written against his critic Sebastian Castellio: Put forth now thy
virulence against God, who hurls innocent babes torn from their mothers
breasts into eternal death.29 In context Calvin is vehemently rejecting
Castellios failure to understand original sin and its consequences as long
accepted in the church. Calvin wrote just before this sentence: You deny
that it is lawful and right in God to condemn any one of mortals, unless it
be on account of sin committed.30 Calvin is upholding the fatal conse-
quences of original sin and Gods justice in condemning on the basis of
original sin alone. It is not surprising that the Arminians abhorred Calvins
statement because many of them agreed with Castellio on original sin.
Indeed, Calvins position on the children of believers dying in infancy in
fact seems very similar to that of the Synod of Dordt. While Calvin did not
use language that was identical to that of Dordt, various statements of his
imply the same teaching. In his theology of baptism which promised a
secure relationship to God for the children of believers he wrote: We on
the contrary argue that since baptism is the pledge and figure of the free
forgiveness of sins and of divine adoption, it should certainly not be
denied to infants, whom God adopts and washes with the blood of His
Son,31 and by baptism they [children] are admitted into Christs flock,
and the symbol of their adoption suffices them until as adults they are
able to bear solid food.32 Even more strongly Calvin declared, Therefore
the grace of the Spirit will always be conjoined to baptism, unless a hin-
drance arise on our part.33
29This is Warfields translation (The Development, 435, n. 78) and is much more accu-
rate than the very loose translation of Henry Cole, Calvins Calvinism (London: Sovereign
Grace Union, 1927), 335 (CO 9:312). For a discussion of the availability of Castellios writings
in the Netherlands, see de Boer, O, ye Women, 275.
30Cole, Calvins Calvinism, 334.
31John Calvin, A Harmony of the Gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1972), 2:252, on Matthew 19:14.
32Calvin, Institutes, IV.xvi.31.
33John Calvin, Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965),
82, on Acts 2:38.
Calvins assurance about the children of believers rested, at a deeper

level, on the covenant which was the foundation of baptism. In support he
cites, as Gomarus and Hommius later would, the covenantal promise of
Genesis 17:
Yet, (you say) there is danger lest he who is ill, if he die without baptism, be
deprived of the grace of regeneration. Not at all. God declares that he adopts
our babies as his own before they are born, when he promises that he will be
our God and the God of our descendants after us (Genesis 17:7). Their salva-
tion is embraced in this word. No one will dare be so insolent toward God as
to deny that his promise of itself suffices for its effect.34
Calvin regarded his theology of children in the covenant as very impor-
tant. In commenting on 1 Corinthians 7:14 he stated,
Therefore this passage is a noteworthy one, and based on the profoundest
theology the fact that the apostle ascribes a special privilege to the chil-
dren of believers here has its source in the blessing of the covenant, by
whose intervention the curse of nature is destroyed, and all those who were
by nature unclean are consecrated to God by His grace.35
Article 17 of the Canons of Dordt is basically a specific application of the
theology of baptism and covenant articulated by Calvin. Both stressed the
special relationship that the children of believers on the basis of the cov-
enant have to God and both supported this covenant with references to
Genesis 17 and 1 Corinthians 7:14. Both taught the salvation of such chil-
dren dying in infancy. Article 17 shared Calvins pastoral and theological
position and spoke it clearly to the particular historical circumstances of
the Netherlands.
Theological Core
We have traced the discussion about covenant children through its histori-
cal development in the Netherlands. We have seen how the Synod of Dordt
34Calvin, Institutes, IV.xv.20.

35John Calvin, Commentary on the First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960), 149 on 1 Corinthians 7:14. See also Calvin, Institutes
IV.xv.22, IV.xvi.9, IV.xvi.15, and Calvins comments on Ezekiel 16:21, Acts 3:25, and Romans
11:22. See also John Calvin, Letters, ed. Jules Bonnet, 4 vols. (New York: Burt Franklin, 1972),
3:73 where Calvin is consoling a Christian man whose child died unbaptized. Note also
Calvin, Sermons on 2 Samuel (Edinburgh: BTT, 1992), 578, sermon on 2 Samuel 12:1314: But
what we have here is a child of wrath, as I have already said. So what is it that saves him?
The pure grace of God. Now it is true that God does, indeed, save the little children of his
people without baptism. But the sign is still to show us and provide proof that little
unanimously presented comfort to Christian parents. Now we want to

look more deeply into Dordts theology and ask how Article 17 was based
on a particular understanding of covenant and election.
As we seek to understand Dordts theology of covenant and election we
must be attentive to two of the vital questions that come to the minds of
believers: first, how are they to be saved? And second, is that salvation
available to them? The Reformed doctrine of election, Dordt insisted,
answered the first: from beginning to end it is the grace of God that saves.36
But then the second question arises: if election is fixed and certain in God,
how can saving grace be truly available. Here, for Dordt, was the place of
the covenant. The covenant was Gods revelation in history of the way of
salvation. Through the Church the promise of saving grace was offered to
faith and there assurance was given that everyone who believed had salva-
tion and was elect. The Canons of Dordt proclaimed clearly the offer of
salvation to all37 and explained the means for planting, nourishing, and
assuring faith.38
Dordts theology then struck a fine balance between election and cove-
nant. The Canons showed that grace was fully available in the covenant to
everyone who believed and they assured everyone who truly believed that
his salvation was sure and secure in God. The Christian could know that
he was saved and that God had done it. All doubts and threatswhether
of human inability or divine exclusionwere removed for the faithful.39
This assured peace was also the possession of all Christian parents who
lost their children in infancy.
Dordts understanding of the relation of covenant and election was nei-
ther original nor exhaustive. Rather in the face of a great crisis it restated
these great doctrines of Reformed Christianity and established for the
Reformed the confessional parameters for further reflection on the great
doctrines of grace.
The Arminian reactions to Dordt, including the subject of covenant
children, were expressed pointedly by Simon Episcopius (15831643).
Episcopius, leader of the Arminians at the Synod of Dordt, wrote an
Antidote to the Synods work and some of his criticism focused on Article
children are cursed by God, until he has received them in mercy, and according to his
promise, which says: I will be your childrens God (Gen. 17:7).
36CoD, I.611; III-IV.1014.
37CoD, I.3; II.5, III-IV.8.
38CoD, I.12, 16; III-IV.17; V.10, 14.
39CoD, I.12; V.10; III-IV.15.
17. His criticisms of Article 17 were basically two:40 first, that the Synod
equivocated, and second, that its theology was inconsistent with itself. On
the first point, Episcopius asked why the Synod did not say simply that
infants were saved. Why write that believing parents ought not to doubt?
Episcopius saw the formulation as deliberately ambiguous. This criticism
was unjust. The Synod was not hedging; it was not suggesting that parents
should believe something doubtful. Indeed the Synod used language
almost identical to that of the Counter Remonstrants at the conference at
The Haguelanguage that the Arminians had then accepted as saying
clearly that all covenant infants dying in infancy were saved.
Episcopius second criticism was more interesting and illuminating. He
attacked the consistency of Reformed theology. He noted that the Synod
declared that Gods will must be judged from Scripture. But, he argued,
election was not a matter of revelation but of Gods secret will. Therefore
a person might believe in the election and salvation of someone, accord-
ing to the standards of Gods Word, who was in fact reprobate. For
Episcopius the Reformed doctrine of election and reprobation had
become a threat to salvation and assurance. Episcopius saw no way to
bridge the gap between Gods perceptive and decretive wills. He had
missed the genius of Reformed theology which found in Gods Word
assured criteria for knowing ones own electionand the election of the
children of believers dying in infancy.
Biblical Character
We have traced the historical circumstances that led to the Synod of Dordt
adopting Article 17. We have looked at the theology inherent in an affirma-
tion like Article 17. The Synod of Dordt believed that its theological canons
rested on biblical teaching. In conformity with all Reformed theology, it
declared we are to judge the will of God from His word. What biblical
evidence did the Synod provide for Article 17?
The most frequently quoted texts at the Synod were those cited in the
margin of the Dutch edition of the Acta. The first was Gods promise to
Abraham, Genesis 17:7, I will establish my covenant as an everlasting
covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the
40Simon Episcopius, Antidotum, Opera Theologica (Amsterdam, 1665), 2:29.

Episcopius claimed that the Synod offered hope to parents as a judgment of charity, but
not as a judgment of certainty. For discussion of this distinction at the Synod, see de Boer,
O, ye Women, 278.
generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants

after you. The second was Peters words, Acts 2:39, The promise is for you
and your children and for all who are far offfor all whom the Lord our
God will call. The third was Pauls statement, 1 Corinthians 7:14, Otherwise
your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. For the Synod
the relation between covenant and election was not problematic. Their
reasoning was that those incorporated as infants into the covenant of
grace sustained a saving relationship to God unless they later in life
rejected that covenant. Since those dying in infancy could not reject the
covenant, they must be elect and saved. Here is a simple, yet profound
appreciation of the interrelationship of election and covenant. Election
was not a matter of speculation or an unknowable threat. Election was
always the certain foundation of salvation for Gods peoplesalvation
clearly revealed in the provisions of Gods covenant.
Dordts correlation of election and covenant in these biblical texts
seems to follow the interpretation of Calvin. We see this most clearly in
Calvins comment on 1 Corinthians 7:14 cited above. He wrote similarly on
Acts 2:39, The addition of their children derives from the word of the
promise: I will be thy God, and the God of thy seed after thee (Gen. 17:7)
where God reckons the children with the fathers in the grace of adoption.
This passage therefore sufficiently refutes the Anabaptists who deny bap-
tism to the children of the faithful while they are still infants as though
they were not members of the church.41
Conclusion
We have seen the historical, theological, and biblical foundations to Article

17, an article which expressed Dordts deep concern for the salvation of the
faithful and the glory of God. The article rejected the Arminian claim that
the Reformed taught the damnation of dying infants of Christians, answer-
ing a very serious pastoral and theological challenge. It offered a clear
example that the Reformed doctrine of election did not undermine the
promises of Gods covenant, but rather confirmed Christian joy, assurance,
and gratitude. It grounded its teaching precisely in biblical passages
expressing the covenant of grace for Gods people. Article 17 was indeed
a doctrine, in the words of the Canons conclusion, directed to the glory
of the Divine name, to the holiness of life, and to the consolation of
afflicted souls.
41John Calvin, Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1965), 1:82.
TYPE, ANTI-TYPE, AND THE SENSUS LITERALIS: PROTESTANT
REFORMED ORTHODOX APPROACHES TO PSALM 2
Todd Rester
There is an interesting question raised by much modern discussion of the

literal sense of Scripture among the Protestant orthodox, and it mostly
relates to the question of hermeneutics and typology.1 Brevard Childs has
identified a process of petrification in Augustines sense of the literal sense
as it has been utilized from Augustine, Cassiodorus, Thomas Aquinas, and
others through the ages.2 Childs rightly notes the impact that Origen and
Augustine had on the Latin Wests understanding and method of biblical
exegesis. The intention of this essay is to explore not so much the patristic
and medieval periods for their own sake, but given these variant strands of
exegetical methods, to consider how these impacted Reformed Protestant
understandings of typology in the late sixteenth century and early seven-
teenth century, during the period of confessionalization. How did these
early modern exegetes appropriate developments in the understandings
of the literal sense that were passed on to them? How did they anchor
their typology to avoid the charge of being crassly literal and earthly or
Judaizing, or, so christological that they overlooked the historical
context?3 In seeking to answer this question, this brief essay will
demonstrate that two Reformed Protestant exegetes, Franciscus Junius
(15451602) and William Ames (15761633), maintained basic continuity
with the Thomistic exegetical tradition on the nature of the literal sense of
Scripture, but in carrying Thomas premises forward, they represent a tra-
jectory of discontinuity and development. Junius and Ames rejected the
threefold spiritual senses as separate senses of Scripture in favor of a uni-
fied composite sense historically grounded in the type and anti-type,
thereby integrating a materially similar hermeneutics as the medieval
1D.R. Dickson The Complexities of Biblical Typology in the Seventeenth Century,

Renaissance and Reformation 23.3 (1987): 253272. K.E. Greene-McCreight examines spiri-
tual interpretation in Ad Litteram: How Augustine, Calvin, and Barth Read the Plain Sense of
Genesis 13 (New York: Peter Lang, 1999), 123149.
2Brevard Childs, The Sensus Literalis of Scripture: An Ancient and Modern Problem,
in Beitrge zur alttestamentlichen Theologie, ed. Donner (Gttingen: V&R, 1977), 8093.
3For a brief overview of the young Luthers hermeneutic, see J.S. Preus, Old Testament
Promissio and Luthers Hermeneutic, HThR 60.2 (1967): 145161.
388 todd rester
tradition, while formally enfolding what was known as the spiritual sense
into a single composite sense.
Junius and Ames are extremely helpful for unpacking what the
Reformed Protestants commonly held in this period. Both Junius and
Ames are significant figures for this exercise, not simply because both
published psalms commentaries and were significant Hebraists in the
period of rising Reformed orthodoxy and confessionalization, but because
there are delightful contrasts: Ames was an English Puritan trained at
Cambridge under the Ramist William Perkins and was frequently
described as a puritanus rigidissimus. Junius was a French Reformed exe-
gete and theologian trained in Aristotelian logic and methodology, and a
gifted linguist who received further training under Calvin and Beza at
Geneva. In that description there is a wonderful juxtaposition of assump-
tions all too common among many modern scholars about Aristotelian
and Ramistic exegesis, as well as about the contrasts between English
Puritanism and continental piety. One must not flatten the distinctions
between them, yet despite the differences of their methods, the common
emphases demonstrate a broad continuity of commitment to Reformed
exegetical principles.
For example, in their exposition of Psalm 2, both utilize the same three-
fold schema to explain the general approaches to Psalm 2 in the history of
exegesis. Ames, throughout his prolegomenon on the second psalm, and
Junius, in the 91st sacred parallel of Psalm 2:12 and Acts 4:2526, both
refer to the same three broad exegetical traditions that span back through
the medieval to the patristic period.4 For example, Junius comments upon
three basic interpretive approaches to Psalm 2, and thus to typology,
stating,
Indeed [concerning] this passage of Davids, some simply declare that it
must be received as concerning David; others, as concerning Christ sim-
ply; or others finally concerning David and Christ: of which the former was
the type and the latter was the truth of the type. The first opinion, which
belongs to the Jews, is that the teaching concerning Christ can therefore
be subverted in this way: the second opinion is especially that of the
Orthodox Fathers: and the third opinion has been received among our
theologians.5
4Francicsus Junius, Sacrorum Parallelorum, 3rd ed. (London: Bishop, [1591?]), 1:111;
William Ames, Lectiones in Psalmos, in Operum Guilielmi Amesii [= OGA], vol. 1
(Amsterdam: Janssonius, 1638); Ames, Medulla S.S. Theologi, 4th ed. (London: Allott,
1630).
5Junius, Sacrorum Parallelorum, 1:113.
type, anti-type, and the sensus literalis 389
Ames also identifies the same three approaches to this particular psalm,
stating:
There seem to be among authors a triple interpretation of this second
[psalm]: (1) of the Jews, who understand this whole Psalm simply as about
David, (2) of all the Fathers generally, who simply explain [it as] about
Christ, and (3) of our most learned Theologians, who by a certain compound
rationale, interpret it as partly about David, but most properly and chiefly
about Christ.6
In the first two opinions, Junius and Ames encapsulate an age old polemic
among Jewish and Christian exegetes. This persistent and oft-repeated
polemic in the Christian tradition against Jewish interpretation claims
that the Jewish interpretation is only, or exclusively, literal or earthly. For
example, in the patristic period, in Origens De Principiis, the Greek text
refers to the circumcised who do not believe in our Savior (the Jews in his
day) thinking they are following the language palpable to their senses
whereas the Latin text renders the same phrase as judging that those
statements ought to be understood literally.7 In the medieval period
this charge surfaces in dialogue between Andrew of St. Victor and his rab-
binic tutors, notably Rashi, Rashbam (Samuel ben Meier), and Joseph
Bekhor Shor.8 The Christian expositors frequently claim that they are spir-
itual and therefore transcend higher in their exegesis. In a manuscript
translated by Beryl Smalley, Bartholomew the Bishop of Exeter (d. 1184) in
Dialogue with the Jews, states,
This chief cause of disagreement between ourselves and the Jews seems to
me to be this: they take all the OT literally, wherever they can find a literal
sense, unless it gives manifest witness to Christ. Then they repudiate it, say-
ing that it is not in the Hebrew truth that is in their books, or they refer it to
some fable, as that they are still awaiting its fulfillment, or they escape by
some other serpentine wile, when they feel themselves hard pressed. They
will never accept allegory, except when they have no other way out. We
interpret not only the words of Scripture, but the things done, and the deeds
themselves, in a mystical sense, yet in such a way that the freedom of alle-
gory may in no wise nullify, either history in the events, or proper under-
standing of the words, of Scripture.9
6Ames, Lectiones in Psalmos, in OGA 1:1626.

7Origen, De Principiis, IV.i.8 (ANF 4:356).
8Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Blackwell, 1952), 364:
Their [the Rabbis] influence on Andrew is imponderable; his whole attitude to his studies
may have been affected by his contacts with contemporary rabbis.
9Translated by Smalley, The Study of the Bible, 170; from MS Bodl. 482 o. Id.
390 todd rester
As Mayer Gruber points out, there were at least three main Jewish
approaches to the biblical text: the halachic or moral approach to the text
that outlines duties and vices, the aggadic or allegorical approach, and
then with Rabbi Solomon Itzhakor Rashiin the eleventh century a
synthetic approach that developed along rationalistic and naturalistic
lines.10 Among Rashis students, there were attempts and tendencies to
explain away miracles in terms of strictly natural phenomenon and con-
temporary cultural practices.
Now Ames and Junius do not tell us which rabbis, Orthodox Fathers,
and Reformed Protestants, they had in mind. But given the three major
strands of Jewish exegetical approaches and the typical charge levied by
Christian exegetes, it is more than likely that Rashi and his exegetical school
are squarely in view. Consider Rashis comments on Psalm 2:1 that illustrate
the synthesis of aggadic and halakhic exegesis for a polemical end:
WHY DO NATIONS ASSEMBLE? Our rabbis interpreted the subject of the
chapter as a reference to the King Messiah. However, according to its basic
meaning and for a refutation of the Christians it is correct to interpret it as a
reference to David himself in consonance with what is stated in the Bible.11
Among others, two of Rashis students continue this line, Rashbam
(Samuel ben Meier) and Joseph Bekhor Shor. One of the more significant
points that the Rabbis argue against the patristic and medieval Christian
exegetes is that they bypass David in order to make their christological
point, losing the immediate historical context of the psalm, namely the
life of David in 1 Samuel 28:4 and 2 Samuel 5:17.
With respect to the Orthodox Fathers, Origen plainly asserts, For,
with respect to Holy Scripture, our opinion is that the whole of it has a
spiritual meaning but the whole does not have a bodily one, because the
bodily meaning is in many places proved to be impossible.12 After begin-
ning with the basic distinction between signs and things and proceeding
to the regula fidei13 and analogia fidei,14 in a hermeneutical move similar
10See Mayer I. Gruber, Rashis Commentary on Psalms 189 (Book III) with English
Translation, Introduction and Notes (Atlanta: Scholars, 1998), 118.
11Gruber, Rashis Commentary, 52.I.
12De Principiis IV.i.20 (ANF 4:369). On the corporeal sense versus the spiritual sense cf.
Origen, De Principiis, IV.i.12 (ANF 4:360) and IV.i.13 (ANF 4:361362).
13De Doctrina Christiana, III.ii.2 (NPNF1 2:556557). Cf. Wieslaw Dawidowski, Regula
Fidei in Augustine: Its Use and Function, Augustinian Studies 35.2 (2004): 253299; and
Prosper S. Grech, The Regula Fidei as a Hermeneutical Principle in Patristic Exegesis, in
Interpretation of the Bible (Sheffield: SAP, 1998), 589601.
14De Doctrina Christiana, III.xxvi-xxviii (NPNF1 2:556557).
to Origen, Augustine instructs his reader in De Doctrina Christiana that 2

Corinthians 3:6the letter kills but the spirit gives lifeis an hermeneu-
tical injunction to lift the mind above corporeal and created matters to
drink in eternal light.15 Immediately thereafter this brief exposition in III.
vi.10 Augustine launches into a polemic against Jewish interpretation that
fixates on the sign instead of the reality of the thing signified. Additionally,
even though Augustine warns the reader that it is just as much a faulty
interpretation to fail to lift the mind beyond corporeal matters, it is also a
faulty interpretation that forces the literal into a spiritual application
(III.x.14). That caveat aside, it is extremely significant for the trajectory of
biblical exegesis in the Latin Christian West that in Augustines exposition
of Psalm 2, the word David never appears. The entirety of the psalm is
exposited as typical of Christ and as a means of understanding the catho-
lic faith, utterly detaching the text from its historical setting.
Augustines importance at this point is exemplified and amplified in
the work of Isidore of Seville (560636), who composed several works
that would also inform the medieval outlook on the interpretation of
Scripture on several fronts.16 Isidores more important works include: a
gloss of the Vulgate entitled Etymologiarum,17 which was specifically
designed to trace out all types of usages of biblical words and their vari-
ous meanings; Differentiarum sive proprietate sermonum,18 dedicated spe-
cifically to the differences between words and things, (a rather Augustinian
question raised throughout De Doctrina Christiana); Allegoriae Quaedam
Sacrae Scripturae,19 an analysis of the major biblical figures and their
importance for the Christian faith; Liber Numerorum Qui in Sanctis
Scripturis Occurrunt, a treatise on biblical numerology;20 an exposition
of the mystical nature of the sacraments in the Old Testament derived
primarily from the early church fathers, Mysticorum Expositiones
Sacramentorum seu Quaestiones in Vetus Testamentum;21 and Senten
tiarum,22 a relatively brief theological system in skeleton form. In the
Sententiarum question nineteen, Isidore mentions the same seven rules
15De Doctrina Christiana, III.v.9 (NPNF1 2:559).

16For a good overview of the Quadriga and Isidore of Seville, see Henri de Lubac,
Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses of Scripture, trans. Macierowski, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1998), 4282.
17PL 82:73728.
18PL 83:986.
19PL 83:97130. cf. De Veteri et Novo Testamento Quaestiones (PL 83:201208).
20PL 83:179200.
21PL 83:207423.
22PL 83:537738.
392 todd rester
of Tychonius which Augustine cites in De Doctrina Christiana for inter-

preting Scripture.23 These rules function as an interpretive grid for apply-
ing the Scriptures to Christ and the Church emphasizing, among other
points: (1) the caput-corpus interpretation of the text with Christ as head
and the Church as His body; (2) distinguishing the true and false body of
Christ (i.e. the Church); (3) the letter-spirit distinction from 2 Corinthians
3:16 that is, concerning law and grace or what is historical and what is
spiritual; (4) concerning metonymy and synecdoche; (5) concerning
numerology; (6) repetition out of order; (7) concerning Satan and his
body, thus the parallel and warfare between Christ and Satan as well as
between the Church, the kingdom of God, and Babylon, the kingdom of
Satan. It should be at least noted in passing that Thomas Aquinas utilizes
these approaches found in Isidore seven centuries later specifically in the
proemium of his In Psalmos Davidis Expositio.
On Psalm 2 specifically, several key exegetes follow Augustines under-
standing: (1) Aurelius Cassiodorus (490583) whose comments on Psalm 2
are utilized heavily and almost exclusively on Psalm 2 in Willafrid Strabos
Glossa Ordinaria,24 which in turn was taken up, commented upon, and
amplified throughout the medieval period and into the Protestant
Reformation. For example, following Augustines simple christological
interpretation, Dionysius Carthusianus (14021471) takes the same
approach, and, mentioning everyone from Jerome to Thomas Aquinas,
notes their distinctive contributions and differences. However, it is a slight
departure from a strict christological focus in that Dionysius Carthusianus
also notes that the psalms generally are prophecies by David and specifi-
cally that Psalm 2 is best interpreted in regard to Christ. Dionysius
Carthusianus in his proemium on the psalms also specifically summarizes
the Quadriga as well as Augustines seven rules.25 The simple interpreta-
tion, by the time one traces the exegesis of Psalm 2 from Origen through
the great exegetical compilation of Dionysius Carthusianus, at the begin-
ning of the sixteenth century seems to inextricably intertwine the exegeti-
cal method with an ahistorical, christological result.
23Cf. Isidore, Sententiarum (PL 83:581586) with Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, III.
xxx.42-III.xxxvii.55 (NPNF1 2:568573).
24PL 113:846847. The eleventh-century Glossa Interlinearis, attributed to Anselm of
Laon, is another significant scriptural gloss typically included separately in the scriptural
text with Wilafrids ninth-century Glossa Ordinaria. See Smalley, Studies in Medieval
Thought and Learning (London: Hambledon, 1981), 2930.
25See Dionysius a Rickel Carthusianus, In Psalmos Omnes Davidicos (Cologne: Petrum
Quentil., 1531), fol. II A2v-fol. III A3r.
Among early Protestants, Luthers early exegesis of the psalms follows

these same patterns of traditional, Western interpretation utilizing the
Quadriga and a spiritual-literal sense (i.e. Christ, the traditional spiritual
sense, is the literal sense).26 It is certainly true that there are multiple edi-
tions of Luthers comments on the psalms as he did edit and expand the
work throughout the course of his life. Yet for our purposes it is significant
to note his starting points to highlight later differences. And so, for exam-
ple, in Luthers preface to the 15131515 psalter, he asserts the following
interpretive rules:
Every prophecy and every prophet ought to be understood [as speaking]
about Christ the Lord, unless where it is evident with unmistakable words
speaking about something else.27
Wherefore whoever excessively explains most of the psalms, not propheti-
cally, but historically, [that person] follows certain falsifying Hebrew Rabbis
and crafters of Judaic vanities!28
Whatever concerns the Lord Jesus Christ in his person is said according to
the letter.29
Thus on Psalm 2: Why have the nations raged, etc. The literal meaning
(litera) concerns the roaring of the Jews and Gentiles against Christ in his
passion.30
In his 15131515 comments on Psalm 2, he locates the speaker as, first and
foremost, the Holy Spirit, the orator in the Church and the one who gov-
erns the ministry of the word.31 Luthers comments on this psalm in 1519
immediately begin with an exegesis of Christs sufferings under Pontius
Pilate and his stand against sin, death, and the Devil rather than with the
rule and reign of David.32 This is an interesting shift since his comments in
the 15131515 edition begin with the inter-Trinitarian colloquium and
move to the prophecy of David concerning Jesus Christ whereas the later
comments are even more christologically oriented than before his separa-
tion from the Roman church. Secondly, as some scholars believe that it is
26See Luthers version of a modified Quadriga in Martin Luther Wolfenbtteler Psalter,

15131515, ed. E. Roach et al. (Frankfurt: Insel, 1983), 7/fol. 5v.
27Luther Wolfenbtteler Psalter, 6/fol. 5v.
31Luther Wolfenbtteler Psalter, 1/fol. 11r.
32Cf. Luthers 1519 comments in D. Martin Luthers Psalmen=Auslegung, 1. Band Psalmen
125, ed. E. Mulhaupt (Gottingen: V&R, 1959), 2627; his 15131515 comments in Luther
Wolfenbtteler Psalter, fol. 11v; and his comments on the Latin Vulgate of Psalm 2:12 D.
Martin Luther Operationes in Psalmos 15191521, vol. 2, ed. Hammer and Biersack (Cologne:
Bohlau, 1981), 6672.
394 todd rester
actually the psalter of 15231524 that is distinctively Luthers, it is notewor-

thy that Luther did not shed his exegetical models and interpretive pat-
terns simply because of his formal and final break with Rome. And even
though Ames certainly refers this position of interpreting Psalm 2 simply
in reference to Christ as a patristic interpretation, it is a position alive and
well in the early sixteenth century. For Luther, the christological sense is
the literal sense. And so without multiplying more examples from similar
sources, this position of the Orthodox Fathers on Psalm 2 has a rather
broad wake in the history of Christian exegesis. The underpinnings of this
approach seem to be rooted textually in the primacy of 2 Corinthians 3:16,
that is, there is a concern for the letter-spirit distinction which is even car-
ried over into an understanding of law-gospel in Isidore of Seville.33 It is
almost axiomatic that a similar method does not necessarily entail or
determine a particular interpretation; however, it is noteworthy that from
Augustine onward, given these methodological guidelines, there is a
strong sense among those surveyed that preserving the interpretive
method does tend toward a certain set of exegetical results. Thus, for
many of the interpreters in the western catholic tradition, though the
method may not prejudice the investigation, it certainly bounds the result,
in that a late patristic or medieval theologian or even a Protestant (in
Luthers opinion) who shies away from a spiritual interpretation and grav-
itates towards a literal or historical interpretation is viewed as Judaizing.
With respect to the Reformed position as a via media, the composite
sense of the type and anti-type is not a position original to the Reformed.
There are strong antecedents in exegetes such as Thomas Aquinas, to
name one substantial medieval figure. Aquinas, while still defending the
utility of the Quadriga, also develops the literal sense in such a way as to
arrive at a composite sense of Psalm 2 that is tenable and stable, neither
Judaizing nor functioning a-historically. This is possible in part due to his
explicit statement that the literal sense grounds and bounds the other
three senses.34 The literal sense is not the figure itself, but that which is
figured.35 Thomas asserts explicitly that it is only on the basis of the lit-
eral sense that one may derive an argument,36 that only the literal is nec-
essary,37 and the literal sense can never be false (implying that the spiritual
33David Steinmetz highlights the importance of 2 Cor. 3:16 for exegetical history in
Calvin in Context, 2nd ed. (Oxford: OUP, 2010), 266268.
34ST, Ia.1.10co.
35ST, Ia.1.10ad3.
36ST, Ia.1.10ad1.
37ST, Ia.1.10ad1.
senses could be).38 These are three salient points not lost on later Reformed
exegetes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.39 Aquinas formula-
tion opens up another broader way of speaking about the literal sense of
Scripture wherein it is the primary meaning of the text and the other
senses are but applications of the one primary and necessary sense.
Turning our attention from Aquinas method to his exegetical results,
he interprets Psalm 2 generally as the status of humanity but in its proper
matter specifically as [Davids] tribulations signifying the tribulations of
Christ.40 In his exposition there is a composite sense that in this psalm,
David both narrates his own experience as well as prophecies about and
typifies the sufferings of Christ. The result of Aquinas method is a much
more stable interpretation, in that it can function polemically against
Jewish interpretations, such as Rashis, absorbing the shock of a bare his-
torical orientation by fully acknowledging Davids coronation while also
pointing beyond the immediate context to a greater fulfillment in Christ.
For example, Aquinas points to Christ as the only possible fulfillment of
Psalm 2:7 as it touches upon Christs eternal generation as eternal proces-
sion, and thus Christs eternal, natural sonship and rule, whereas Davids
kingship is derivative from the law of God and his adoption is dependent
upon Christs natural filiation.41
Considering Reformed Protestants, and Junius teachers specifically,
it is quite easy to find a composite typological approach in Calvin and
Beza, among others.42 David Pucketts work, Calvins Exegesis of the Old
Testament, is particularly helpful at this point in providing an overview of
Calvins usage of typology as subordinate to the literal sense. Calvins
typology, according to Puckett, depends on two basic arguments: first,
the New Testament writers treat Old Testament texts as prophecies that
are fulfilled in Jesus Christ; second, the language does not suit the reign of
David or any other Old Testament figure, yet it perfectly suits the reign
of Christ. These two arguments are his standard defense of typology
throughout his Old Testament commentaries (e.g. Psalm 72; Isaiah 61:1).43
38ST, Ia.1.10ad2.
39Cf. William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, trans. and ed. Fitzgerald
(Cambridge: CUP, 1849), 403404, 408409, citing ST, Ia.1.10.
40Aquinas, In Psalmos Davidis Expositio, Super Psalmo 2 (http://www.corpusthomisti
cum.org/cps00.html).
41Aquinas, In Psalmos, Super Psalmo 2n45.
42Cf. Wolfgang Musculus, In Davidis Psalterium sacrosanctum Commentarij (Basel:
Henricpetri, 1599), 1126, on Psalm 2.
43David Lee Puckett, John Calvins exegesis of the Old Testament (Louisville: WJKP,
1995), 117118.
396 todd rester
What is noteworthy here contra the simple christological tradition of exe-

gesis is that Calvin labors to develop typology from the text and does not
presuppose an a priori christological interpretation. Calvins standard
polemic against the Jewish interpreters is that they cannot adequately
point to an OT referent for many texts, such as Psalms 2, 22, 89, and 110.
This deficiency highlights the need for a christological interpretation via
typology. Against the simple christological reading Calvin argues that the
more historical detail one can find in the text regarding David, the more
stable and cogent the christological parallels there are between the type
and anti-type. Illustrative of this method are Calvins comments on Psalm
2. Against the Jewish interpretation of the nations being gathered against
the Lords anointed or Messiah as the Philistines (only one nation), Calvin
points out that it squares better as a complementary type being fulfilled in
Christ because we know that Christ was not only distressed by domestic
enemiesproximately Judas and remotely the Pharisees and Herodians
but also by foreigners in the person of Pilate representing the Romans.
Furthermore, there is the apostolic appropriation in Acts 4:24 of Psalm 2,
which grants explicit biblical warrant for drawing the connection that
Christ is the anti-type of David. Bezas exposition in his argument and
paraphrase of Psalm 2 concurs with Calvins.44 Perhaps Bezas most strik-
ing paraphrase is in Psalm 2:2, which he changes from the nations gather-
ing against Jehovah and against his Christ to against Jehovah and
against the king designated by Him. This is the most obvious move to
maintain the composite interpretation of the psalm, lest one rush too
quickly to a christological interpretation without showing due deference
to Davids historical kingship.
With respect to the interpretation of the psalm proper, after the general
introduction of the historical context and situation behind Psalm 2, Junius
in quite traditional fashion speaks of types as figuring either words or
things. An allegory is an image expressed in words whereas a type is an
image expressed in a thing.45 Also in his exposition of Psalm 2 he outlines
several rules for understanding types, namely: (1) first, it is proper not to
apply a type more fully to the truth which is obscured to those which
either Scripture itself accommodates, or the analogy of faith demands; (2)
second, all interpretations of types which indeed are just and conform to
the truth are not typical but anagogical; (3) and third, whatever is in the
44Theodore Beza, Psalmorvm Davidis et aliorvm prophetarvm (London: Vautrollerius,

1580), 45.
45Franciscus Junius, Opera theologica [= OTJ], 2 vols. (Geneva, 1613), 1:632.
mystery of intercession and of our salvation are proper anagoges of holy

types.46
After these preliminary remarks, Junius moves into a proper exegesis of
the psalm, taking up the same threefold interpretive issue with which we
began our analysis. The first interpretation of the Rabbis he categorically
rejects for two reasons: 1. because not all the things which are said in this
psalm can apply to David simply and hence either the prophecy is false or
the interpretation is false and 2. because it is repugnant to the authority of
the Apostles in Acts 2, 4, 13; Heb. 1, 4, and other passages.47 Interestingly,
Junius does not seek to refute the position of the Orthodox Fathers but
simply passes them by in his commentary stating that at least they
acknowledge that the scopus or goal of the psalm is Christ. In Sacred
Parallel 91, Junius comments that their simple christological position is
by far more tolerable than the Rabbis.48 In the third position, to which
he holds, the composite form includes the type and the truth of it, as the
history of David displays, but it is chiefly and properly announced in
Christ through whom grace and truth have been accomplished.49 From
verse 3 onward, Junius exposits this psalm according to the person, work,
office, mission, and vocation of Christ. When Junius arrives at the nature
of Christs mission and vocation in verse 6 he begins to bring up the ques-
tion of Gods decree and counsel. And as he progresses through the psalm,
Junius applies his third rule of typology and closes out the exposition with
an extended treatment of Christs triplex munus of prophet, priest, and
king. As to the practical application of the psalm, Junius does focus on the
implications of these points for the Church as well as for the individual:
the goal of the psalm is that believers may have their consolation in Christ
in difficult circumstances, and that their deliberation upon him and their
eternal salvation may be strengthened. For Junius, high doctrine should
lead to deep comfort. He then divides the psalm into three parts, an intro-
duction of the theme, a narration concerning Gods counsel and its admin-
istration, and finally a didactic section regarding the goal of it all.
With respect to the interpretation of Scripture, both Junius and Ames
are committed to Aquinas basic premise that the literal sense is the most
essential and necessary sense of the text. Yet it is Ames that more directly
takes up the issue. Consider Ames polemic against the Roman Catholic
46OTJ, 1:634.
47OTJ, 1:634.7084.
48Sacrorum Parallelorum, 1:91.
49OTJ, 1:634.8385.
398 todd rester
exegetes on the question of the three spiritual senses found in his prole-
gomenon to Psalm 2. While outlining the Roman Catholic position on the
Quadriga, Ames demonstrates a remarkable familiarity not only with
Thomas Aquinas and other medieval scholastics, he also demonstrates a
fair acquaintance with his contemporary Roman Catholic interlocutors,
for example, Domingo Baez50 and Robert Cardinal Bellarmine (against
whom he wrote a massive four volume set)51 among others. Against the
Quadriga, Ames raises four arguments: (1) the three spiritual senses have
no basis in Scripture; (2) the three spiritual senses have no basis in Logic,
Grammar, or Rhetoric; (3) If the three spiritual senses should exist, they
would render Scripture uncertain thereby undermining and diminishing
its authority; and (4) arguments can only be established from the literal
sense.52
As to the first argument, Ames seeks to curb what he considers to be a
problematic use of typology. He maintains that the usage of 1 Corinthians
10:11 where the Apostle Paul says that all these things happened to them
typically, should be explained only in terms of moral examples. As regards
other passages, he maintains that these are only analogies accommodated
for the sake of illustration or demonstration and not true other senses.
Furthermore, Ames does not deny the use of many allegories as long as
they are understood as extended metaphors.53 And in a turn of phrase
that sounds quite like Thomas Aquinas he comments that the type and
the thing signified by the type do not constitute two various senses, prop-
erly speaking, but they are two parts of one and the same sense.54 Ames
comments hearken back to Aquinas own composite reading of Psalm 2, in
which the sufferings of David should lead us to contemplate the sufferings
of Christ, especially since Aquinas utilizes similar justifications as Ames
does here. In a similar manner Ames states that if there are two senses in
some typical narration, then one sense properly and immediately belongs
to the words, and the other sense indeed belongs to the things, not the
words, unless through an analogical accommodation.55 Likewise, Ames
second argument counters the Roman Catholic assertions with another
argument from accommodation, that is that God has spoken in the
50Ames is engaging Domingo Baez, Scholastica Commentaria in universam Primam

partem Angelici Doctoris D. Thomae (Venice: Iuntas, 1602).
51Bellarminvs Enervatvs, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Turner, 1629).
52OGA, 1:2226.
53OGA, 1:24.
54OGA, 1:24.
55OGA, 1:24.
Scriptures in a human manner and custom precisely so that He may be

understood by humans.56 The third argument is simply a thetical state-
ment and stands just as brief in the text without much explanation other
than to assert that two unbelievers who attacked the faith, Porphyry and
Julianus, once used the spiritual senses polemically against the Roman
Catholic church.
The fourth argument has more traction against Bellarmine and Baez
due to the fact that Aquinas seems to open up this possibility by asserting
that only the literal sense is necessary for the faith and only the literal
sense can be used as the foundation for theological argument. Furthermore,
if only the literal sense can never be false then Ames is perfectly justified
in arguing against the three spiritual senses:
because (from Bellarmines own confession) efficacious arguments ought
to be sought only from the literal sense: since it is not always evident from
the mystical senses whether they are intended by the Holy Spirit. From
which concession it follows that the various senses of this sort are not senses
[at all]: since it is neither a sense from the Holy Spirit which is not intended
by the Holy Spirit: nor is there any sense of the Holy Spirit from which can-
not be gathered a firm argument.57
Ames makes a similar, albeit briefer argument in the Medulla Theologiae:
Henceforth also for one place of Scripture there is only one sense: because
the other senses of Scripture not only are not perspicuous and certain, but
in fact [do] not [exist] at all: for what does not signify one thing, signifies
nothing certain.58 So in Ames exegetical method he actively utilizes the
perspicuity of Scripture and the analogy of faith.
As to the structure of the psalm, Ames begins in the style of a logical
Ramist analysis by stating that the prophets purpose is to exhort every
kind of human being to subject themselves to the reign of Christ. After
outlining the argument of the psalm, he utilizes a repeating analytical
structure for every verse or two verses wherein he starts with an Analysis,
rendering the basic meaning, which in turn results in questions and
answers. Finally, he moves to lessons (documenta) complete with the rea-
soning for each point (ratio) and their use (usus). Doctrinally he covers the
same ground as Junius in general but much more consistently mentioning
the practical application. It is in these practical points that the influence
56OGA, 1:25.
57OGA, 1:26.
58Ames, Medulla, I.xxxiv.22.
400 todd rester
of Ramus towards utility and the pastoral tone of Perkins are evident
towards right belief and living.
In conclusion to the question of where the literal sense is located in a
typological passage, for Junius and Ames, the answer is in the composite
construction: the more detailed historical setting of the type signifies the
words, and thus makes the fulfillment in the anti-type the signification of
the things or matters behind the words. On one hand, they are able to do
full justice to the historical setting of David and on the other to demon-
strate the extent to which the subject of the psalm must be one greater
than David. On the question of the relation between form and content,
both Junius and Ames, though the former employs a more Aristotelian
method versus the latters Ramistic one, share a common pedagogical goal
in their exposition of Psalm 2: both seek to encourage and edify believers
in the doctrine and practice of the Christian faith through a thorough
understanding of christological types. Terminating on the same key
Reformed doctrinal emphases, both demonstrate a high degree of famil-
iarity with traditional scholastic sources and hermeneutical issues in the
western Christian tradition. Both utilize a blend of scholastic distinctions
and biblical humanistic methods at times as they deem necessary.
Although their exegetical methods are noticeably and strikingly different,
the almost plain similarity of their exegetical results is certainly notewor-
thy as well. Not only do these two representative figures illustrate their
differing styles and methods of exegesis, but they demonstrate a broad
consistency and high degree of continuity in their concern for early
Reformed hermeneutics, doctrine, and piety while seeking to harvest the
best of the Christian exegetical tradition.
THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHURCHS MISSION: THE PERSPECTIVE
OF THE REFORMED CONFESSIONS
Yuzo Adhinarta
With regard to the Reformed tradition, many complain that as a result of

the neglect of the teaching of the Holy Spirit and of his work not much
attention has been given to missionary efforts and conscience. Myung
Yong Kim is merely an example. He writes, The eclipse of pneumatology
in Reformed doctrine leads Reformed churches to ignore the work of the
Holy Spirit. The result is the danger of a rigid church, with no mission and
no diakonia.1 Myung makes a correct assertion that mission is an aspect
of the work of the Holy Spirit; thus missiology, in the Reformed tradition,
generally falls into the locus of pneumatology. However, whether the claim
of the neglect of pneumatology is justifiable is a totally different matter.
It may be true that the study of the Reformed theology regarding mis-
sion has never received due attention in the past due to the generally
negative view of so many historians in the past concerning the Reformers
and thus their immediate successorswith respect to missions and evan-
gelism. The claim of Gustav Warneck, a Protestant missiologist, exemplifies
this negative sentiment:
We miss in the Reformers not only missionary action, but even the idea of
missions, in the sense in which we understand them today. And this not only
because the newly discovered heathen world across the sea lay almost
wholly beyond the range of their vision, though that reason had some
weight, but because fundamental theological views hindered them from giv-
ing their activity, and even their thoughts, a missionary direction.2
Donald MacGavran, a former professor at the Fuller School of World
Missions, also complains about the silence of the Protestant creeds
1Myung Yong Kim, Reformed Pneumatology and Pentecostal Pneumatology, in

Reformed Theology: Identity and Ecumenicity, ed. Alston and Welker (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2003), 174.
2Gustav Warneck, Outline of a History of Protestant Missions from the Reformation to the
Present Time, 3rd English ed., ed. Robson (Edinburgh: Oliphant Anderson & Ferrier, 1906),
9. See also for examples, Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christianity, 1st ed.
(New York: Harper, 19371945), 926; Latourette, A History of the Expansion of Christianity,
vol. 3 (New York: Harper, 1939), 2527; J. Herbert Kane, Understanding Christian Missions,
3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1982), 140.
402 yuzo adhinarta
regarding the missionary function of the Holy Spirit and states that the
Protestant churches had practically no missionary conscience at all.3
As the interest of research on the Reformation period grows, an increas-
ing number of scholars find that the negative judgment of Reformers with
respect to missions is more untenable.4 With respect to the critique spe-
cifically aimed at the Reformed confessions, especially MacGavrans claim,
Robert Recker, Fred H. Klooster, and Anthony A. Hoekema each argue
from the perspective of the Belgic Confession (hereinafter bc), Heidelberg
Catechism, and Canons of Dordt respectively that the Reformed confes-
sions are not deficient in missionary conscience.5 All three maintain that
what could be considered as lacking in the confessions with regard to mis-
sions is the modern idea or concept of mission with its emphasis on for-
eign mission, but not the fundamental and biblical theology of mission.
In light of the status quaestionis presented above, a careful study of the
major Reformed confessional documents of the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuriesas historical and textual expressions of what the
Reformed orthodoxy taught and believedis of paramount importance
for understanding the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in its relation to the
church mission within the Reformed tradition. No doubt Richard Mullers
contribution to the flourishing interest in the study of Reformed ortho-
doxy has helped raise interests in the study of the Reformed historic con-
fessional documents such as found in this article.
As this article will demonstrate, a proper reading of the confessions
shows that the confessions do not lack in passion for evangelism when
evangelism is understood as the propagation of the gospel of salvation and
the churchs evangelistic mission as the mission of the church in propagat-
ing and proclaiming the gospel.
3Donald MacGavran, A Missionary Confession of Faith, CTJ 7.2 (1972): 141. See also
Richard R. De Ridder, Discipling the Nations (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1975), 212214.
4Paul Drew holds that the Reformers idea of mission can in no way be brought into
harmony with the modern concept, and that the disjunction between them is not in
motive but in method. Paul Drews, Die Anschauungen reformatorischer Theologen ber
die Heidenmission, Zeitschrift fr praktische Theologie 28 (1897): 126, 193223, 289316.
R. Pierce Beaver gives a good yet brief account of the pioneer Protestant project of coloni-
zation and missionary activity off the coast of Brazil during the years 1555 to 1560. R. Pierce
Beaver, The Genevan Mission to Brazil, in The Heritage of John Calvin, ed. Bratt (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973), 5573. See also J. Van den Berg, Calvin and Missions, in John
Calvin: Contemporary Prophet, ed. Hoogstra (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1959), 167183; See also
Richard A. Muller, To Grant This Grace to All People and Nations: Calvin on Apostolicity
and Mission, in For God So Loved the World, ed. Leder (Belleville: Essence, 2006), 211232.
5Robert Recker, An Analysis of the Belgic Confession as to Its Mission Focus, CTJ 7.2
(1972): 158180; Fred H. Klooster, MissionsThe Heidelberg Catechism and Calvin, CTJ
the holy spirit and the churchs mission 403
The Churchs Mission as the Missio Dei
All Reformed confessions teach that salvation is initiated by and carried

out by God through his Son and Spirit. Because of the fall and disobedi-
ence of their first parents, humans have a corrupt nature from conception.
Without God himself working salvation in them, none will be able or will-
ing to come to God. The confessions attribute the calling out of sinners,
which is at the heart of the churchs evangelistic mission, exclusively to
God the Father, who works through his Son and Spirit. The mission of the
church originates in God and it is primarily the activity of God through the
church; it is the mission of God, the Missio Dei.
In his Catechism (1537; hereinafter CC37),6 John Calvin clearly states
that humans in their sinful nature are completely unable by their own
power to turn to and come to God.7 Only Christ, through the power of the
Holy Spirit, calls and attracts us to himself in order that we may obtain
deliverance.8 It is God who draws the elect to himself by the power of the
Spirit. Calvin also discusses Gods mission in terms of the expansion of the
Kingdom of God when he describes the second petition of the Lords
Prayer. In CC37 Calvin clearly maintains that the churchs mission comes
to fruition solely because of Gods reign, as God is actively guiding and
governing his own by his Holy Spirit. Praying that Gods reign may come
means praying that the Lord may from day to day multiply the number of
his faithful believers and that he may continually spread on them more
largely the affluence of his graces, whereby he may live and reign in them
more and more.9 Calvin expands the discussion further in his Institutes
and his commentary on A Harmony of the Evangelists.10
The Scots Confession (1560; hereinafter SC) agrees with Calvin in
stressing that the calling of sinners to lifeand thus the multiplication
of the number of believersis solely the active work of God himself.11
7.2 (1972): 181208; and Anthony A. Hoekema, The Missionary Focus of the Canons of
Dort, CTJ 7.2 (1972): 209220.
6Calvins Catechism (1537), in Reformed Confessions of the 16th and 17th Centuries in
English Translation: Volume 1, 15231552, ed. Dennison (Grand Rapids: RHB, 2008), 354401.
Hereafter RCET.
7CC37 IV.
8CC37 XX (I believe in the Holy Spirit).
9CC37 XXIV (The Second Petition).
10Calvin, Institutes, III.xx.42; Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists,
Matthew, Mark, and Luke, vol. 1, trans. Pringle (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 320.
11The Scottish Confession of Faith (1560), in Reformed Confessions of the Sixteenth
Century [hereafter RC16], ed. Cochrane (Louisville: WJKP, 2003), 163184.
404 yuzo adhinarta
The confession states that God preserved, instructed, multiplied, hon-

oured, adorned, and called from death to life His Kirk in all ages since
Adam until the coming of Christ Jesus in the flesh.12 The confession adds
later that it is the Holy Spirit who guides the elect into all truth and gives
faith to them. Otherwise they will never be able to respond to the gospel of
Christ and thereby should remain forever enemies to God and ignorant of
His Son, Christ Jesus without the Holy Spirit.13
Moreover, God is not only the initiator or the origin of the churchs mis-
sion but also the first missionary, the first proclaimer of the gospel. As
cited above, the SC confesses that God called his church since Adam. The
HC (1563)14 concurs and asserts, God himself began to reveal the gospel in
Paradise; later, he proclaimed it by the holy patriarchs and prophets, and
portrayed it by the sacrifices and other ceremonies of the law; finally, he
fulfilled it through his own dear Son.15 Although the Holy Spirit is not
mentioned in the article, he is surely presupposed by the authors of the
catechism. In his commentary on the HC Zacharias Ursinus, the principal
author and interpreter of the HC, teaches that the gospel is not a new doc-
trine, but was already revealed in Paradise immediately after the fall. This
is the gospel through which the Holy Spirit works effectually in the hearts
of the faithful, kindling and exciting in them, faith, repentance, and the
beginning of eternal life.16 Caspar Olevianus, a co-author of the HC as
some believe, fully concurs with Ursinus and gives an explicit remark on
the active engagement of God in conferring the gospel to human sinners.
God has not only given his promise of salvation, but also carries out this
promise by giving His Son to die for us and by raising Him. Olevianus then
states, Along with that [that is, the death and resurrection of Christ], God
through Christ both promises us in the gospel and then actually gives us
the Holy Spirit.17
Similar teaching can also be found in the Second Helvetic Confession
(1566).18 In the SHC Heinrich Bullinger quotes 2 Cor. 3:6 and rightly states
that the preaching of the gospel is the ministry of the Spirit, because the
12SC V.
13SC XII.
14The Heidelberg Catechism, in Ecumenical Creeds and Reformed Confessions (Grand
Rapids: CRC, 1988), 1277.
15HC Q/A 19.
16Ursinus, Commentary, 101102.
17Caspar Olevianus, A Firm Foundation: An Aid to Interpreting the Heidelberg Catechism,
trans. Bierma (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995), Q/A 9.
18The Second Helvetic Confession (1566), in RC16, 224301.
Holy Spirit works in the hearts of believers through the preaching of the
gospel, making it an effectual means of salvation.19 Bullinger defines
repentance primarily as the recovery of a right mind in sinful man awak-
ened by the Word of the Gospel and the Holy Spirit.20 Repentance, that is,
the proper response to the gospel, is then the work of God as the Word of
the gospel and the Spirit jointly work together in the proclamation of the
gospel.21
The CoD (16181619)22 also clearly asserts that salvation and thus the
proclamation of the gospel are the works of God: Before the foundation
of the world, by sheer grace, according to the free good pleasure of his will,
he chose in Christ to salvation a definite number of particular people out
of the entire human race. He then decided to give the chosen ones to
Christ to be saved, and to call and draw them effectively into Christs fel-
lowship through his Word and Spirit.23 Both the election in Christ and the
calling and drawing the elect to Christ are initiated solely by God and car-
ried out through his Word and Spirit. In its Second Main Point of Doctrine,
the CoD makes explicit what Hoekema calls a kind of Magna Carta for
missions, that is the mandate to proclaim the gospel to all:
Moreover, it is the promise of the gospel that whoever believes in Christ cru-
cified shall not perish but have eternal life. This promise, together with the
command to repent and believe, ought to be announced and declared with-
out differentiation or discrimination to all nations and people, to whom God
in his good pleasure sends the gospel.24
Reflecting on this succinct yet apt statement, Hoekema rightly points out
the emphatic assertion of the Canons that the gospel must be declared
indiscriminately and without distinction to all peoples.25 It should also be
noted that the CoD also attributes the sending of the gospel to God. It is
God who sends the gospel and reveals his will to all nations and people
19SHC XIII.4.
20SHC XIV.2.
21To argue for the sola gratia principle, Bullinger maintains in his Decades the indis-
pensable role of the Holy Spirit in repentance. None are delivered save those that believe;
therefore grace hath somewhat whereby to work in man: for by the pouring of the Holy
Ghost into our hearts, the understanding and will are instructed in faith. Without the work
of the Holy Spirit inwardly teaching and regenerating the hearers of the gospel, none can
believe in the gospel of Christ, repent, and thus be saved. See Bullinger, Decades, IV.i
(910, 37).
22CoD, in Ecumenical Creeds, 122145.
23CoD I.7.
24CoD II.5; Hoekema, The Missionary Focus, 214.
25Hoekema, The Missionary Focus, 214, emphasis his.
406 yuzo adhinarta
according to his free good pleasure and undeserved love.26 Moreover, the
saving power of the gospel belongs to God alone, who by the power of the
Holy Spirit, through the Word or the ministry of reconciliation, accom-
plishes what the light of nature or the law cannot do, that is, saving
those who sincerely believe the promises proclaimed in the gospel.27
Those who hear the gospel are said to be called seriously by God himself.
In the words of the Canons:
Nevertheless, all who are called through the gospel are called seriously. For
seriously and most genuinely God makes known in his Word what is pleas-
ing to him: that those who are called should come to him. Seriously he also
promises rest for their souls and eternal life to all who come to him and
believe.28
Consequently, those who reject the gospel reject God himself who calls
them.29
The Canons are therefore by no means deficient of passion for missions.
On the contrary, as Hoekema states, the Canons do express the mission-
ary focus of the Bible and have the Missio Dei: Gods redemption of the
cosmos through Christ as its main focus. These are things that MacGavran
sees as missing in most creeds. Unquestionably, the Canons are deeply
concerned with reconciliation between God and humans.
The Westminster standardsthat is, the Westminster Confession of
Faith (1646), the Westminster Larger Catechism (1647), and the West
minster Shorter Catechism (1647)also unwaveringly depict God as
active in his mission, calling sinners to himself through the ministry of the
Word and the Holy Spirit.30 Both the outward preaching of the gospel or
the ministry of the Word and the inward or effectual calling are the works
of God through his Spirit by which God calls and draws sinners to him, and
offers his grace to them.31 Even though the active role of the Holy Spirit is
specially identified in the inward and effectual calling of the elect, it is also
undoubtedly true in the outward ministry of the Word. When discussing
those who are not elected in connection to the effectual calling, the WCF
states that they may be called by the Ministry of the Word; and may have
26CoD III/IV.7.
27CoD III/IV.6.
28CoD III/IV.8.
29CoD III/IV.9.
30The Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechism (Edinburgh: Swintoun
and Brown, 1683), 3192.
31WCF X.12.
some common operations of the Spirit, yet they never truly come to
Christ, denoting that the outward ministry of the Word is never devoid of
the operation of the Holy Spirit, who sends, equips with spiritual gifts, and
empowers ministers to preach the gospel.32
The WLC defines effectual calling as the work of Gods Almighty power
and grace, whereby out of his free and special love to his elect he doth
in his accepted time invite and draw them to Jesus Christ by his Word and
Spirit.33 It also explicitly states that the faithful ministry of the Word is the
work of the Spirit himself. Those who are called to preach the Word are to
preach sound doctrine, not in the inticing words of mens wisdom, but in
demonstration of the Spirit and power, sincerely aiming at Gods glory,
and peoples conversion, edification, and salvation.34 Commenting on the
WSC regarding the effectual calling, Thomas Watson, a seventeenth-cen-
tury English Puritan, illustrates, The Ministry of the Word is the Pipe or
Organ, the Spirit of God blowing in it, doth effectually change Mens
hearts, Acts 10:44.35
It is thus evident that for the Reformed confessions, since the very
beginning of the church, the proclamation of the gospel has never been
primarily a human enterprise. Nor is it merely a human activity of promul-
gating the good news regarding God and his work of salvation by humans.
Instead, it is the active work of God himself through the Holy Spirit in call-
ing sinners to come to the salvation which God has himself inaugurated
and promised in the gospel. He works through the Holy Spirit in both the
external calling through the outward preaching of the Gospel and the
inward calling of individual believers.
The Propagation of the Gospel by Human Ministries
The Reformed confessions teach that God employs human agency to

propagate the gospel to generations of humankind across all ages and
places. He sends his church, his people, to carry out the mission to pro-
claim the gospel and to be its living testimony or embodiment to their
neighbors. With regard to the church, the mission to bring the gospel to
the world can be understood in two senses: institutional and ethical. In
the first sense, the church is a God-ordained institution sent to preach the
32WCF X.4; XXV.3; WLC Q/A 68; WSC Q/A 89.

33WLC Q/A 67; WSC Q/A 31.
34WLC Q/A 159.
35Watson, A Body of Practical Divinity, 128.
408 yuzo adhinarta
gospel to people through her ministers. In the second sense, the church is
Gods people sent to the world to bear witness to the message of the gospel
through the life of faith of her members. With respect to the first sense,
some Reformed confessions teach that God calls some to assume an eccle-
siastical office to preach the gospel. God through his Spirit calls these peo-
ple, furnishes them with necessary gifts, and sends and entrusts them with
the ministry of the Word and sacraments. However, with respect to the
second sense, other confessions also explicitly teach that God through his
Spirit calls all his people and enables them to do good works, to testify
through their godly lives and conversation so that others may begin to
know God and be won to Christ.
The Preaching of the Gospel by the Ministers of the Word

The Tetrapolitan Confession (1530; hereinafter TC) asserts that the send-
ing and the consecration of the ministers of the church for the task of
preaching the gospel is the work of the Holy Spirit as he empowers minis-
ters to undertake the offices to which they are assigned.36 The confession
cites John 20:22, Receive the Holy Spirit, and states that what constitutes
fit and properly consecrated ministers of the Church, bishops, teachers
and pastors, is that they have been divinely sent. As it later describes,
being divinely sent means having received the power and mind to preach
the Gospel and to feed the flock of Christ, and also the Holy Ghost who
cooperates in persuading hearts.37 The churchs ministers are thus minis-
ters of Christ insofar as they are endowed by God through his Spirit with
his own power and are faithful to God, who sends them to preach the
gospel and feed Gods people.
The First Helvetic Confession (1536; hereinafter FHC)38 calls the minis-
ters of Gods Word Gods co-workers, through whom God imparts and
offers to those who believe in Him the knowledge of Himself and the for-
giveness of sins, converts, strengthens and comforts men, but also threat-
ens and judges them.39 And the highest and chief thing in this office is
that the ministers of the Church preach repentance and sorrow for sins,
improvement of life, and forgiveness of sins, and all through Christ.40 The
confession also uses John 20:22 as a biblical reference to state that when
36The Tetrapolitan Confession (1530), in RC16, 5488.

37TC XIII.
38The First Helvetic Confession (1536), in RC16, 100111.
39FHC XV.
40FHC XIX.
the minister performs his tasks, in all things we ascribe all efficacy and
power to God the Lord alone, and only the imparting to the minister. It
means that, as far as the human activity in preaching is concerned, the
imparting of the knowledge of God and of the forgiveness of sins as prom-
ised in the gospel ought to be ascribed to the minister as the agent of God.
But the offering of the knowledge of God and the gospel, along with the
converting, strengthening, comforting, threatening, and judging, ought to
be understood as Gods acts. It is God through the Holy Spirit who is at
work in the preaching of the gospel. The fruit that follows from the minis-
try of the Word is to be attributed to God alone. In the words of the FHC,
It is certain that this power and efficacy never should or can be attributed
to a creature, but God dispenses it to those He chooses according to His
free will.41
As noted earlier, Bullinger in the SHC identifies the preaching of the
gospel with the ministry of the Spirit, and thus assumes the integral role of
the Holy Spirit in the whole enterprise of propagating the gospel.42
Bullinger also points out that in accomplishing his mission, God uses
human ministers. Further, Bullinger even makes a clear conjunction
between the ministry of the gospel and of reconciliation. The proclama-
tion of the gospel is primarily the ministry of reconciliation. The preach-
ing of the gospel is the preaching of reconciliation. To reconcile people to
himself, God calls his ministers to be his ambassadors. Commenting on 2
Corinthians 5:18 ff., Bullinger states that the Lord gave the ministry of rec-
onciliation to his ministers. He then adds that Christs ministers dis-
charge the office of an ambassador in Christs name, as if God himself
through ministers exhorted the people to be reconciled to God, doubtless
by faithful obedience.43 Such power and authority of the ministers to
open the Kingdom of Heaven to the obedient and shut it to the disobedi-
ent are certainly not of humans, and therefore can only be correctly
understood as the power of God, who by his Spirit works through human
ministers. Bullinger also explicitly asserts, God teaches us by his Word,
outwardly through his ministers, and inwardly moves the hearts of his
elect to faith by the Holy Spirit.44 Therefore, for Bullinger, in the preach-
ing of the gospel to humans, it is God who actually preaches. When God
41FHC XV.
42SHC XIII.3.
43SHC XIV.8.
44SHC XVIII.2.
410 yuzo adhinarta
uses human preachers as his instruments, the gospel does not cease to be
the Word of God, for it is the Holy Spirit who speaks through them.45
The Living Testimony of the Gospel by All Believers

Although most of the Reformed confessions discuss the propagation of
the gospel as the task of the church office which is entrusted with the min-
istry of the Word, they never deny that the sharing of the gospel is also the
mission of the church as Gods people. The confessions teach that all indi-
vidual believers are called to live out their true faith, to live a new life by
faith as they are regenerated, justified, and sanctified in Christ by the Holy
Spirit. A few confessions even explicitly teach that believers ought to live
out the gospel they believe in and be the living testimony of the gospel to
their neighbors through good works. The proclamation of the gospel is the
task of all Gods people, every one of them.
The TC confesses that the children of God, led by the Spirit of God,
should be chiefly devoted to certain actions that are aimed to profit other
human beings, their neighbors, which are duly called the duties of a
Christian.46 These duties are such actions whereby every one, for his
part, may profit his neighborsfirst, with respect to life eternal, that they
may begin to know, worship and fear God; and then with respect to pres-
ent life, that they may want nothing required by bodily necessity.47 Hence
believers ought to be concerned with not only their neighbors well-being
with respect to their bodily needs, but also with their well-being with
respect to life eternal. The confession, however, does not specify what
actions could incite others to begin to know, worship and fear God.
However, the confession points out that believers may show themselves to
others as gods, that is, true children of God, by love striving for [others]
advantage as far as they are able.48 Quoting some biblical references
(I Jn. 2:10; 4:7; Gal. 5:14), the confession maintains that works are good if
theyproceed out of faith through love, and that the love of God should be
45See also Bullinger, Decades, IV.i (5).

46TC VI.
47TC VI. HC Q/A 55 might assert the same. The article teaches that each member of
the communion of saints should consider it a duty to use spiritual gifts readily and
cheerfully for the service and enrichment of the other members. The word enrichment in
the original German text (Heil) can also be translated as salvation.
48TC IV; see also Calvins Catechism (1545) Q/A 199, where Calvin says that God
requires us to love our neighbors and seek their salvation, and all this with true affection
and without simulation, and Institutes, II.viii.40. See Calvins Catechism (1545), in RCET,
468519.
evidenced by the love of others. Good works are acts of faith that are man-
ifested in love toward others. They are works that spring from Gods works
of regeneration and sanctification that restore the image of God in believ-
ers so that they may supremely love and most earnestly imitate God in
their lives.49 The confession maintains,
For whatever the law of God teaches has this end and requires this one thing,
that at length we may be reformed to the perfect image of God, being good
in all things, and ready and willing to serve the advantage of men; which we
cannot do unless we be furnished with virtues of every kind.50
Therefore, believers may help others begin to know, worship and fear
God through their life of love, which is always seeking to serve the advan-
tage of others, since this is the life of the true children of God who are
regenerated, being reformed, and led by the Spirit of God. The FHC con-
tends for the same thing when it deals with the message of the entire
Scripture, that is, the gospel, that God is kind and gracious to [humans]
and that He has publicly exhibited and demonstrated this His kindness to
the whole human race through Christ His Son. The confession then states
further that this gospel comes to us and is received by faith alone, and is
manifested and demonstrated by love for our neighbor.51
The evangelistic mission of individual believers through good works is
also acknowledged and taught by the HC. Opening its third part on
Gratitude, the catechism contends that believers do good works not in
order to earn salvation, which they already have by the merit of Christ, but
primarily because God through his Spirit is still working in them, renew-
ing them, even when they have been delivered from their misery and
redeemed by Christ. The catechism then provides some arguments that
further develop the significance of good works in the Christian life. With
respect to God, good works are believers sincere expressions of gratitude
to God for all that he has done for them, so that in all things, praises are
due to God. With respect to themselves, good works may be fruits that
assure believers of their faith. With respect to others, good works, or
believers godly living, are a living testimony of the gospel by which
neighbors may be won over to Christ.52
49TC IV.
50TC IV.
51FHC V.
52HC Q/A 86; see also WCF XVI.2, 3, 5.
412 yuzo adhinarta
Ursinus further discusses good works as a living testimony of the gospel

in his commentary on the HC. For him, good works done for the sake of
others have three purposes: First, that we may be profitable unto our
neighbor, and edify him by our example and godly conversation; second,
that we may not be occasion of offences and scandal to the cause of
Christ; and, third, that we may win the unbelieving to Christ.53
Undoubtedly, for Ursinus, this article of the HC refers to personal evange-
lism. Furthermore, when discussing the necessity of good works to salva-
tion, he maintains that good works are necessary to salvation not as a
cause, as if they merited a reward, but as an effect, a consequence, or even
as a means without which we cannot obtain the end. With Augustine he
argues that good works are necessary to righteousness or justification in
those who are justified as a part of salvation itself; or, as an antecedent of
salvation, but not as a cause or merit of salvation.54 He later adds, If we
do any works which are good, these works are not ours, but Gods, who
produces them in us by his Holy Spirit. Hence, if we perform any thing
that is good, it is the gift of God, and not any merit on our part.55 For
Ursinus, then, personal evangelism as part of good works, as imperfect as
it might be, is also the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of believers. It is
part of salvation of all Gods people, a necessary fruit of salvation that the
Holy Spirit produces in them.56
Resonant with the TC and FHC, Bullingers SHC insists that true faith is
efficacious and active through love (Gal. 5:6): The same [faith] keeps us in
the service we owe to God and our neighbor, strengthens our patience in
adversity, fashions and makes a true confession, and in a word, brings
forth good fruit of all kinds, and good works.57 These good works grow
out of a living faith by the Holy Spirit and are done by the faithful accord-
ing to the will or rule of Gods Word.58 In agreement with the HC, Bullinger
also maintains that good works ought not to be done in order that we may
earn eternal life by them, for eternal life is the gift of God. Nor are they
53Ursinus, Commentary, 484; see also Commentary, 466; Olevianus, A Firm Foundation,
Q/A 170.
56See also William Ames commentary on the HC, in which he states, The operation of
the Spirit for the preaching of the gospel is present efficaciously and powerfully for produc-
ing the change of a person, which is called the ministry of the Spirit, the law of the Spirits
life, and the arm of God. See Ames, A Sketch of the Christians Catechism, trans. Rester
(Grand Rapids: RHB, 2008), 150.
57SHC XVI.4.
58SHC XVI.5.
to be done for ostentation or gain, but for the glory of God, to adorn
our calling, to show gratitude to God, and for the profit of the neighbor.
Bullinger then cites, among others, a verse in the Gospel: Let your light
shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to
your Father who is in heaven (Matt. 5:16).59
As discussed above in this article, one may agree with Recker, who com-
ments exclusively on the BC, that the Reformed confessions with respect
to their genre are not particularly a rallying call to mission.60 Therefore
one should not approach these documents anachronistically by imposing
on or making judgment about them according to the modern idea or con-
cept of mission. With regard to the modern distinction between home
missions and foreign missions, it should be noted that the distinction
itself is foreign to the confessions. As evident in the whole discussion of
the churchs mission in this article, the Reformed confessions never make
such a distinction. Rather, the confessions regard the whole world without
discriminationthat is, people of all nations, of all places and agesas
the object of the churchs mission. In light of this, therefore, while it may
be true that the Protestant Reformation deserves to be called one of the
greatest home missionary projects of all history, it does not necessarily
lead to seeing the Reformed confessions as documents only for home
missions.61 What Klooster rightly points out in the HC is also true of other
confessions, that the message of the confessions leads inevitably to
missionsboth home and foreign missions.62
As this article has demonstrated, and as Recker, Klooster, and Hoekema
have argued for the BC, HC, and CoD, the Reformed confessions, when
taken as a whole and properly examined, are not in any sense devoid of
mission awareness. Nor do they lack a theology of missions. On the con-
trary, almost all of the confessions present the gospel. Some present it in
the form of the doctrine of salvation and other corollary doctrines, others
in the exposition of the Apostles Creed. The confessions also understand
the churchs mission as the mission of God. God is the author and initiator
of the churchs mission; he is always the primary actor, and human minis-
ters are merely his instruments. In addition, the confessions place proper
emphasis on the role of the Holy Spirit in the whole enterprise of gospel
and thus the churchs mission. The Holy Spirit actively works in both the
59SHC XVI.6; see also Decades, III.9 (356).

60Recker, An Analysis of the Belgic Confession, 160.
61See Klooster, Missions, 187.
62Klooster, Missions, 208.
414 yuzo adhinarta
preaching of the gospel and the living testimony of believers. He calls,

equips, and sends the ministers of the Word to preach the gospel and also
effectually works in the hearers of the gospel, to regenerate, illumine, and
renew them from within so that they may come to believe in the message
of the gospel. The Holy Spirit also renews the life of believers, leading and
guiding them as they walk according to Gods will, and enables them to do
good works, through which others may be won over to Christ.
THE ATTEMPT TO ESTABLISH A CHAIR IN PRACTICAL THEOLOGY
AT LEIDEN UNIVERSITY (16181626)
Donald Sinnema
The need for practical theology as a distinct discipline within the field of
theology was recognized long before this discipline actually became
established as a regular part of training for the ministry. In the Protestant
world it was not until the mid-seventeenth century that separate teaching
of practical theology began to emerge in theological departments of some
universities, and it was not until Schleiermacher in the early nineteenth
century that this field really came into its own.1 This paper focuses on one
significant moment in the early history of this discipline, an attempt by
the Dutch Reformed churches to establish a chair in practical theology at
Leiden University, their main training school for ministers.
Background
Ever since the scientific character of theology began to be discussed in the

medieval period the question was posed whether theology as a whole is
theoretical or practical.2 Aristotle had set up the problematic by regarding
the purpose of a theoretical science to be truth and that of a practical
science to be action.3 Thomas Aquinas considered theology to be a mixed
discipline, speculative (theoretical) and practical at the same time, but
more speculative than practical.4 Some other medievals, like Henry of
Ghent, considered all of theology to be merely speculative, and others, like
Duns Scotus, considered it merely practical; still others, like Giles of Rome,
thought it was neither speculative nor practical.5
1For the history of practical theology as a discipline see E. Achelis, Die Entstehung der
Praktischen Theologie, Theologische Studien und Kritiken 65 (1892): 743; E. Achelis,
Lehrbuch der Praktischen Theologie (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1911), 1:119; Th. Harnack, Einleitung
und Grundlegung der Praktischen Theologie (Erlangen: Deichert, 1877), 1:2947; M. den
Dulk, Die Geboorte van de Praktische Theologie (Leiden: Rijks Universiteit, 1992).
2On this issue see Muller, PRRD, 1:34054.
3Aristotle, Metaphysics II.1.993b 20ff; XI.7.1064b 16.
4Aquinas, ST, Ia.1.45.
5Achelis, Entstehung, 10.
416 donald sinnema
Within the Reformed tradition this question surfaced as well when the
scientific status of theology was considered. The first trace of this is in
Peter Martyr Vermigli, who like Thomas asserted that biblical knowledge
is both contemplative and practical, but first of all contemplative.6
Bartholomew Keckermann, on the other hand, followed Scotist thinking
and considered theology to be only operative or practical.7
At Leiden University as well this question was raised in the theology
faculty in the years before the Synod of Dordt. In 1604 Lucas Trelcatius Jr.
opted for the Thomist answer that theology is both a contemplative and
practical science,8 and it is likely that Franciscus Gomarus took the same
position when he taught at Leiden.9 On the other hand, in 1603 Jacobus
Arminius followed the Scotist position that all theology in this life is
only practical.10 Since this question relates to theology as a whole, these
discussions did not foster the emergence of practical theology as a distinct
discipline within theology.
A real impetus for the conviction that theology has a practical character
came from the Reformed philosopher Peter Ramus, whose emphasis on
simplicity and practice was a mark of his philosophical reforms. Ramus
defined theology as the doctrine of living well, and he maintained that
the purpose of doctrine is not knowledge of the matters relating to it, but
use and practice.11 This practical Ramist emphasis was reflected in the
Puritan William Perkins, who defined theology as the science of living
blessedly forever, and in the later definitions of Arminius and William
Ames.12
A significant new development occurred when practical theology
became regarded as only part of theology. That marked the beginning of
6Peter Martyr Vermigli, Loci Communes (London, 1583), 181. This passage is drawn
from Vermiglis commentary on Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics (1563). Cf. Muller, PRRD,
1:341343.
7Bartholomew Keckermann, Systema SS. Theologiae (Hanau, 1610; 1st ed. Hanau, 1602), 1.
8Lucas Trelcatius Jr., Scholastica et Methodica Locorum Communium S. Theologiae
Institutio (1st ed. 1604) in his Opuscula Theologica Omnia (Leiden, 1614), 3.
9Franciscus Gomarus, Disputationes Theologicae in his Opera Theologica Omnia,
3 vols. (Amsterdam, 1644), 3:3. Gomarus only briefly in some corollaries at the end of the
first disputation on theology indicates that theology is a mixed science that is more
theoretical than practical. Since these disputations were held at various universities
throughout his career, it is not certain that the first disputation was actually held during
his years as professor at Leiden.
10Arminius, Opera, 30, 339340.
11Peter Ramus, Commentariorum de Religione Christiana Libri Quatuor (Frankfurt,
1576), 6.
12William Perkins, Armilla Aurea (Cambridge, 1592; translated as A Golden Chaine), 1.
a chair in practical theology at leiden university 417
practical theology as a distinct theological discipline. Although he did

not call it practical theology, the first signs of such a distinct discipline in
the Protestant tradition appeared with Marburg theologian Andreas
Hyperius, who has been called the father of practical theology in the mod-
ern sense.13 In the fourth book of his encyclopedic analysis of the field
of theology, titled De Recte Formando Theologiae Studio (1556), Hyperius
urged advanced theology students, after learning exegesis and dogmatics,
to study books about the practical activities of the churches (Ecclesiarum
) and church government.14 This included the areas of church
history, church polity, church discipline, and liturgy.
Following Hyperius, Herborn theologian Wilhelm Zepper was critical
of scholastic treatments of theology that did not serve the practical life of
the church. In his Politia Ecclesiastica (1607), he blamed the unhappy state
of the churches partly on academies where only the theory of theology
was taught to candidates for the ministry while practice and church polity
were neglected. He observed that theology faculties persisted in continu-
ous theory, in a scholastic treatment of the commonplaces (dogmatics)
and biblical exegesis; but about the way to apply the commonplaces and
the interpretation of Scripture popularly to edify common people, the way
to apply doctrine to troubled consciences, and cases that show the prac-
tice of church discipline, there was great silence in the theological schools
and in most theology books.15 To correct the situation, he called for the
appointment of a practical theologianand was the first Reformed
scholar to do so. Since the purpose of all theory is practice, he urged that
the theoretical (theoricos) professors of theology should be supple-
mented with one practical professor (professor practicum), who was also
active in the ministry with experience in church administration and
government.16
In Roman Catholic circles the study of canon law, or the system of con-
fession with its cases of conscience, was sometimes called practical theol-
ogy. For example, Johannes Molanus focused on confession in his Theologiae
Practicae Compendium (1585).17 William Perkins, in his A Discourse of
13Achelis, Entstehung, 14, 27.

14Andreas Hyperius, De Recte Formando Theologiae Studio (Basel, 1556), a5, 17, 528. On
the significance of Hyperius for practical theology see Gerhard Krause, Andreas Hyperius
in der Forschung seit 1900, Theologische Rundschau 34 (1969): 304316.
15Wilhelm Zepper, Politia Ecclesiastica (Herborn, 1607), 1114. The first edition of 1595
does not contain this passage.
16Zepper, Politia, 29.
17Achelis, Lehrbuch, 1112.
418 donald sinnema
Conscience (1596), referred to Popish books of practicall or Case-divinitie.18

It is clear that at the end of the sixteenth century Roman Catholic works of
casuistry were called practical divinity or theology.
Among Protestants Perkins himself was a pioneer in writing works on
casuistry. Besides his Discourse, he wrote The Whole Treatise of the Cases of
Conscience (1606). He does not seem to have described his own writings
on casuistry as practical divinity. Yet by the early seventeenth century it
was rather common to call any study of the cases of conscience practical
theology.19
In 1611, when he first developed his theological system, Herborn profes-
sor Johann Heinrich Alsted explicitly identified practical theology as a dis-
tinct part of theology. In a Ramist chart he divided theology into theoretical
(theorica) and practical (practica). The theoretical he divided into natural
and supernatural theology (which in turn he divided into catechetical and
didactic theology). The practical he divided into soterology (a study of the
cases of conscience, which he later called theologia casuum) on the one
hand, and prophetic (homiletics) and acroamatic theology (how to listen
to sermons) on the other.20 Thus for Alsted practical theology included
the cases of conscience, but it was more than just casuistry. In later writ-
ings that more fully elaborated his system Alsted dropped this theoretical-
practical distinction.21
While these developments indicate that practical theology was begin-
ning to emerge as a distinct discipline, there was as yet no chair in practi-
cal theology at any Protestant university.
18Thomas Merrill, ed., William Perkins 15581602, English Puritanist, His Pioneer Works
on Casuistry: A Discourse of Conscience and The Whole Treatise of Cases of Conscience
(Nieuwkoop: De Graaf, 1966), 33.
19Merrill, Perkins, xi. For example, in 1605 Stephen Egerton, editor of the fourth edition
of the Workes (London, 1605) of early Puritan casuist Richard Greenham, in his dedicatory
letter to the fourth part stated that for practicall divinity he was inferior to few or none
in his time. Cited in Kenneth Parker and Eric Carlson, Practical Divinity: The Works and
Life of Revd Richard Greenham (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), 5.
20Johann Heinrich Alsted, Methodus SS. Theologiae in VI Libros Tributa (Hanau, 1619; 1st
ed. Offenbach, 1611), 6. The chart is found in the letter of dedication, dated January 1611; the
theorica-practica distinction is explained on 3437. The Methodus of 1611 was the initial
one volume version of Alsteds theological system.
21In Alsteds expanded Methodus Sacrosanctae Theologiae Octo Libris Tradita
(Frankfurt, 1614; also Hanau, 1623) the distinction does not appear. In his Praecognitorum
Theologicorum Libri Duo (Frankfurt, 1614), 5163, and his Compendium Theologicum,
Exhibens Methodum SS. Theologiae Octo Partibus Absolutam (Hanau, 1624), 56, Alsted
reverted to the Thomist position that theology is a mixed discipline consisting of theory
and practice, contemplation and action at the same time. Alsted attended the Synod of
Dordt as a member of the Nassau delegation.
Zeeland Background
The original impetus that led to the call for a practical chair of theology
came from Classis Walcheren in the province of Zeeland. Meeting at
Middelburg on 4 October 1618, this classis sent the following gravamen
(overture) to the provincial synod of Zeeland:
To give attention to necessary exercises (oeffeninghen) for students to pre-
pare them for the ministry of the Word, so that they not only understand
doctrine, but may practice (practiseren) the same gradually for members of
the church and be better known.22
A month before the national Synod of Dordt, the provincial synod of
Zeeland, meeting at Zierikzee on 917 October 1618, considered Classis
Walcherens request and decided to forward the matter to the national
synod. In a gravamen to Dordt focusing on preparation of students for the
ministry, it expressed concern for training in the practice of piety and
called for an examination of students in the practice of theology.
It is telling that the concern to train students in the practical aspects of
the ministry arose from the province of Zeeland, the seed-bed of the Dutch
pietist movement (Nadere Reformatie). Though direct evidence tracing
the gravamen to individuals is lacking, it is noteworthy that Willem
Teellinck at this time was serving as a minister of Middelburg in Classis
Walcheren; he was the assessor (vice-president) of the 4 October classis
meeting, but he was not a delegate to the Zeeland synod.23 His colleague
at Middelburg, Hermannus Faukelius, was delegated to the Zeeland synod
and served as its president; it then chose him to be a delegate to the
national Synod of Dordt, of which he became an assessor.24 It is also sig-
nificant that in the neighboring Classis Schouwen, Godefridus Udemans
22J. Bouterse, ed., Classicale Acta 15731620 IV: Provinciale Synode Zeeland, Classis
Walcheren 16021620 (Den Haag: Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis, 1995), 304. All
translations are mine.
23On Teellinck see W. Engelberts, Willem Teellinck (Amsterdam: Ton Bolland, 1973).
24J. Reitsma and S. Van Veen, ed., Acta der Provinciale en Particuliere Synoden, gehouden
in de Noordelijke Nederlanden gedurende de Jaren 15721620 (Groningen: Wolters, 1896),
5:144, 151. Christiaan Sepp, in Het Godgeleerd Onderwijs in Nederland gedurende de 16e en 17e
Eeuw (Leiden: De Breuk & Smits, 1874), 2:20, states that perhaps it was Faukelius who deliv-
ered the gravamen to Dordt, but he offers no specific evidence. Following Sepp, H. Kaajan,
De Pro-Acta der Dordtsche Synode in 1618 (Rotterdam: De Vries, 1914), 298, says that it was by
Faukelius initiative that the Zeeland gravamen was sent to Dordt. On Faukelius see
J. Borsius, Hermannus Faukelius, zijn Leven, Karakter en Letterkundige Verdiensten,
Nederlandsch Archief voor Kerkelijke Geschiedenis 4 (1844): 184348.
420 donald sinnema
was a pastor at Zierikzee.25 He was the assessor of the Zeeland synod,

which also sent him as a delegate to Dordt. Both Teellinck and Udemans
were well known leaders of the Nadere Reformatie, which especially
sought to cultivate the practice of piety in the Dutch churches. This
emphasis they drew from English Puritanism.
The original gravamen as found in the acts of the Zeeland synod reads
as follows:
Because one finds by experience that when students of theology come out of
the academies they are in general (door den bant) very poorly trained in the
practice of piety (practijcke der godsalicheijt) as well as in church polity, it is
decided to present this matter to the national synod and urge it as abso-
lutely necessary for the upbuilding of the congregations of Christ. For this
purpose some appropriate means shall be proposed on our behalf in order
to correct this deficiency; especially, that they should have practice in the
public reading of holy Scripture in the church, and in visiting the sick with a
regular minister; that they also should be permitted (though with some limi-
tation) in the consistories so that they may hear and observe the proceed-
ings that are not secret or concerned with individuals (particulier); that they
should also be examined to some extent in the practice of theology (practyke
van de theologie) before they go on to serve in the church. And from now on
efforts shall be made to introduce the same in the churches of this
province.26
Practical Theology at the Synod of Dordt
The matter of preparation of students for the ministry was taken up early
on the agenda of the Synod of Dordt (November 1618 to May 1619)in the
Pro-Acta sessions before the Remonstrants (Arminians) arrived to have
their views examined. On 16 November the Dutch delegates were asked to
copy their gravamina and submit them to the synods officers.27 The gra-
vamen actually submitted by Zeeland consisted of only the first half of
their original version quoted above; it ends with this deficiency.28
After treating the issues of a new Bible translation, catechism instruction,
and the baptizing of slave children, the Synod of Dordt turned to Zeelands
25On Udemans see P. Meertens, Godefridus Cornelisz Udemans, NAKG 28 (1935):

65106.
26Reitsma-Van Veen, Acta, 5:149.
27H.H. Kuyper, De Post-Acta of Nahandelingen van de Nationale Synode van Dordrecht in
1618 en 1619 gehouden (Amsterdam: Hoveker & Wormser, 1899), 414.
28The Zeeland gravamen as submitted is printed in Kuyper, Post-Acta, 442.
gravamen in its eighteenth session on Saturday, 1 December. To aid the

discussion of the gravamen the Zeeland and South Holland delegates had
already prepared written advice on the training of theology students for
the ministry. Both of these were then presented and read by a secretary of
the synod.29
The South Holland advice suggested requirements for theological stu-
dents both before and after they are given permission to publicly exhort
(proponere).30 Since Zeelands advice specifically mentioned practical
theology, it is more pertinent to our purpose. This advice was basically an
expanded version of the second half of Zeelands original gravamen.31
Zeelands advice first offered some suggestions on the recruitment and
selection of students for the ministry and then turned to their proper
training. It recommended a standardized five or six year study of philoso-
phy, languages, and especially theology, followed by a study tour of for-
eign universities and churches. Then, after positive recommendations
from ministers and professors and a preparatory examination, students
might be allowed to publicly exhort. They should also gain other kinds of
practical experience to prepare them better for the ministry. First, they
should publicly read Scripture in the churches.
Next, it would be useful for them often to be with pastors to discuss with
them the various cases of conscience (conscientiae casibus), and to accom-
pany them in visiting the sick and comforting the distressed, and to learn
from them how to speak to such people, how to encourage the distressed,
and also to learn what sort of prayers should sometimes be said in these
circumstances. For even though they ought to come to the churches from
the schools trained in speaking, yet what they have learned must be put into
practice (ad praxin). This they need to learn from pastors.32
Also, several months before they accept a call, they should be allowed,
under certain conditions, to attend meetings of the consistory and of the
deacons in order to gain insight on how church government functions,
how to discipline, and how to care for the poor. The final recommenda-
tion is especially pertinent:
Finally, till now in the examination before their promotion attention has
been paid only to doctrine, namely whether they are orthodox, which we
29Kaajan, Pro-Acta, 267.

30Printed in Kaajan, Pro-Acta, 377, and summarized on 270271.
31Printed in the Acta Synodi Nationalis,Dordrechti habitae Anno MDCXVIII et MDCXIX
(Leiden: Elzevir, 1620), session 18, 4950, and summarized in Kaajan, Pro-Acta, 269270.
32Acta Synodi Nationalis, 50.
422 donald sinnema
admit is primary; nevertheless, one can consider whether it is useful to

establish also a practical examination (examen practicum) in which they
may be examined whether they are steadfast in the word which is according
to godliness (pietatem) [1 Tim. 6:3]33 and are capable of teaching Christian
Ethics (Ethicam Christianam) and of forming the conduct of people in every
kind of virtue. For it is proper that the man of God be thoroughly equipped
for every good work, not only prepared for doctrine and reproof, but also for
correction and instruction in righteousness [2 Tim. 3:1617]. For this it is
desirable that the minds of young men in the Colleges and Universities be
trained in Practical Theology (Theologia Practica) and instructed in the vari-
ous cases of conscience (conscientiarum casibus).34
In the next session on Monday the other foreign and Dutch delegations
had the opportunity to present their advice on theological education.
Almost every delegation, including the Dutch theology professors,
expressed their basic approval of the Zeeland recommendations,35 but
only the Hesse delegation specifically commented on the need for some-
one to teach practical theology:
Therefore it would be well advised if in the colleges, after study of the lan-
guages and philosophy is completed, they first be properly instructed in the
body of Christian doctrine, and then, when they have attained a fair knowl-
edge of the theological commonplaces, they also get practice in preaching
no less than in disputing, though privately within the walls of the colleges
under the supervision and direction of some practical theologian (Theologi
practici) well skilled in preaching, whom they may hold up as a model to
imitate.36
In the discussion that took place the next day the synod focused on five
particular issues: whether candidates for the ministry should be permitted
to preach publicly; whether they might baptize; whether they should be
allowed to attend consistory and classis meetings; whether they should
33Text references in brackets are added to identify biblical citations.

34Acta Synodi Nationalis, 50. John Hales, who observed the synod as chaplain to Dudley
Carleton, the English ambassador to the Netherlands, summarized Zeelands advice in a
letter and noted that it recommended: That it were fit that even in Universities Youths
were trained up in Practick Divinity and Cases of Conscience. Mr Hales Letters from the
Synod of Dort toDudley Carleton, in his Golden Remains (London, 1673), 18.
35The advice of each delegation is printed in Kaajan, Pro-Acta, 36981, and is summa-
rized on 271284. Theological delegates Johannes Polyander, Antonius Thysius, and
Antonius Walaeus, who would belong to the Leiden theology faculty after Dordt, individu-
ally expressed agreement with the Zeeland recommendations, except for certain items,
374377. None of their exceptions was an objection to the need for training in practical
theology and the cases of conscience; yet they did not specifically express support for such
training.
36Kaajan, Pro-Acta, 370.
read Scripture in worship services; and whether the synod should make a
binding decision on these matters for all provinces or only give advice.
Except for ruling against permission to baptize, the synod decided to leave
these matters to the discretion of the local classes and churches.37
Zeelands recommendation that practical theology should be taught in
the academies did not come up in these deliberations, except briefly dur-
ing the discussion whether candidates may be allowed to attend consis-
tory and classis meetings to observe how the churches handled pastoral
cases and matters of church polity. In this context Festus Hommius, a
Leiden minister and a secretary of the synod, advised that professors of
theology, besides their other exercises, also ought to hold a practical set of
lectures (collegium practicum) in which some cases of conscience are
treated.38 The minister of Dordrecht, Balthasar Lydius, advised that it
would be useful that a book on cases of conscience be composed espe-
cially for the use of these candidates.39 In his journal, Swiss theologian
and delegate Johannes Breitinger noted that there was no one who did
not say that consideration should be paid to the way and manner of set-
ting up a private practical set of lectures (collegii privati practici) in which
cases of conscience and consistorial cases are discussed for the sake of
training and preparing ministers.40
Further discussion took place the next day, and the synod asked
Faukelius to draft guidelines for the preparation of candidates for the min-
istry. He was to make use of the regulations of the Collegium Sapientiae, a
training school for ministers in Heidelberg. The matter was then tabled
until these guidelines could be presented for approval. However, the
Synod of Dordt never returned to the matter.41 Thus the synod took no
further action on the teaching of practical theology.
37These discussions are analyzed by Kaajan, Pro-Acta, 285298.

38As reported in the journal of Dutch delegate Caspar Sibelius; cited by Kaajan, Pro-
Acta, 292.
39As reported by Sibelius; cited by Kaajan, Pro-Acta, 292. Earlier William Perkins had
written his two books on casuistry, A Discourse of Conscience (1596) and The Whole Treatise
of the Cases of Conscience (1606). The former had also been translated into Latin and Dutch,
as Anatomia Sacra Humanae Conscientiae (Basel, 1603; reprint 1604) and Een Excellent
Tractaet van de Conscientie (Amsterdam, 1598; reprints 1608, 1614), the latter only into
Latin, as Aureae Casuum Conscientiae Decisiones (Basel, 160809; reprint 1609). Soon after
Dordt one of the foreign delegates, Johann Heinrich Alsted, published Theologia Casuum,
Exhibens Anatomen Conscientiae et Scholam Tentationum (Hanau, 1621); his Methodus SS.
Theologiae (1611) had already focused on cases of conscience in a brief Book IV.
40Cited in Kaajan, Pro-Acta, 292.
41Kaajan, Pro-Acta, 298; Kuyper, Post-Acta, 418.
424 donald sinnema
The South Holland Synod and William Ames
The next step in the pursuit to establish practical theology shifts to the
provincial synod of South Holland, the province where Leiden University
was located. Here the matter became part of a campaign to reform the
Dutch universities, especially Leiden which had been at the center of the
Arminian controversy. In 1618 the South Holland synod of Delft had sent
several gravamina to the Synod of Dordt with ten recommendations for
reform.42 The main concern was to get rid of professors who were not
orthodox, especially those in theology, and replace them with others who
would uphold the orthodox Reformed position. The Synod of Dordt basi-
cally accepted South Hollands recommendations and referred them to
the States General.43 Such recommendations from ecclesiastical synods
could not easily be implemented, however, because the synods had only
moral authority in these matters and could only appeal to the States for
change. Control of the Dutch universities and appointment of professors
was in the hands of the States, with Leiden University locally governed by
a board of curators and Leiden burgomasters. Even after the political lead-
ership shifted to those who sympathized with Reformed orthodoxy, the
States were reluctant to share control of higher education with church
authorities. Nevertheless, soon after the Synod of Dordt concluded, the
States of Holland and West-Friesland decided on 4 July 1619 to appoint a
commission to reform Leiden University. It was composed of the curators
and burgomasters as well as Prince Maurice and several other municipal
officials.44
Just prior to the Synod of Dordt the Leiden theology faculty had only
two professors, Simon Episcopius, who became the leader of the
Remonstrants who were summoned before Dordt,45 and Johannes
Polyander, a moderate Contra-Remonstrant who was delegated to Dordt
as the theological representative of Leiden University.46 With Dordts
rejection of Arminianism, Episcopius was removed from his post.

43The Synod of Dordt dealt with university reform in sessions 45 and 163. See Kuyper,
Post-Acta, 167170, 175178, 484485, and Kaajan, Pro-Acta, 299.
44P. Molhuysen, ed., Bronnen tot de Geschiedenis der Leidsche Universiteit (s-Graven-
hage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1916), 2:8384*. Cf. C. Rademaker, Life and Work of Gerardus Joannes
Vossius (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1981), 130.
45On Episcopius see Anton Haentjens, Simon Episcopius als Apologeet van het
Remonstrantisme (Leiden: Adriani, 1899).
46On Polyander see A.J. Lamping, Johannes Polyander, Een Dienaar van Kerk en
Universiteit (Leiden: Brill, 1980).
Polyander remained as Leidens only theologian, with the task to teach

New Testament. The reform commission moved quickly and on 9 July 1619
decided to appoint two new professors of theology.47 On 20 July the cura-
tors decided to call Pierre Du Moulin as second professor of theology to
teach Old Testament48 and Antonius Walaeus as third professor to teach
the commonplaces (dogmatics).49
From 23 July to 17 August of the same year the South Holland synod met
in Leiden and followed up its concern for university reform.50 The synodi-
cal deputies51 reported that they had met with the Leiden curators and
received assurance from them that not only the theology faculty but also
all other faculties would be reformed according to the Reformed reli-
gion.52 In the context of this discussion of university reform the matter of
practical theology came up on the agenda:
This was the occasion to treat the 26th gravamen,53 which asks: Would it not
be beneficial to call a theological professor to Leiden University to teach the
students of theology Christian Ethics (Ethicam Christianam), by which is
meant Practical Theology (Theologiam Practicam)? The answer was that this
is necessary and for this purpose Mr. William Ames, whom the present
synod considers very capable for this position, shall be proposed to the Lord
Curators.54
Ames had been a student of the Puritan theologian William Perkins at
Cambridge in his native England. There Ames thinking was shaped by the
practical orientation of Perkins theology and of Ramist philosophy. In
1610 he was forced to flee his country because of his strong Puritan convic-
tions. He found refuge in the Netherlands and spent several years as a
47Molhuysen, Bronnen, 2:85, 121*.

48Du Moulin was a leading French theologian and pastor of the Reformed church at
Paris. The Paris consistory did not allow him to accept the appointment. On Du Moulin see
Lucien Rimbault, Pierre Du Moulin, 15681658 (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1966).
49Molhuysen, Bronnen, 2:85. Walaeus was a pastor at Middelburg and professor at the
Latin school there. He had served as a theological delegate at Dordt. He quickly accepted
the Leiden appointment. On Walaeus see Jan de Lind van Wijngaarden, Antonius Walaeus
(Leiden: Los, 1891).
50It is noteworthy that Festus Hommius served as president of this synod and Balthasar
Lydius as secretary. Both had spoken at Dordt of the need for practical theological training.
Gisbertus Voetius, later well known for combining orthodox doctrine and practical piety,
was also present as the pastor of Heusden. Reitsma-Van Veen, Acta, 3:325326.
51The South Holland synod usually had four synodical deputies, who served a two-year
term to represent the synod between its meetings and implement its decisions.
53The acts of this synod do not indicate which classis had sent this gravamen. Cf.
Reitsma-Van Veen, Acta, 3:399.
426 donald sinnema
chaplain of the English community at The Hague. Ames soon became a

leader in the polemic against the Arminians, writing several incisive works
to counter their errors.55 For these efforts he was appointed as advisor to
President Bogerman at the Synod of Dordt. So by 1619 Ames had estab-
lished himself as an able and orthodox theologian; his later writings would
more clearly reveal the practical emphasis of his theology.56
The same synod also decided to recommend that the curators appoint
a fifth theology professor to explain the whole Hebrew Bible paraphrasti-
cally within the course of a few years. For this position it proposed
Antonius Thysius, theology professor at Harderwijk who had also been a
theological delegate at Dordt.57
In the afternoon of 8 August the South Holland synod sent its deputies
to meet with the curators, then also meeting in Leiden, to urge ongoing
reform of the university and to propose the two new positions. According
to the synodical acts, the curators thanked the synod for its concern, and
promised to consider the recommendations and discuss them with Prince
Maurice and the other members of the reform commission. The acts note
that afterwards these recommendations were orally presented to the
Prince, who likewise promised that he would encourage this work. To
strengthen its case for university reform the synod also decided to draw
up an official request for presentation to the authorities.58
The curators minutes also take note of the 8 August meeting of the
synodical deputies with the curators and provide further details:
55Ames wrote some of the most important polemical writings against the Remonstrants
before the Synod of Dordt. These included: De Arminii Sententia, qua Electionem Omnem
Particularem Fidei Praevisae Docet Inniti, Disceptatio Scholastica inter Nic. Grevinchovium et
Guil. Amesium (Amsterdam, 1613); Rescriptio Scholastica et Brevis ad Nic. Grevinchovii
Responsum illud Prolixum, quod Opposuit Dissertationi de Redemptione Generali et Electione
ex Fide Praevisa (Leiden, 1615); Coronis ad Collationem Hagiensem, qua Argumenta
Pastorum Hollandiae adversus Remonstrantium Quinque ArticulosVindicantur (Leiden,
1618). On Ames see Keith Sprunger, The Learned Doctor William Ames (Urbana: University
of Illinois, 1972); Douglas Horton, trans., William Ames by Matthew Nethanus, Hugo Visscher
and Karl Reuter (Cambridge: Harvard Divinity School Library, 1965); Keith Sprunger,
Ames, Ramus, and the Method of Puritan Theology, HThR 59 (1966): 133151.
56In his Medulla Sacrae Theologiae (Franeker, 1623), first drafted for students whom he
tutored at Leiden between 1620 and 1622, Ames defined theology in a practical way as the
doctrine of living to God, a definition that closely reflected that of Peter Ramus. Ames
main work in the area of practical theology was to be his work on casuistry, De Conscientia
et eius Iure vel Casibus (Amsterdam, 1630), later translated as Conscience with the Power and
Cases thereof (London, 1639).
57Reitsma-Van Veen, Acta, 3:329330. On Thysius see Sepp, Godgeleerd Onderwijs,
1:171178.
As for the theological professorship, the synod also decided to propose to

the Hon. Curators and Burgomasters that since the theological faculty was
quite numerous and three professors could not sufficiently lecture to the
young men for the time they study here, and since those entering the minis-
try are principally deficient in practical theology (theologia practica) and are
also not sufficiently trained in the cases of consciencefor which the synod
thinks that a special professor should be appointed, and also one to explain
the Hebrew text of holy Scripture,therefore the aforesaid synod also
wished to recommend to the Hon. Curators and Burgomasters that the theo-
logical faculty be provided with two more professors, and for this they
wished to propose the persons of Mr. Antonius Thysius and Mr. Ames.59
The curators thanked the synod for its concern, and pointed out that they
had begun to reform the university in regard to the theology faculty and
would take further action. These minutes continue:
Then as regards the increase in the number of professors of theology, [they
replied] that they had no special mandate (niet specialicken waeren gelast)
in this matter but wanted to take the matter into further consideration, and
in due time report on it, just as they would also report if they further encoun-
tered any difficulty in reforming the other faculties of the university.60
Since the States had given the reform commission a mandate to reform,
not expand, the theology faculty, this was a convenient excuse for the
curators. Yet the synodical deputies were satisfied. They left thanking the
curators for giving them a hearing and a good answer (goede antwoorde).61
On 27 August the deputies of the South Holland synod again met with the
commission for university reform in Leiden and repeated their concerns.62
[The deputies] reminded us of the recommendation presented to us the
other time [8 August] about reform of the university, requesting that we not
only reform the theology profession, in which they said a good beginning
was now made, but also to strengthen it with two more professors, one of
whom should interpret the Hebrew Old Testament paraphrastically and the
other teach cases of conscience (casus conscientiae).63
The commission responded to several other matters, but promised it would
deliberate further on the appointment of more theology professors.
59Molhuysen, Bronnen, 2:86.

60Molhuysen, Bronnen, 2:8687. Cf. Horton, Ames, 151152.
62The synodical deputies for the year were the pastors Abraham Muysenholius, Hugo
Beyerus, Balthasar Lydius, and Henricus Arnoldi. Reitsma-Van Veen, Acta, 3:404.
63As reported in the reform commissions 31 August report to the States of Holland and
West-Friesland. Molhuysen, Bronnen, 2:125*.
428 donald sinnema
The next day the commission went to The Hague to consult with Prince
Maurice, and on 29 August it reached several decisions on the dismissal of
some pro-Arminian professors at the university and on the theology
faculty:
Since the aforementioned deputies of the South Holland synod also urged
that the faculty of theology should be provided with two more professors,
one of them in the cases of conscience, the other to read and interpret the
Hebrew Old Testament in a short paraphrase so that the whole Old
Testament can be completed in three years, which would be very useful to
prepare students of theology sooner for ministry in the church, hence it is
decided that one more professor should first be called, namely one to inter-
pret the Old Testament in the way just mentioned, and for this post there
was proposed the person of Mr. Antonius Thysius, professor of theology at
Harderwijk, with instructions that the Lord Curators should take steps to
make the call in a few days;64 and as for the second requested appointment
it is understood that it is not so necessary and therefore for the time being it
is turned down (is verstaen, dat deselve zoo nodich nyet en is, ende is die mits-
dien voor alsnoch afgeslagen).65
With these decisions the commission for reform of the university con-
sidered its work done, and on 31 August it wrote a report of its activities for
the States of Holland and West-Friesland.66 On 19 December this report
was presented to the States, which approved the work of the commis-
sion.67 The States also declared that the ongoing governance of the univer-
sity would remain with the curators and burgomasters in spite of the
actions of the South Holland synod.68
This setback for the appointment of a practical theologian was not sim-
ply due to the commissions judgment that it was unnecessary. That may
have been a convenient excuse. More important was a political factor that
involved William Ames troubled relationship with the English govern-
ment. Due to his fervent Puritan convictions, Ames had been forced to
leave England. In the Netherlands he remained closely tied to the exiled
English Puritan community there. At the time he was nominated for the
practical theology appointment, he was suspected of having a hand in
64On 31 August the curators appointed Thysius to be the fourth professor of theology.
Molhuysen, Bronnen, 2:87.
65As reported in the commissions 31 August report. Molhuysen, Bronnen, 2:127*. Cf.
Rademaker, Vossius, 137.
66Molhuysen, Bronnen, 2:119128*.
67Molhuysen, Bronnen, 2:128129*. The States also noted that Prince Maurice had been
involved with the commission and had approved its report.
68Molhuysen, Bronnen, 2:131*.
writing certain Puritan books published at Leiden that were critical of

the Church of Englands hierarchy. Hence Dudley Carleton, the English
ambassador to the Netherlands, made every effort to oppose Ames
appointment to Leiden University. On 18 September 1619 Carleton wrote
to secretary of state Robert Naunton:
Upon some just ground of suspicion, that Mr. Amys hath his hand in many
of those books, I have desired the curators of the university of Leyden not
to admit him to a place of public professor, to which he doth pretend, and
hath many strong recommendations, until he hath given his majesty full sat-
isfaction; which they do very willingly yield unto; and I am well assured his
preferment will here stay, unless his majesty give way unto it.69
Thus it appears that the primary reason the curators did not appoint
Ames to a practical theology position was political pressure from England,
with whom the Dutch wanted to maintain good diplomatic relations.
Several months later, on 22 January 1620, Leiden theology professor
Johannes Polyander wrote to Carleton about Ames situation.70 Two days
later Carleton reported in a letter to Naunton how he responded to
Polyander with continued opposition to Ames appointment:
That which he [Polyander] inlargeth further, concerns Mr. Amys, who seek-
ing for a professors place, if not in divinity, yet in logic and some of the sci-
ences, finds friends amongst the curators, particularly Paw of Amsterdam,
whose sons he hath under his tutelage; upon knowledge whereof I recom-
mended to Polyander the care (as I have done formerly to the curators) that
his majesty should not be affronted with that mans preferment before he
had given full satisfaction to his majesty in those things wherein he hath
offended his majesty.71
This letter indicates that Ames had some support among the Leiden cura-
tors. It also suggests that Polyanders support for Ames was motivated
more by a personal concern to find any teaching position for Ameseven
in the Arts faculty of the universitythan by a desire to establish the
practical theology position.
Although Carleton effectively blocked Ames appointment to a Leiden
position, the three Leiden theology professors sought to appeal the matter
directly to England. On 28 May 1620 Polyander, Walaeus, and Thysius
69Letters from and to Sir Dudley Carleton, Knt. During his Embassy in Holland, from
January 1615/16 to December 1620 (London, 1775), 390.
70The volume of Dudley Carletons Letters mentions this letter in French from
Polyander, but does not reproduce it, 435.
71Carlton, Letters, 435. This letter was dated 14 January 1620, Old Style.
430 donald sinnema
wrote a letter to George Abbot, the Archbishop of Canterbury, asking him

to intercede with King James I to allow Ames to take up the Leiden
appointment:
Since among the protectors of true religion and patrons of orthodox theolo-
gians you deservedly hold the primary place among the British, we thought
that it would not be ungracious to your distinguished Reverence if we
respectfully commended to you the situation of our unfortunate brother
William Ames, a godly and very learned man. For some years now we have
noticed several times the very resolute judgments of your good-will toward
our churches, and your distinguished Reverence is not unaware that your
Ames is also not ill-deserving in regard to these [churches], because of his
faithful defense of sound doctrine against the Remonstrants which he has
published here in various writings. We are distressed by the misfortune
that he spends his private life in poverty. We strongly bewail the fact that he
has incurred such suspicion of fault on the part of your King that he ordered
that he be removed from the pastoral office, and therefore he is not able to
be promoted by us to another function.72 We can find no more appropriate
remedy to restore him to the favor of your most merciful King than in the
great humanity and kindness of your distinguished Reverence, to which
alone we are led to take refuge with his name. Therefore we wish that your
distinguished Reverence, having been resolutely asked, will plead the cause
of Ames before your King as kindly as his sad and extreme necessity
demands, which constrains us to be his intercessors according to our duty,
lest the exceptional gifts with which God has equipped him remain buried
and useless to our churches.73
Festus Hommius, who visited England in June 1620 to present copies of
the just published Acta of the Synod of Dordt to King James, the arch-
bishop, and the Prince of Wales, delivered the professors letter to Abbot
and also personally commended Ames cause as something desired by the
Dutch church.74 According to Matthew Nethanus, Ames first biographer,
Archbishop Abbot replied that he was delighted that an Englishmen
endowed with notable gifts was considered worthy of a public professor-
ship outside his own country, but they should know that Ames was not
an obedient son of his mother, the Church of England, but a rebel.75
72That is, the Leiden appointment.

73This letter is printed in Albert Eekhoff, De Theologische Faculteit te Leiden in de 17de
Eeuw (Utrecht: Ruys, 1921), 36. It was written in Walaeus hand.
74Hommius was at this time the regent of the Staten College at Leiden. On his trip to
England see Pieter Wijminga, Festus Hommius (Leiden: Donner, 1899), 310313, and
Molhuysen, Bronnen, 2:169*.
75Matthew Nethanus, Praefatio Introductoria, in William Ames, Opera (Amsterdam,
1658). The preface is dated 19 July 1658.
The official reply, written on 24 June by Abbots chaplain Thomas Goad,

was somewhat more diplomatic but firm:
As for the present condition of Ames and our most Serene Kings opinion
that you imagined is mitigated toward him, any efforts of a mediator or
intercessor in this matter will be in vain, if he who has not a little dishonored
the Church, his mother and nurse, continues to fall short, namely in writings
launched and published in press.76
On his return to the Netherlands Hommius delivered this letter to the
Leiden theologians.77 The attempt to hire Ames for the position of practi-
cal theologian at Leiden had failed. Thereafter Ames was no longer men-
tioned in this connection, although the South Holland synod continued
its efforts to secure such a position at Leiden.
The support for Ames by the Leiden theology professors is not easy to
understand. Does their support for his case indicate their support for a
separate position in practical theology? On the surface it may appear so.
And Nethanus, Ames biographer, also seems to imply this. In 1658 he
noted that the professors of sacred theology themselves eagerly desired
(exoptabant) that he would be given to them as a colleague.78
Other evidence, however, suggests that Polyander, at least, did not sup-
port the notion of a separate practical theology position, at the very time
that he was lobbying for Ames. This is apparent in the view of theology
articulated in the dogmatic cycle of academic disputations drawn up by
the Leiden theologians and published in 1625 as the Synopsis Purioris
Theologiae. Polyander drafted and presided over the first disputation,
titled On Sacred Theology, on 6 February 162079two weeks after he
wrote his letter about Ames to Dudley Carleton. This disputation declares
that theology as a whole is both theoretical and practical:
76Molhuysen, Bronnen, 2:169*. This letter was dated 14 June 1620, Old Style. Thomas
Goad had been a member of the English delegation at the Synod of Dordt, so he was well
known to Hommius and the Leiden theology professors, all of whom were at Dordt.
77Eekhoff, Theologische Faculteit, 4.
78Nethanus, Praefatio.
79The cycle of disputations that was eventually published in the Synopsis began in
February 1620. A list of the proposed disputations for this cycle was published with an ora-
tion of Polyander in Orationes Inaugurales a SS. Theologiae Professoribus & Collegii Illust.
Ordinum Hollandiae & West-Frisiae Moderatoribus habitae (Leiden, 1620), 34; the list bears
the title, Catalogue of Disputations of the Theological Faculty begun in the month of
January, in the year 1620. Actually the cycle began in February, according to Everhardus
Bronkhorst, Diarium, sive adversaria omnia quae gesta sunt in Academia Leydensi, 15911627
(The Hague, 1898), 147.
432 donald sinnema
22. From this the question arises, whether sacred theology is theoretical
(theoretica) or practical (practica)? Some theologians reply to this question
that it is theoretical, others that it is practical, and others that it is mixed. We
agree with the last reply, so we think that it should be called both theoretical
and practical, on account of its twofold end, namely its joining together of
knowledge and worship of God in this life, and on account of its arranging of
the one under the other. For just as godliness (pietas) is subordinated in the
holy Scriptures to our salvation and Gods glory, so knowledge is subordi-
nated to godliness (1 Tim. 4:8, Col. 3:16, Titus 1:1).
23. Therefore theory (theoria) and practice (praxis) are not opposed species
(differentiae) of theology, but conditions (conditiones) united together and
arranged in their order for attaining eternal life.
24. Theology does not consist of bare idle speculation, but of practical
knowledge (scientia practica) effectively moving the will and all the affec-
tions of the heart to worship God and to love ones neighbor. Hence faith is
said to work effectively through love (Gal. 5:6, 1 Thess. 1:3).80
The assertion in thesis 23 that theory and practice are not opposed differ-
entiae of theology excludes the possibility of practical theology as a dis-
tinct species of theologythat is, a separate theological discipline.
Following the emphasis on practice as inherently part of all theology, the
dogmatic disputations found in the Synopsis often include a thesis on the
use (usus) or fruit (fructus) of the doctrine in question.81 This had long
been a feature of Protestant exegetical and dogmatic analysis.82
It seems that Walaeus and Thysius shared the stance of Polyander. The
same view of theology is apparent in a statement drawn up by the four
Leiden theologians in June 1623,83 as well as in a later work of Walaeus.84
Why then did Polyander and his colleagues take up Ames case if they
did not support the idea of a distinct discipline of practical theology?
Perhaps the best answer lies in their concern for the person rather than
the position. That emphasis is evident in Polyanders letter to Carleton
as much as we know of itand even clearer in the appeal of the three
80Johannes Polyander, Andreas Rivetus, Antonius Walaeus, and Antonius Thysius,

Synopsis Purioris Theologiae (Leiden, 1625), 6.
81E.g., Synopsis, 56, 151, 176, 210211, 276.
82For example, Andreas Hyperius, in his influential volume on how to do theological
studies, De Recte Formando Theologiae Studio (Basel, 1556), 381382, 387, advised that in a
scholastic method of exegesis the interpreter should note what in a passage may be useful
for the present timefor doctrine, reproof, instruction, correction, or consolationand
in a scholastic method of explaining commonplaces (dogmatics) it is fitting to note how
much spiritual fruit can be gained from a doctrine, both publicly for the church and pri-
vately for the conscience.
83See below.
84Antonius Walaeus, Loci Communes S. Theologiae (Leiden, 1640), ch. 1.
professors to Archbishop Abbot. Nowhere in these documents is the prac-

tical theology position even mentioned. The personal relationship of the
professors to Ames was forged at least at the Synod of Dordt where all of
them were present.
The South Holland Synods Later Efforts
When the South Holland synod met at Gouda later in the summer of 1620
(4 August), one of the Leiden curators, Rochus van den Honert85 was pres-
ent to report on the actions of the curators regarding reform of the univer-
sity. As reported in the acts of this session,
It is noted that the Lord Curators still have not been able to decide to call a
professor of practical theology (professorem theologiae practicae). It is also
understood from Lord Curator van den Honert that the request is not abso-
lutely turned down (afgeslagen) and completely beyond all hope. So the
synod (judging that such an appointment (professie) would be most useful
and profitable for the churches) has decided that the deputies of the synod
shall plead the mind of the synod in writing (scripto) to the Lord Curators,
and also give a further explanation of the nature and necessity of this
appointment.86
At the same meeting van den Honert offered to bring a report of this to the
curators and to do what he could (de goed hand bieden) in the matter.87
Several days later, on 810 August, the Leiden curators met and van den
Honert reported on various actions of the South Holland synod relating
to the university. As for the theology position, the curator minutes simply
report that he had turned down the request of the synod to appoint a
professor who would teach Christian Ethics or Practical Theology (Ethica
christiana of Theologia practica) by appealing to the finances of the
University.88 There is no indication that van den Honert did anything to
support the case for a practical theology appointment. And the synodical
deputies had not yet followed up on their mandate to draw up a docu-
ment that would present this case to the curators.
85Van den Honert was one of the new curators of Leiden University when the reform
of the university began in 1619 at the urging of the Synod of Dordt. On him see Nieuw
Nederlandsch Biographisch Woordenboek, 8:817.
434 donald sinnema
It seems that the deputies were not very eager to pursue the matter
with the curators, because a year later they still had not drawn up a docu-
ment to present the case for a practical theologian. When the South
Holland synod next met at Rotterdam on 2030 July 1621, the synodical
deputies explained that they had planned a certain day to present the
synods request to the curators, but due to some difficulties that came up
they were prevented from doing so. Still, the synod continued to press the
matter, although it now offered an alternative proposal:
The assembly, noting how necessary and profitable this professorship is for
the young students, agreed that the deputies of the synod should earnestly
pursue with the Lord Curators that one of the four (enen van de vier) present
Professors of Theology be assigned the aforementioned profession.89
Instead of pressing for the separate appointment of a professor in practi-
cal theology, the synod now proposed that one of the four Leiden theolo-
gians should focus part of his teaching on practical theology. The reason
for this shift in strategy was probably due to a realization that the curators
would never make a separate appointment in this field, especially after
they had just added a fourth theologian to the Leiden faculty. In October
1620 Andreas Rivetus had joined the theology faculty as a second Old
Testament Professor.90
Even with this renewed mandate the synodical deputies did not imme-
diately pursue the matter with the curators. When the curators met again
on 9 August, the deputies were not present and the issue of practical the-
ology did not come up.91
A year later no further progress was made. The South Holland synod
met at Gorinchem on 59 July 1622 and reaffirmed the mandate it had
given to its deputies:
The deputies of this synod, as before, are still instructed to pursue the
matter with all diligence with the Lord Curators of the university, also
because it may be found necessary that practical theology be taught by one
particular professor in the University of Leiden, since this synod cannot but
understand that this profession is highly necessary and profitable for stu-
dents of sacred theology.92
89W. Knuttel, ed., Acta der Particuliere Synoden van Zuid-Holland 16211700 (The Hague:
Nijhoff, 1908), 1:4.
90Molhuysen, Bronnen, 2:96. On Rivetus, see H. Honders, Andreas Rivetus als Invloedrijk
Gereformeerd Theoloog in Hollands Bloeitijd (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1930).
92Knuttel, Acta, 1:40.
Finally, in the fall of that year the synodical deputies presented the case
for practical theology in writing to the Leiden curators.93 Since this docu-
ment, presented to the 9 November meeting of the curators, contains a
detailed rationale for teaching practical theology, it is worth reproducing
in full:
With due respect the deputies of the synod of South Holland state that the
synod held at Leiden in 1619, and also all the subsequent synods of Gouda,
Rotterdam, and most recently Gorinchem (art. 1), deemed it highly neces-
sary that a professor of practical theology should be called to the University
of Leiden, and instructed the deputies of this synod to propose and recom-
mend this earnestly to your Honors.
How necessary it is that practical theology be taught is evident not only
from the fact that other Reformed universities and illustrious schools have
such professors who publicly teach students practical theology94which
they never would have approved or implemented unless they had been
completely assured of the necessity and singular usefulness of such a profes-
sionbut also from the fact that the goal of the study of sacred theology
ought to be practice (praxis): namely, how a student of theology entering
the holy ministry of the church may fruitfully take up this ministry. For this
it is not only necessary that he should thoroughly understand sacred theol-
ogy, be sound in the faith, and be able to point out and explain the right
meaning of holy Scripture, but also that he should know how to present the
use (usum) of all the main points of sacred theology capably to his listeners,
so that they may thereby be edified and learn how they ought to benefit
from it, whether it be to console their consciences when they are anxious
and tempted or to reform their life.
This is what students of theology here in this country have lacked till now.
They well understand the fundamentals, know how to give a good account
of them and how to analyze and interpret the text of holy Scripture fairly
well, but when they come to its use and practice, it goes so badly that the
congregations that they ought to tend as shepherds draw little benefit from
their sermons. The Holy Spirit, however, teaches that the principal goal of
church ministry is edification: Christ has given some for the work of the
ministry, namely for the edifying of the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:1112).
Likewise, all Scripture inspired by God, says Paul, is profitable for teaching,
for reproof, for correction, for instruction (2 Tim. 3:16). Likewise: all that was
written is for our edification (Rom. 15:4).
Here is where students fall short: they do not know how to reprove the
unrepentant for their sins, console and strengthen the weak, admonish the
wayward, and instruct everyone according to their condition, situation, and
93The synodical deputies at this time were Johannes Dibbetzius, Henricus Swalmius,
Petrus Nienrode, and Wynandus Schuylius, pastors respectively of Dordrecht, Delft,
Rotterdam, and Scheveningen. Knuttel, Acta, 1:61.
94This claim was soon denied by the Leiden theologians.
436 donald sinnema
calling. Yet, this task is expressly commanded of them by God, in Ezekiel 33

[34] and in Pauls letters to Timothy and Titus in various passages. This defi-
ciency is due to the fact that they are not instructed in practical theology.
Thus, in this matter the aforementioned deputies in the name as before
[of the South Holland synod] request that it may please your Honors to con-
sider this matter maturely and to issue an order that a professor of practical
theology be called or that this task be assigned to and required of any one of
the four professors of sacred theology, so that when the students enter the
church ministry, after also being instructed therein, they may serve the con-
gregations with greater edification, since Gods glory as well as human salva-
tion shall thereby be greatly advanced.95
After the synodical deputies presented their document to the curators
and orally made their case for the discipline of practical theology as very
useful and necessary, the curators and burgomasters gave their reply:
They also judged that the aforementioned profession would not be without
use, but that the finances and revenues of the University could not bear that
they should call a person newly and expressly to this profession, and that
before the aforementioned task is assigned to the present professors of the
theological faculty, they ought to be informed and sounded out by the afore-
mentioned curators and burgomasters. Also, they allow the aforemen-
tioned deputies themselves to speak with the theology professors about this
matter.96
Within the next three months the Leiden curators and burgomasters
consulted with the theology professors about the matter of practical the-
ology. Meanwhile the deputies of the South Holland synod had already
communicated with the professors about the request that one of them
teach practical theology. At the next curators meeting on 79 February
1623, a report was made of these consultations. According to the minutes
of this meeting, the Leiden theologians had told the deputies:
that the same deputies should be satisfied when the aforementioned profes-
sors impressed (quamen in te scherpen) practical theology upon the students
in their lessons, and applied the same to the conscience after explaining the
texts (naer explicatie van de texten de selve totte conscientien te appliceren).
This being the case, the aforementioned professors thought that no special
professorship of practical theology is necessary (egeen bysondere professie
Theologicae practicae noodich te zijn).97
This response of the professors is consistent with the position expressed
in the Synopsis. With Ames out of the picture, they forthrightly rejected

the idea of separate instruction in practical theology, contending that

they incorporated the practical application of theology throughout their
teaching. Perhaps pressure from the curators was also a factor, and per-
haps each of the four was personally reluctant to focus on teaching practi-
cal theology when that option was proposed.
When the South Holland synodical deputies had consulted with the
Leiden theologians (sometime around the end of 1622), the deputies had
requested that the theologians write up their reply to the suggestion that
one of them should teach practical theology. This written reply was not
immediately forthcoming, so the deputies repeated their request. The the-
ology faculty finally drew up their reply on 6 June 1623. It has been pre-
served only in draft form, but this well articulates the position of the
theologians:
We very much embrace this concern of the synod whereby it strongly
desires that no part of theology that may contribute to a complete education
in it should be lacking in the theological profession; and we testify that we
also have asserted and pursued the same concern, and we are very prepared
to do everything we can that may be appropriate and advantageous for
advancing theological studies and students of theology. But in regard to
practical theology, like you we consider it very useful, yes necessary, since
we say that the whole [of theology] is practical in its use, and also, in a large
part of it, in its content and subject matter. (For whatever is taught in it has
in view the practice of faith and of conduct, and so it extends itself through-
out the whole body of theology; and in so far as it forms a definite part, it
refers in particular to the Decalogue.) But whether the practical (practica)
should be separated and treated separately from the theoretical (theoret-
ica)as the papists do, who, while separating that part which deals with the
Decalogue and the virtues and is occupied with what they call the cases of
conscience and the manner of discipline, attach highly useless, superfluous,
inquisitive, dangerous, and scandal-filled questions and determine them
with great audacitythat we very much doubt. We certainly know of no
Reformed university thus far that has followed this as a policy.98 Meanwhile,
however, what the synod requires we have done until now (even if not in
that way and manner), in all sorts of places joining with doctrine its use and
practice (usum et praxim); and by the advice and request of the synod we
will further do so all the more diligently. Indeed, we have begun more fully
to point out its use and practicewe who are engaged in interpreting the
Old and New Testaments do so here and there and as the occasion presents
itself, and he who is engaged in explaining the commonplaces (locos
98Thus the Leiden theologians denied the earlier claim by the synodical deputies that
other Reformed universities and schools already had theologians teaching practical theol-
ogy as a distinct discipline.
438 donald sinnema
communes) does so in separate concluding loci.99 In fact, we give guidance

to the students in practice preaching (exercitio propositionum) and in what
are called preparatory exercises (progymnasmatis) for the holy ministry,
where the treatment and practice of these is clearly done for that purpose.
This is the sum of your request and of our reply, with which we are con-
vinced the synod will be satisfied.100
Again, this statement reflects the position of the Synopsis. No separate
treatment of practical theology is necessary. The practical emphasis is to
be somehow incorporated in theology as a whole. But now the Leiden
theologians were willing to work harder at highlighting the practical
aspects.
Without support from the Leiden curators and theologians, the South
Holland synod then began to back off in its insistence on separate instruc-
tion in practical theology. At the next meeting of the synod on 412 July
1623, the synodical deputies reported on the developments of the past
year: the curators said the university could not at the present time incur
the expense of establishing a new theology position, and the Leiden theo-
logians both orally and in writing had shown that such a distinct position
was not absolutely necessary (niet soo geheel nodich) because they taught
in such a way that the practice is always explained and pointed out with
the theory. Several persons at the synod who had studied under these
professors also testified that this was indeed the case. The synod responded
that it considered that the deputies had thus far fulfilled their mandate in
this matter, provided that they should renew the request if they ever saw
a better opportunity to obtain something in this regard from the curators.
Meanwhile, they should keep an eye on the teaching of the professors, and
on occasion urge them to make progress on their promise and initial
efforts in this matter and as much as possible to be brief in the method
and course of theoretical and practical theology.101
It appears that the synodical deputies did keep an eye on the profes-
sors, but the practical results of their approach of combining the theoreti-
cal and practical in their teaching were not impressive. When the synod
met again on 220 July 1624, the deputies reported that the Leiden theolo-
gians had explained that, though they had done their duty in this regard,
they could not bring the students to the practice of theology as quickly as
99Rivetus and Thysius were the Old Testament professors and Polyander was the New
Testament professor; Walaeus was teaching the commonplaces (dogmatics).
they wished; this was not due to the lack of a professor in practical theol-
ogy, but because students sent to the university from the lower (triviale)
schools were so ignorant and little educated in the basics of Christian doc-
trine. Though the theology professors still did not consider it necessary to
seek a professor of practical theology, the synod nevertheless thought it
would be beneficial that, as the opportunity arose, efforts should continue
to obtain such a professorin view of the fact that there were always two
kinds of students in the university, those who enter fresh and inexperi-
enced and those who with time are fairly well trained. To address the
problem of incoming students, the synod also instructed all its ministers
to urge the rectors of the local schools as much as possible to instill in the
youth the basic principles of religion, at their level of comprehension.102
The following year, when the synod met on 2126 July, the synodical
deputies explained that they had found no good opportunity to pursue
efforts with the Leiden curators to obtain a professor of practical theology.
All the more so because the theology professors still persisted in the idea
that such a position was unnecessary, since they conduct their lessons
and proposed exercises in such a way that they instill in the students of
theology not only its theory but also its practice, in their public lectures as
well as private classes. The synod now seemed resigned to the situation;
it only decided that its deputies should on occasion urge the professors to
continue what they were doing (tselve also na te komen).103
In 1626, at the meeting of the South Holland synod on 717 July, the
deputies reported that they had spoken at length with the Leiden theolo-
gians about obtaining a professor of practical theology, but in the end they
received the answer that the theology professors did set up and conduct
their public teaching with the goal that their students may be instructed
and trained in practical theology. The acts of this synod then report:
Consequently, it is unanimously agreed to hereby let this matter rest.104
And so the years of effort to establish a distinct chair or discipline in
practical theology at Leiden University ended, a failure. The succeeding
synods did not bring up the matter again. It would be two decades before
the separate teaching of practical theology would be considered again at
Leiden.105

105In 1644 the North Holland synod at Alkmaar (art. 51) petitioned the theology profes-
sors to use Ames Conscientia in their teaching at Leiden University. See Horton, Ames, 14.
440 donald sinnema
Conclusion
It is apparent that in the early seventeenth-century Netherlands and else-

where the available theological education of students for the ministry was
not preparing them to meet the real needs of the churches. The education
offered in the universities was much too theoretically or scholastically
oriented to effectively address matters of practice.106 Hence the call to
appoint a practical theologian at Leiden may be seen as a reaction to the
prevalent scholasticism of the day. This reaction came initially from the
Nadere Reformatie, which sought to apply the English Puritan emphasis
on the practice of piety in the Dutch Reformed churches.
The concept of practical theology at this time first of all meant study
of the cases of conscience, but it also signified training in the practical
aspects of the pastoral ministry, such as application-oriented preaching,
visitation of the sick and troubled, and pastoral leadership in church
administration, church polity, and church discipline. Since it was focused
on conduct in the church, it was even equated with Christian ethics.107
The attempt to establish a chair in practical theology failed at Leiden
for various reasons. Though lack of funding may have played some role,
this was probably a convenient excuse of the Leiden curators to turn down
the request. More important was the political factor that prevented Ames
from taking the position, resistance on the part of the curators to ecclesi-
astical pressures on their domain, and the fact that the Leiden theology
professors never really supported a separate position in practical theol-
ogy, even though they personally sought to help Ames. The Leiden theolo-
gians resisted such an appointment primarily because of their conception
of theology as theoretical and practical at the same time. Although a fail-
ure, the attempt to establish the position had the effect of pressuring the
Leiden professors to highlight more deliberately the practical implica-
tions of their own teaching.
In the aftermath of this failed attempt at Leiden, within two decades
practical theology clearly emerged as a distinct theological discipline at
the nearby Utrecht Academy. There in 1644 Gisbertus Voetius briefly
described the field of practical theology and its resources in his Exercitia et
106Regarding the scholastic climate at this time, see Donald Sinnema, Reformed
Scholasticism and the Synod of Dort (161819), in John Calvins Institutes: His Opus
Magnum, ed. B.J. van der Walt (Potchefstroom: Potchefstroom University, 1986), 467506.
107See Donald Sinnema, The Discipline of Ethics in Early Reformed Orthodoxy, CTJ
28 (1993): 1044.
Bibliotheca Studiosi Theologiae.108 Two years later in the spring of 1646 he

conducted a series of six academic disputations on practical theology.109
He sub-divided this field into moral and casuistic theology (which
focuses especially on the Decalogue), ascetics (which studies devotional
practice), and church polity.110
By 1658 the discipline of practical theology had begun to develop so
much that Matthew Nethanus, Voetius colleague at Utrecht, could sing
the praises of Perkins, Ames, Teellinck, Udemans, Rivetus, and Voetius for
their major contributions to this field. He had special praise for the work
of Voetius:
Now for over twenty years distinguished service has been rendered for
the Church of God in this department of theology by our venerable teacher
and colleague, the Hon. Gisbertus Voetius, who from the time he was called
to this professorship and from the very beginnings of this university to this
day has followed that method of teaching. After the theoretical part of theol-
ogy, where he takes up God and his works, man in four aspects, and the
controversies of religion, he leads our students to an integrated and fruitful
knowledge of the practical part. In this he explains, first, moral questions
and controversies as cases of conscience according to the order of the
Decalogue, then, the disciplinary part which has to do with the cultivation
of godliness within and without, publicly and privately, and, thirdly, ecclesi-
astical polity, which is concerned with the things that must be done in the
church, with the persons who must do them, with their duties, and with
church government.111
Though there was still no separate chair of practical theology, this disci-
pline was now actively being taught by a regular professor.
108Gisbertus Voetius, Exercitia et Bibliotheca Studiosi Theologiae (Utrecht, 1651; 1st ed.
1644), 490503.
109Voetius, SDT, 3:159. On Voetius significance for the development of practical theol-
ogy, see W. van t Spijker, Voetius Practicus, in De Onbekende Voetius, ed. J. van Oort, et al.
(Kampen: Kok, 1989), 244245.
110Voetius, SDT, 3:3. Under church polity Voetius included homiletics (theologia prac-
tica concionatoria). In his Exercitia he had considered homiletics as a fourth subdivision of
practical theology.
111Nethanus, Praefatio. Translation from Horton, Ames, 1416.
THEOLOGIA PRACTICA: THE DIVERSE MEANINGS OF A SUBJECT OF
EARLY MODERN ACADEMIC WRITING
Aza Goudriaan
A discipline that came into being in German Protestantism at the begin-

ning of the nineteenth century: that is how a contemporary reference
work describes the meaning of practical theology today (as distinct from
the medieval discussion about the speculative or practical character of
theology as such).1 Thus, the history of Protestant practical theology
begins, according to general scholarly consensus, with Schleiermachers
surpassing of the literature providing guidance for the ministry by the
understanding of practical theology as the theory of leading the Church.2
One does not need to doubt Schleiermachers significance for the modern
history of practical theology to regret the implied neglect of the earlier
history of theologia practica.
There was such an earlier history. It is the theme of the present essay.
What meaning(s) did the Latin term theologia practica have as a subject of
academic discourse in early modern publications? The scope of this ques-
tion is limited in at least two respects here. First, focusing on academic
discourse, this essay considers only publications in Latin that use the
expression theologia practica (and even so it does not claim to be exhaus-
tive). Thus, while in 1892 E.C. Achelis identified Andreas Hyperius as
thefather of practical theology according to the present understanding of
1Christian Grethlein, Praktische Theologie, I. Zum Begriff, Religion in Geschichte und

Gegenwart [RGG], vol. 6, 4th ed. (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 15601561. Cf. Christian
Grethlein and Michael Meyer-Blanck, Geschichte der Praktischen Theologie im
berblickeine Einfhrung, in Geschichte der Praktischen Theologie. Dargestellt anhand
ihrer Klassiker, ed. Grethlein and Meyer-Blanck (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt,
1999), 165. On the continued discussion in early modern Reformed orthodoxy about the-
ology as being practical or theoretical, see Muller, PRRD, 1:340354; E.C. Achelis, Die
Entstehung der praktischen Theologie, Theologische Studien und Kritiken 65 (1892): 823.
I am indebted to Donald Sinnemas paper in this volume which stimulated me in writing
this essay. On the history of theologia practica, see also Achelis, Lehrbuch der praktischen
Theologie, vol. 1, 3rd ed. (Leipzig: Hinrich, 1911), 114; cf. Christiaan Sepp, Het godgeleerd
onderwijs in Nederland gedurende de 16de en 17de eeuw (Leiden: De Breuk en Smits, 1874)
2:387423.
2Michael Meyer-Blanck, Praktische Theologie, II. Geschichtlich in Deutschland, USA,
Niederlande, Grobritannien und dem franzzischen Sprachbereich, RGG, 6:1561.
444 aza goudriaan
the concept,3 this claim is not discussed in the present essay for the
very simple reason that Hyperius did not designate this practical theology
as theologia practica, the meaning of which term is precisely what the
question is about. Second, while the present study of (what seems to be)
the earliest use of theologia practica as a subject of its own is not limited by
confession or geography, the conceptual history from Gisbertus Voetius
onward focuses on Reformed sources published in the Dutch Republic,
the terminus ad quem being Cornelius van Velzens monumental Insti
tutiones theologiae practicae (17481757).
The Roman Catholic Impulse
It seems that the Louvain theologian Johannes Molanus (15331585) was

the first who used the term practical theology to describe the main sub-
ject of a book. His work Theologiae practicae compendium was published
at least four times, for the first time in 1585.4 Molanus does not provide
reflections on what theologia practica means and why he is using the term.
The meaning of the term has to be deduced from the books contents.
Molanus work is divided into five parts, which deal with penitence and
censure, the Decalogue, virtues and sins, the sacraments, and the Christian
state.5 So here practical theology includes ethics, the ecclesiological prac-
tice of how to deal with sinners, ecclesiastical ritual, and politics. The
moral viewpoint is predominant. It is interesting to note that Molanus
considers this book to convey the contents of his teaching at the Royal
College.6 Molanus served as the first director of this college instituted in
1579 for the education of those who prepared for pastoral work.7 Apparently
he considered what he taught there to be practical theology.
3Achelis, Lehrbuch der praktischen Theologie, 1:10; see also idem, Die Entstehung der
praktischen Theologie, 14, 27 (den Vater der praktischen Theologie in heutigem Sinn des
Wortes). The claim has been relativized based on differing concepts of practice. See
Gerhard Krause, Andreas Hyperius (16.5.15111.2.1564), TRE, 15:778779.
4. Amann mentions editions published at Cologne (1585 and 1590), Louvain (1625),
and Antwerp (1626); Molanus, Jean, Dictionnaire de thologie catholique (Paris: Letouzey
et An, 1929), 10:20872088. M.W.F. Stone mentions that 1596 William Perkins spoke about
popish books of practical or case-divinitie; see Stone, The adoption and rejection of
Aristotelian moral philosophy in Reformed Casuistry, in Humanism and Early Modern
Philosophy, ed. Kraye and Stone (London: Routledge, 2000), 88n84.
5Joannes Molanus, Theologiae practicae compendium, per conclusiones in quinque trac
tatus digestum (Cologne: Mylius, 1585).
6See Molanus, Theologiae practicae compendium, preface.
7Amann, Molanus, 2087.
theologia practica 445
The Jesuit theologian Antonio Possevino devoted several publications

to academic study, the best known of which is the Bibliotheca selecta.8 In
the first volume of this work, published in Rome in 1593, theologia practica
appeared as a category distinct from scholastic theology. This practical
theology, however, was not as broadly defined as was the case in Molanus.
Practical theology, for Possevino, is an equivalent of casuistry: the relevant
chapter is entitled on teaching practical theology or the cases of con-
science (De theologia practica sive de casibus conscientiae docendis).9 Two
things are noteworthy here. First of all, Possevino provides recommenda-
tions on how to teach practical theology, thus confirming what remained
more implicit in Molanus: that practical theology was considered a sub-
ject to be taught to students in a systematic manner. Cases of conscience
should not, for instance, be taught by a reading of any one author dealing
with theme in a mere alphabetical order. Practical theology should rather
be related to other branches of theology and its usefulness, both for per-
sonal spirituality and for public life, made explicit. Moreover, the term
practical theology should be explained. It is concerned with the duties
of the Christian life and thus requires an exposition on what the human
conscience is. Practical theology, then, studies the good, and the qualities
of human actions as related to God. It shows what should be done or
rather be avoided.
Practical theology, as Possevino saw it, was theological ethics or moral
theology. The description cases of conscience clearly involves human
subjectivity but Possevinos explanation also makes it clear that he intends
a broader discussion of moral theology that has also political relevance.10
Moreover, casuistry as Possevino conceived it had to take into account the
different human occupations and positions in society since these implied
specific norms concerning right conduct.11
8On Possevino (15331611), see e.g. Helmut Zedelmaier, Possevino, Antonio, Lexikon
fr Theologie und Kirche, vol. 8, 3rd ed. (Freiburg: Herder, 2009), 451452.
9Antonio Possevino, Bibliotheca selecta qua agitur de ratione studiorum in historia, in
disciplinis, in salute omnium procuranda (Rome: Typographia Apostolica Vaticana, 1593),
1:278279 (cf. Antonio Possevino, Apparatus ad studia d. Scripturae, theologiae scholasticae
et practicae sive moralis de casibus conscientiae, 4th. ed. [Ferrara: Baldinus, 1609], p. 114v-116v);
see also page 9: de theologia practica, seu conscientiae casibus (cf. Possevino, Apparatus
ad studia, 88, 114).
10Possevino, Bibliotheca selecta, 278279. (Possevino knew Molanus Theologiae practi
cae compendium, 279).
11Possevino, Apparatus ad studia, 119r-120r.
446 aza goudriaan
Early Seventeenth-Century Protestantism
Earlier research has pointed out that Johann Heinrich Alsted in his 1611
Methodus S.S. Theologiae identified a theologia practica that consisted of
three different branches: soterological (or the schools of temptation),
prophetic, and acroamatic practical theology.12 Theoretical theology, on
the other hand, was either natural or supernatural; the latter was divided
into catechetic and didactic theology.13 Alsteds definition of practical the-
ology as being concerned with spiritual combat, preaching and listening
to sermons, is markedly different from the earlier concepts of Molanus
and Possevino. It reveals a clearly Protestant focus on the preaching of the
Word of God.
The need for academic instruction in practical theology was discussed
in 1618 at the Synod of Dordt, which Alsted attended.14 The Synod, how-
ever, did not take any binding decision on this point. The Zeeland pro-
posal that provided the occasion for the Synods deliberations at this point
suggests that practical theology had the same meaning as with Possevino:
it was to be occupied with cases of conscience.15
In 1622 the Lutheran minister Paul Egard published an exposition of the
biblical book Ecclesiastes under the title of Theologia practica.16 The scope
of the book is limited in the sense that it is concerned with the practical
theology of the most wise king of the Israelites, Salomon as laid down in
one book of the Bible. Yet it covers the human microcosm, a compen-
dium of the entire theology, and a practical theology. The human micro-
cosm as represented in Solomons book shows the human misery, the
divine providence, the worship that is due to God, and the end of life. As a
theological compendium Solomon discusses everything that is necessary
12See above Donald Sinnema, The Attempt to Establish a Chair in Practical Theology
at Leiden University (16181626); Stone, Reformed Casuistry, 76 and 88n84.
13Johann Heinrich Alsted, Methodus ss. Theologiae (Hanau: Eifrid, 1634), 6; 279, cf. 284.
14On this and the aftermath, see Sinnema, The Attempt. On the Dordrecht discus-
sions, see also Hendrik Kaajan, De pro-acta der Dordtsche Synode in 1618 (Rotterdam: de
Vries, 1914), 260303. The Zeeland advice was later mentioned by e.g. Johannes Hoornbeek,
Theologia practica (Utrecht: Versteeg, 1663), 1:1617.
15Acta synodi nationalis, in nomine Domini nostri Iesu Christi autoritate DD. Ordinum
generalium Foederatum Belgii Provinciarum Dordrechti habitae anno MDCXVIII et MDCXIX
(Dordrecht: Canin, 1620), 5153, here esp. 53 (sessio 18). Cf. Kaajan, Pro-acta, 291292.
Leonhard Hells suggestion that Alsted influenced the Synods concept is implausible;
Entstehung und Entfaltung der theologischen Enzyklopdie (Mainz: Zabern, 1999), 93n47.
16Paul Egard, Theologia practica sapientiss. regis Israelitarum seu Salomon Ecclesiastes
exhibens microcosmum describens totum hominem, qualis olim fuerit, jam sit, esse debeat,
Deo, proximo, sibi, et tandem futurus sit (Hamburg: Carstens, [c. 1622]). On Paul Egard
(ca. 15801655), see Udo Strter, Egard, Paul, RGG, 2:1065.
to know for salvation, The book of Ecclesiastes also offers a practical the-
ology, since Solomon tells about his personal experiences, suggesting the
need to join theory and practice together: True theology does not consist
in theory only and in naked knowledge but in a daily and excellent praxis
and experience. The practical theologian is the true theologian.17 Though
emphasizing the need for practical theology, this book clearly was no
blueprint for practical theology as a distinct subject of academic teaching.
Voetius Wide-Ranging Concept
Practical theology was a distinct theme in Gisbertus Voetius guide to the

study of theology, the Exercitia et bibliotheca studiosi theologiae, published
for the first time in Utrecht in 1644, followed by a revised version in 1651
and a Frankfurt edition in 1685.18 This work includes a bibliography on
practical theology in which four different aspects or sub-disciplines are
distinguished: (1) ethics or casuistry, (2) ascetics, (3) ecclesiastical polity,
and (4) homiletics.19 Since this broad definition of theologia practica com-
prised the theoretical reflection on various aspects of practice, Voetius
chapter on the practical training of theological students is not simply a
reflection of the four elements of practical theology, although all of them
are included in one way or another. The usual idea of practical training,
Voetius reports, was that it concerned homiletic exercises. Since the field
of theological praxis and ecclesiastical pragmatics clearly extended
beyond homiletics alone, Voetius wanted to train his students in other
aspects of practical church life as well.20 Still, the main part of Voetius
discussion of practical training was devoted to making and holding
sermons.21 The other three components of the practical training were
concerned with the writing of all kinds of meditations, supplications, and
17Egard, Theologia practica, pp. [i]-[ii] of the preface.

18I used the 1651 edition: Voetius, Exercitia et bibliotheca studiosi theologiae (Utrecht: J.
a Waesberge, 1651). On this work, see Andreas J. Beck, Gisbertus Voetius (15891676). Sein
Theologieverstndnis und seine Gotteslehre (Gttingen: V&R, 2007), 106108; Muller, After
Calvin, 110116; F.G.M. Broeyer, Theological Education at the Dutch Universities in the
Seventeenth Century: Four Professors on Their Ideal of the Curriculum, in The Formation
of Clerical and Confessional Identities in Early Modern Europe, ed. Janse and Pitkin (Leiden:
Brill, 2006), 121126. On Voetius and practical theology, see e.g. Beck, Voetius, 175181; C.A.
de Niet, Gisbertus Voetius, De praktijk der godzaligheid (TA AKTIKA sive Exercitia pieta
tis1664). Tekstuitgave met inleiding, vertaling en commentaar, 2 vols. (Utrecht: De Banier,
1996), 1:xxvi-xxvii, 1214; 2:2325.
19Voetius, Exercitia et bibliotheca, 490.
448 aza goudriaan
prayers of thanksgiving (scribendis omnis generis meditationibus, preca

tionibus, gratiarum actionibus),22 then oral presentations of sermons and
prayers as if in a public church service,23 and finally various pastoral tasks
that Voetius differentiates in (a) consolations (consolationes), (b) admoni-
tions (adhortationes), (c) casuistry (casus conscientiae), (d) pastoral advice
(concilia theologica), mostly with respect to ecclesiastical polity but often
with respect to moral and ascetical theology, and (e) various matters of
secretarial character.24
In the 1646 university disputations On practical theology, Voetius per-
sonal definition of practical theology is only slightly different from the
description in the Exercitia et bibliotheca.25 Here Voetius distinguished
three parts of practical theology (as distinct from dogmatics): (1) casuistry
or moral theology, (2) ascetics, (3) ecclesiastical polity with prophetic the-
ology or homiletics.26 The third component takes together what were sep-
arate elements in the Exercitia et bibliotheca. Voetius mentions also other
meanings of the term. In a general sense, theologia practica means theol-
ogy as such since it is as a whole a practical discipline. In a more specific
sense, practical theology can on the one hand indicate the practical use of
a theoretical point. It can on the other hand indicate the non-dogmatic
part of theology, either in a broad sense meaning everything except what
are the objects of faith, or in a narrower sense moral theology.27
Johannes Hoornbeek: Departure from Voetius
One of Voetius most talented students was Johannes Hoornbeek, who had
also studied at Leiden. Hoornbeek became professor of theology at Utrecht
(1644) and subsequently in Leiden (1654). In his Leiden years he published

25Gisbertus Voetius, De theologia practica, [Johannes Cuypius, 21 February 1646],
Selectae disputationes theologicae (Utrecht: Waesberge, 1659), 3:111; De theologia practica,
pars secunda, [Jacobus Pricquius, 28 February 1646], ibid., 1121; De theologia practica,
pars tertia, [Abraham Rodenburch, 7 March 1646], ibid., 2131; De theologia practica, pars
quarta, [Isaac Jansenius, 14 March 1646], ibid., 3142; De theologia practica, pars quinta
[Wilhelmus Schomaker, 21 March 1646], ibid., 4251; De theologia practica, pars sexta
[Jacobus Pricquius, 21 March 1646], ibid., 5159. Selections from these disputations have
been translated into English in Reformed Dogmatics: J. Wollebius, G. Voetius, F. Turretin, ed.
Beardslee (New York: OUP, 1965), 265316.
26Voetius, De theologia practica, SDTh, 1:23. Achelis, Lehrbuch, 1:12.
27Voetius, De theologia practica, SDTh, 1:12.
the first volume of his Theologia practica in 1663. The second volume fol-
lowed in 1666, the year when Hoornbeek died. Both volumes appeared in
a second edition in 1689.28
Hoornbeeks inaugural lecture at Utrecht was about the study of
theology. In it he described a number of subjects that a student of theol-
ogy had to deal with successively: philosophy and literature, Biblical exe-
gesis, doctrinal theology, controversial theology, ecclesiastical law, and
church history.29 Practical theology is not a specific subject here. With
respect to doctrinal theology Hoornbeek notes that it is strictly insepara-
ble from praxis: nothing is truly known if the corresponding praxis is
not simultaneously observed.30 The latter point was driven home in a
most emphatic way in Hoornbeeks Theologia practica. This work, it has
been claimed, is not a practical theology in the contemporary sense
but a spiritual ethic of an ascetic color.31 More significantly, it is not
a work on practical theology in the Voetian sense of the term either, in
which case it would have covered ethics, ascetics, ecclesiastical law, and
homiletics.
The first volume deals with what Hoornbeek called the general matters
of the Christian life.32 These can be summarized, Hoornbeek writes, by
five points: Repentance for sin, the necessary conversion by the grace of
the Holy Spirit, faith in Christ, holiness of life, and finally the firm consola
tion of the soul against all evils.33 The sequence of chapters of the first
volume of the Theologia practica does not correspond neatly to these five
aspects, but the essential point here is that the Christian life is the focal
point around which several books and chapters are placed. If God, predes-
tination, creation, and providence are discussed, and if Christ, his birth,
passion, resurrection, ascension, and celestial glory are dealt with, dog-
matic topics are considered as related to the life of the Christian.
28Johannes Hoornbeek, Practicae theologiae pars prior (Utrecht: Versteeg, 1663);

Practicae theologiae tomus alter (Utrecht: Hendrik Versteeg, 1666). On Hoornbeek
(16171666), see Johannes Wynand Hofmeyr, Johannes Hoornbeeck as polemikus (Kampen:
Kok, 1975) (here page 50 on Theologia practica); G.P. van Itterzon, Hoornbeek (Hoornbeeck,
Horenbeek), Johannes, in BLNP, 2:259261; Ernst Feil, Religio (Gttingen: V&R, 2001,
3:4657.
29Johannes Hoornbeek, Oratio de studio s.s. theologiae, in his Orationes habitae in
Academia Ultrajectina (Utrecht: Waesberge, 1658), 317, here 1014. Cf. Van Itterzon,
Hoornbeek, 259.
30Hoornbeek, De studio s.s. theologiae, 1213.
31Van Itterzon, Hoornbeek, 260261.
32Hoornbeek, Theologia practica, 1:27.
450 aza goudriaan
Volume two deals with the general duties that are connected with the
state of grace (book 8), followed by an exposition on the specific duties,
first toward God (book 9), then toward the neighbor (book 10).34 In vol-
ume two Hoornbeek announced an exposition on the various conditions
of life as well as of death but volume three of Practica theologia was never
published.35 Theologia practica in Hoornbeek is a theology that is related
to Christian life. The book has dogmatic, ethical, and ascetic dimensions.36
In contrast to Voetius broad definition of theologia practica, ecclesiastical
law and homiletics are left out in Hoornbeeks concept.37 On the other
hand, the dogmatic dimension that Voetius left out of practical theology
is, to some degree, brought into it.
Melchior Leydekker: Praxis of the Faith
When the Utrecht professor Melchior Leydekker in 1683 published a series

of university disputations under the title of Medulla theologiae practicae,
his intention was not to give a systematic exposition of practical theology
in the broad Voetian senseeven though he referred to Voetius disputa-
tions on the subject. Instead, the book offers a series of Meditations on
the Heidelberg Catechism in which is shown the power and efficacy that
the Reformed faith has with respect to true piety.38 Leydekkers intention
was to join theory and praxis.39
The same applied in 1694 when Leydekker published a commentary on
the Heidelberg Catechism in which, according to the title page the prin-
ciples of the faith are demonstrated and the marrow of practical theology
34Cf. Hoornbeek, Theologia practica, 1:27.

36Achelis, Lehrbuch, 4, mentions only dogmatics and ethics.
37On homiletics, Hoornbeek authored a special series of disputationes De ratione con-
cionandi, held in 16451646; the Latin text has been edited and translated into Dutch by
T. Brienen, De eerste homiletiek in Nederland. Ontstaan, vertaling, inhoud en verwerking
van de homiletiek De Ratione Concionandi van Johannes Hoornbeeck (Kampen: De Groot
Goudriaan, 2009).
38Melchior Leydekker, Medulla theologiae practicae seu meditationes ad Catechesin
Heidelbergensem quibus vis et efficacia reformatae fidei ad veram pietatem ostenditur
(Utrecht: Clerck, 1683) [Gttingen University library]. The reference to Voetius is found on
p. ii of the Praefatio ad S.S. theol. studiosos. On Leydekker, see W.J. van Asselt, Leydekker
(Leydecker, Leidekker), Melchior, in BLNP, 4:307310, here 307 on the Medulla theologiae
practicae.
39Leydekker, Medulla theologiae practicae, Praefatio, e.g. p. [ii].
is made clear.40 In the preface, Leydekker argued that it was important to

keep theory and praxis together.41 He did not wish to neglect one in favor
of the other. Addressing his (former) students, Leydekker said that they
should not focus on the practical side of the things only; his intention was
to note the praxis of the articles of faith, in order for you to have a marrow
of practical theology.42 Here, in other words, practical theology is neither
a separate academic discipline nor a qualification of theology as such, but
the practical side of the truth of faith that the Catechism explained. This is
one of the two more specific meanings of theologia practica discerned by
Voetius, which was however significantly different from Voetius own
multi-pronged concept of practical theology.43
Campegius Vitringa: The Affections of the Spiritual Life
In 1716 Campegius Vitringa published a booklet on practical theology:

Typus theologiae practicae sive de vita spirituali ejusque affectionibus, com
mentatio.44 Vitringa, who taught at the University of Franeker from 1680
until his death in 1722, is known mainly as a talented exegete and as a
Cocceian theologian who valued the life of piety.45 The latter element is
obvious in his small work on practical theology. As the title of the book
reveals, Vitringa offers a theologia practica that is concerned with the
spiritual life and its attributes. The expression spiritual life means the
status of a human in Christ.46 Vitringa did not want to give an exposition
on what he saw as the usual theme of theologia practica, the moral
duties, which in his estimation were far better known generally than
what he thought was rather essential: spiritual life, its attributes, and its
development.47 Vitringa considered the ethical definition of practical the-
ology as far too narrow and accordingly he himself wrote about spiritual
40Melchior Leydekker, De veritate fidei reformatae ejusdemque sanctitate libri III, sive
commentarius ad Catechesin Palatinam quo principia fidei demonstrantur et theologiae
practicae medulla exhibetur (Utrecht: Clerck, 1694).
41Leydekker, De veritate fidei, p. [iii]-[v] of the praefatio ad lectorem.
42Leydekker, De veritate fidei, p. [v] of the prefatio ad lectorem.
43Voetius, De theologia practica, SDTh, 3:1.
44Franeker: Wiebe Bleck, 1716. Cf. W.F.C.J. van Heel, Campegius Vitringa Sr. als godgel
eerde beschouwd (The Hague: Belinfante, 1865), 41, 113117: the Typus theologiae practicae
has been translated into Dutch, French, German, Hungarian.
45K.M. Witteveen, Vitringa, Campegius (Kempe), in BLNP, 3:379382.
46Vitringa, Typus theologiae practicae, 1.
47Vitringa, Typus theologiae practicae, praefatio, [2023].
452 aza goudriaan
life, its attributes, causes, and parts such as the denial of oneself, the bear-
ing of the cross, and following Jesus.48 Vitringa indicated what means can
be used to obtain and strengthen spiritual life. He pointed, among other
things, to the use of sacred singing, public worship, examination of one-
self, and fasting. He also paid attention to the opposite of the spiritual life,
spiritual death, listing the criteria that distinguished the spiritual life from
spiritual death. What Vitringa offered was an account of practical theology
that concentrated on the spiritual life of the Christian.
Herman Witsius: The Duties of Piety
Herman Witsius (16361708) had been one of Vitringas teachers but his
work on theologia practica was published posthumously in 1729, more
than a decade later than Vitringas work on the subject.49 During his theo-
logical studies particularly Gisbertus Voetius, Johannes Hoornbeek, and
Samuel Maresius influenced Witsius.50 He later became a professor of the-
ology himself, successively at the universities of Franeker, Utrecht, and
Leiden. Witsius Schediasma theologiae practicae was published posthu-
mously by Hendrik Carel van Byler, a minister in the province of Groningen,
who based his edition on two different copiesone copy being dated in
1696of notes taken during Witsius private lectures at Utrecht.51
Van Byler stated that in the Schediasma Witsius revealed how much he
was able to accomplish in casuistic theology, and Witsius modern biogra-
pher Van Genderen likewise considered it a work on ethicsor ascetics,
which Van Genderen considered a part of ethics.52 The classification as a
work on ethics is not surprising since Witsius approached the subject from
the angle of duties (officia). What the book offers, reportedly in Witsius
48Vitringa, Typus theologiae practicae, praefatio, [21], [23].

49Witteveen, Vitringa, 379. Herman Witsius, Schediasma theologiae practicae, quo veri
ac interioris Christianismi genuinum exercitium, ac generaliora saltem, atque universaliora
pietatis officia, quanta ut fieri potest brevitate exponuntur (Groningen, 1729). On Witsius,
see J. van Genderen, Herman Witsius. Bijdrage tot de kennis der gereformeerde theologie
(The Hague: de Bres, 1953), here 4, 8081, 167, 174176, 250, on the Schediasma and its Dutch
translation, which appeared in 1731 and was republished in 1732 and 1874. See also J. van
Sluis, Witsius, Herman, in BLNP, 4:456458.
50Van Sluis, Witsius, 456.
51See Van Genderen, Witsius, 8081. On Henricus Carolinus a Byler (16921756), see
A.J. van der Aa, Biographisch Woordenboek der Nederlanden, vol. 2.2 (Haarlem: van
Brederode, 1855), 17051707. Cf. Byler in Witsius, Schediasma, preface, [51]-[60]. Witsius
taught at Utrecht between 1680 and 1698.
52Van Byler in Witsius, Schediasma, preface, [52]; Van Genderen, Witsius, 4, 167
(ethics), 173176 (that part of ethics which in his day usually was called ascetics).
words, is an exposition on the most important and universal Christian

duties regarding (a) God, (b) Christ, (c) oneself, and (d) the neighbor.53 In
this way Witsius chose the second of what he considered three different
approaches to teaching practical theology. One way was to add a practical
application to an explanation of a biblical text or a theological issue.
Petrus van Mastricht chose this approach, which according to Witsius is
most suitable in sermons. The second approach, which Witsius consid-
ered characteristic of an academic setting, was to teach methodically the
duties of piety and virtue, presupposing the theory of the matters that
need to be known. Hoornbeek provided an example of this method
Witsius probably thought of the second volume of Hoornbeeks Theologia
practica. The third manner of teaching practical theology was by way of
meditations and soliloquies between God and the soul. Examples of this
approach, that Witsius considered highly suitable for personal use, could
be found in Augustine, Johann Gerhard, and others.54 In his lectures on
practical theology, therefore, Witsius chose to delineate the duties of
piety, and in adopting this approach he followed his former teacher
Hoornbeek.
Cornelius van Velzen: Moral Theology and Ascetics
The Groningen professor Cornelius van Velzen (16961752) was the author
of Institutiones theologiae practicae in three volumes. The first two tomes
appeared in Groningen in 1748.55 Two years later Van Velzen published a
summary of this two-volume work under the title of Theologiae practicae
medulla, an extremely rare book of 627 pages.56 After Van Velzens death in
1752, the third volume of the Institutiones theologiae practicae was pub-
lished. According to the preface, Van Velzen himself had made the major
53Witsius preface in idem, Schediasma, [13].

54Witsius preface in idem, Schediasma, [10]-[12]. According to Christiaan Sepp, Petrus
van Mastricht worked at Utrecht under the title of professor theologiae practicae; Het
godgeleerd onderwijs in Nederland gedurende de 16de en 17de eeuw (Leiden: De Breuk en
Smits, 1874), 2:405.
55Cornelius van Velzen, Institutiones theologiae practicae, vols. 12 (Groningen: Bolt &
Velzen, 1748). On Van Velzen, see D. Nauta, Velzen, Cornelius van, in BLNP, 3:366368; on
the Institutiones theologiae practicae, see also Christiaan Sepp, Johannes Stinstra en zijn tijd.
Eene bijdrage tot de geschiedenis der kerk en school in de 18e eeuw (Amsterdam: Sepp, 1865),
1:9698; W. Geesink, Gereformeerde ethiek, ed. V. Hepp (Kampen: Kok, 1931), 2:496497, and
index s.v.
56Cornelius van Velzen, Theologiae practicae medulla, expressa ex majori opera in usum
academicae juventutis (Groningen: Bolt, 1750).
454 aza goudriaan
part of it ready for publication; an unnamed editor added an exposition on

the heavenly beatitude from among the authors papers.57
When Van Velzen wrote his Institutiones, he noted that his lectures on
practical theology were the only yearlong series of lessons taught on the
subject at any university in the Dutch Republic at that time.58 From the
Synod of Dordt in 1618 until a Groningen synod held in 1730, the teaching
of practical theology had been encouraged but after practical theology
thrived in the seventeenth-century and still found some competent sup-
porters, it also had become neglected in some quarters in Van Velzens own
time.59 Van Velzen defined practical theology as the doctrine or science
that considers the holy life of the regenerated human being on the basis of
revelation, reason, and experience.60 This practical theology comprised
both a theoretical part, consisting of divine jurisprudence and moral
theology that lays down Christian duties, and a practical or ascetical part
that considers the praxis of these duties in the subjects.61 The first two
volumes of the Institutiones theologiae practicae thus consist of a moral
theology that delineates the duties of piety. The third volume offered
ascetics (paying attention to the natural human state and the state of
grace including its effect, spiritual life with its various characteristics) as
well as a practical theology of the life in heavenly beatitude.62
In comprising both ethics and ascetics, as two perspectives on the
duties of piety,63 Van Velzens theologia practica combined different
viewpoints that had dominated earlier approaches (Witsius duties of
piety, Vitringas affections of the spiritual life) but without arriving at the
comprehensive view of theologia practica that Voetius developed. Ethics
and ascetics were the first two elements of practical theology as Voetius
defined it. It also comprised ecclesiastical law and homiletics.
57Cornelius van Velzen, Institutiones theologiae practicae, vol. 3 (Groningen: Bolt, 1757);
see p. [3] of the preface.
58Van Velzen, Institutiones theologiae practicae, preface, p. [v] and 1: 9; also quoted by
Sepp, Stinstra, 1: 97. In the preface, Van Velzen notes that this claim was true when expressed
during his lectures. Afterwards at the University of Franeker, Petrus Laan started teaching
a course on practical theology, but he died even before Van Velzen wrote his preface in
April 1743. On Petrus Laan (16951743), see A. de Groot, Laan, Petrus, in BLNP 2:292;
F. Postma & J. Van Sluis, Auditorium Academiae Franekerensis. Bibliographie der Reden,
Disputationen und Gegenheitsdruckwerke der Universitt und des Athenums in Franeker
15851843 (Leeuwarden: Fryske, 1995), 376.
59Van Velzen, Institutiones theologiae practicae, 1:89.
60Van Velzen, Institutiones theologiae practicae, 1:2. Cf. Van Velzen, Theologiae practicae
medulla, 12.
61Van Velzen, Instututiones theologiae practicae, 1:1417.
62Van Velzen, Institutiones theologiae practicae, 2:[5] of the praefatio.
63Cf. Van Velzen, Theologiae practicae medulla, 12.
Conclusion
In 1724, Salomon van Til considered it inappropriate to use the term theo
logia practicaa qualification of theology as suchto designate only a
specific part of it. He proposed theologia paracletica instead.64 A few years
later Friedrich Adolph Lampe published a treatise on theologia activa but
he identified it with theologia practica.65 This terminological fluctuation
suggests that by the beginning of the eighteenth century theologia prac
tica had not yet gathered a definitive consensus for being the name of
choice for a theological sub-discipline concerned with Christian praxis.
The brief and selective survey given in this essay indicates that from the
late sixteenth century onward differences of opinion existed as to what
the precise meaning of the term theologia practica was or should be.
Still, at several points there is a clear continuity. The most important
may be that, from Molanus to Van Velzen, moral theology was a character-
istic element in most works on theologia practica as a sub-discipline of its
own. Vitringa consciously chose the different angle of the spiritual life that
he considered far more needed but he did not deny that moral theology
was a part of theologia practica. On the other hand, in none of the works
discussed above did theologia practica imply guidelines specifically for
ministerseven though, obviously, these works were meant for future
ministers. If Grethlein and Meyer-Blanck correctly assume that practical
theology developed in the early nineteenth century out of manuals of pas-
toral theology, the works on theologia practica mentioned in this essay are
not the precursors of practical theology.66 Yet these works show that moral
theology and, to a somewhat lesser extent, ascetics, were dominant com-
ponents of the early theologia practica. Voetius broad definition includes
church polity and homiletics in addition to moral theology and ascetics
and it seems to have found no immediate followers at all. The Voetian
content of what is considered to be a Dutch Voetian school cannot be
taken for granted.
64Sepp, Godgeleerd onderwijs, vol. 2, 406407. Cf. Antonius Driessen, Homo vetus et
novus, redactus in formam systematis practici sive theologia mystica pseudo-mysticae quali
cunque opposita (Groningen: Cost & Groenewout, 1728), 12.
65F.A. Lampe, Delineatio theologiae activae (Utrecht: van Paddenburg, 1727).
66Grethlein and Meyer-Blanck, Geschichte, 5.
LUMINA, NON NUMINA: PATRISTIC AUTHORITY ACCORDING TO
LUTHERAN ARCH-THEOLOGIAN JOHANN GERHARD
Benjamin T.G. Mayes
Even a casual reading of post-Reformation Lutheran arch-theologian

Johann Gerhard (15821637) shows the enormous role that the early
church fathers play in his theology.1 He is often credited (incorrectly!)
with coining the word patrology in the title of his posthumous 1653
Patrologia,2 even though previous books had been printed with that title.3
But there is a truth underlying this fable: Gerhards fame and extensive use
of the fathers surely hastened the adoption of the term patrology as a
technical name for the science of the churchs fathers.
Likewise, Protestants patristic interest did not end with the Refor
mation. Throughout the seventeenth century the study and publication
of the fathers flourished.4 The overwhelming presence of the fathers in
1Gerhard was styled arch-theologian during his lifetime by Matthias Ho von

Hoenegg: Erdmann Rudolph Fischer, The Life of John Gerhard, trans. Dinda and Hohle
(Malone: Repristination, 2001), ch. 18, 2, p. 295. We shall normally use the definition of
early church fathers provided by Johannes Quasten, Patrology, vol. 1 (Utrecht: Spectrum,
1975), 1. In countless places of his 1617 commonplace On the Church, Gerhard quotes no
less than sixty-three of St. Augustines works. By comparison, only thirty-eight of Martin
Luthers works were quoted in this commonplace. Johann Gerhard, Theological Com
monplaces: On the Church, trans. Dinda, ed. Mayes (St. Louis: Concordia, 2010).
2Johann Gerhard, Patrologia, sive De Primitivae Ecclesiae Christianae Doctorum Vita ac
Lucubrationibus Opusculum posthumum, ed. Gerhard (Jena: Georg Sengenwald, 1653).
The claim is made by: Muller, AC, 52; Hubertus R. Drobner, The Fathers of the Church:
A Comprehensive Introduction, trans. Schatzmann (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2007), 5;
Quasten, Patrology, 1:1. Cf. Andreas Merkt, Das patristische Prinzip: Eine Studie zur theolo
gischen Bedeutung der Kirchenvter (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 147, who qualifies the claim for
Gerhards coinage.
3Raphael Custos, , id est Descriptio S: Patrum Graecorum & Latinorum, qui in
Augustana Bibliotheca visuntur (Augsburg: [Custos], 1624); Caspar Heunisch, Patrologia Ex
certis fundamentis Historicis atque Chronologicis accurate deducta (Rotenburg & Leipzig:
Autor, 1639).
4Archer Taylor and Frederic John Mosher, The Bibliographical History of Anonyma and
Pseudonyma (Chicago: UCP, 1951), 50; Bengt Hgglund, Das Verstndnis der altkirchlichen
Tradition in der lutherischen Theologie der Reformationszeit bis zum Ende des 17.
Jahrhunderts, in Chemnitz-Gerhard-Arndt-Rudbeckius, ed. Bitzel and Steiger (Waltrop:
Hartmut Spenner, 2003), 1553, here 52; Jean-Louis Quantin, Un manuel anti-patristique:
Contexte et signification du Trait de lemploi des saints Pres de Jean Daill (1632), in
Die Patristik in der frhen Neuzeit, ed. Frank et al. (Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 2006),
299325.
458 benjamin t.g. mayes
Gerhards writing, in particular, brings up the questions: What authority

did the early church fathers have in Gerhards theological work? And how
do the fathers comport with the Protestant emphasis on the authority of
sola Scriptura in general? Finally, how should one regard and approach
the fathers?
Before the 1950s, the common consensus among scholars was that the
Reformation set forth two different approaches to the relation of biblical
authority and patristic authority: biblicism (set forth by Martin Luther)
and traditionalism (set forth by Philipp Melanchthon).5 But Peter
Fraenkels study of Melanchthon and the fathers changed this general
view, placing Melanchthon and Luther very much in the same camp.6
Since then, studies of this question have tended to treat the Reformers as
representing basically the same viewpoint: Scripture alone was the formal
norm for matters of faith, while the fathers continued to be used as a
resource.7 This point of view tends to emphasize the lack of patristic
authority among sixteenth-century Protestants.
This newer, unified view must not be allowed to camoflage the spec-
trum of approaches that existed among Reformation-era and post-
Reformation-era Protestants. Case in point: Johann Gerhard is usually
classified as holding firmly to the authority of sola Scriptura for theology,
with an extensive use of the fathers as a polemical resource.8 True as this
is, it does not cover all that Gerhard has to say on the topic of patristic
5Otto Ritschl, Dogmengeschichte des Protestantismus (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1908),

1:400.
6Peter Fraenkel, Testimonia Patrum: The Function of the Patristic Argument in the
Theology of Philip Melanchthon (Geneva: Droz, 1961); see also Hgglund, Das Verstndnis,
2331.
7E.g., Scott H. Hendrix, Deparentifying the Fathers, in Auctoritas Patrum: Contributions
on the Reception of the Church Fathers in the 15th and 16th Centuries, ed. Grane et al. (Mainz:
von Zabern, 1993), 5568. See also the many studies in Silke-Petra Bergjan and Karla
Pollmann, ed., Patristic Tradition and Intellectual Paradigms in the 17th Century (Tbingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 2010); Leif Grane et al., ed., Auctoritas Patrum; Leif Grane et al., ed., Auctoritas
Patrum II: New Contributions on the reception of the Church Fathers in the 15th and 16th cen
turies (Mainz: von Zabern, 1998); Gnter Frank et al., ed., Die Patristik in der frhen Neuzeit:
Die Relektre der Kirchenvter in den Wissenschaften des 15. bis 18. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart:
Frommann-Holzboog, 2006); Irena Backus, Historical Method and Confessional Identity in
the Era of the Reformation (13781615) (Leiden: Brill, 2003); Backus, ed., The Reception of the
Church Fathers in the West: From the Carolingians to the Maurists, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1997),
which unfortunately overlooks most Lutheran theologians; Merkt, Das patristische Prinzip.
8Johann Anselm Steiger, Johann Gerhards Tractatus de legitima Scripturae Sacrae
interpretatione und die patristische Tradition, in Patristic Tradition and Intellectual
Paradigms in the 17th Century, ed. Bergjan and Pollmann (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010),
5971; Hgglund, Das Verstndnis, 49; Bengt Hgglund, Die Heilige Schrift und ihre
Deutung in der Theologie Johann Gerhards: Eine Untersuchung ber das altlutherische
lumina, non numina 459
authority. An examination of his Method of Theological Study, which

includes an extensive section on how to read the fathers, reveals some
positive approaches to the fathers authority that do not comport with the
prevailing models.9 While Gerhard does not accord the fathers divine
authority, he does still recognize that they retain some positive authority
among all who claim to be their heirs. They are lumina, non numina
(lights, not divinities).
How to Read the Fathers
In 1617, shortly after becoming a professor of theology at the University of

Jena, Johann Gerhard set forth a complete course of study for students of
theology, the Method of Theological Study.10 Gerhard expected that begin-
ning theology students would already have learned Latin, Greek, Hebrew,
and philosophy (and perhaps also Syriac and Aramaic).11 After that,
Gerhard set forth a five-year course of theological study. The first two
years were devoted to the study of Holy Scripture, the study of loci com
munes (dogmatic theology), and participation in disputations.12 In the
third year the student added polemics against Roman Catholic theology.
The fourth year was for the study of polemics against the Calvinists and
Photinians (i.e., Unitarians), and for the study of preaching.13 Finally, in
the last year of theological study, Gerhard gave his program for reading
church history in general and the writings of Luther, the early church
fathers, and the scholastics specifically.14
Schriftverstndnis (Lund: Berlingska Boktryckeriet, 1951), 175; Ritschl, Dogmengeschichte,

1:400402.
9Johann Gerhard, Methodus Studii Theologici: Publicis, prlectionibus in Academia
Jenensi Anno 1617. exposita [hereafter Methodus] (Jena: Steinmannus, 1620). Marcel Nieden,
TheologieRechtfertigung des Theologen? Anmerkungen zur Methodus studii theolog-
ici Johann Gerhards von 1620, in Zur Rechtfertigungslehre in der Lutherischen Orthodoxie,
ed. Strter and Appold (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2003), 5569, does not deal
with Gerhards patristic reading program.
10Regarding similar courses of study written by Wittenberg theologians, see Marcel
Nieden, Die Erfindung des Theologen: Wittenberger Anweisungen zum Theologiestudium im
Zeitalter von Reformation und Konfessionalisierung (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006).
11Methodus, 38138.
12On the practice of disputations in Lutheran theological education, see Kenneth
G. Appold, Orthodoxie als Konsensbildung: Das theologische Disputationswesen an der
Universitt Wittenberg zwischen 1570 und 1710 (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004).
13Methodus, 138236.
14Methodus, 236321. The same four groups of historical-theological writings are
encouraged by Johann Frster (see Nieden, Erfindung, 170). See Nieden, Erfindung, 221, 235,
and Backus, Historical Method, 270275, for other patristic reading programs.
Gerhards section on Luthers writings is quite short, only three full

pages, whereas the section on the early church fathers is quite long, filling
54 pages. (The section on the scholastics weighs in at 23 pages.)15 Gerhard
presents his instructions on reading the fathers in four parts (membra).
First Part: A Negative Approach to the Fathers

The first part asserts that the fathers writings are not norms of truth in the
church. That is to say, Scripture alone is the norm and rule of truth in mat-
ters of faith, and the fathers writings are not. This evaluation of the rela-
tive authority of Scripture and the fathers rests on the doctrine that
Scripture is perfect and perspicuous. The Holy Spirit attributes the title
norm and judge to Scripture alone; God calls people back to His Word
alone; Christ and the apostles appeal only and uniquely to Scripture. The
fathers, on the other hand, deny that their writings are equal to the canon-
ical Scriptures; they refer readers back to Scripture as the only norm; and
they allow everyone the freedom to judge their writings on the basis of it.16
The norm in matters of faith, Gerhard asserts, ought to be credible in
itself (), perpetual, immutable, free of all error, and internally
consistent (). Holy Scripture has all these characteristics, but the
fathers writings do not. Gerhard backs up each of these points with copi-
ous citations from the fathers themselves.17 This first part thus sets forth
the negative approach to the fathers, stating what they are not, and claim-
ing that their authority is less than that of Holy Scripture.
Second Part: Positive Approach to the Fathers

The second part sets forth a positive approach to the fathers, stating in
what ways they are useful and even constructive for Lutheran theology.
15Discussing Luther, Gerhard (241244) encourages students to begin not with the
early Luther, to whom so much 20th and 21st-century attention has been directed, but to
Luthers German writings from the time of the Augsburg Confession (1530) until his death.
Only then should they go back to read the earlier writings. The same method can be seen
regarding his Latin writings; students should start with the Genesis lectures (15351545)
and only then read the other Latin writings of Luther. The chapter on the reading of the
scholastics (298320) is mostly an examination of their errors. The scholastics can be use-
ful polemically, since many arguments against contemporary Roman Catholic doctrines
can be found in them. Students are encouraged to read only Lombards Sentences, Thomas
Aquinas Summa theologica, and the commentaries of Bonaventure and Biel on the
Sentences.
16Here Gerhard refers the reader to his locus de ecclesia, p. 1022, which is Theological
Commonplaces: On the Church, 204, point 6, p. 411 of the Concordia edition.
17Methodus, 244252.
This part begins with the statement that, despite their deficiency of
authority compared to the Scriptures, the fathers writings should not be
eliminated from the church.18 Gerhard typically understates his case. In
fact what he is arguing here is that the fathers have a real, positive value
and that ignoring them would mean a great loss to the church. He states
that they do, in fact, have some authority, though not divine authority.19
He writes, It is not the case that, if divine authority is denied them, no
authority is owed to the fathers writings. They are not judges of faith, but
they are witnesses and informers [of it]. They are not divinities, but they
are very bright lights [non sunt Numina, praeclara tamen lumina].20 He
then proceeds to put the various patristic writings into three general
categories: exegetical, elenctic, and proclamatory (demegorica).
Patristic Exegesis
Of these, Gerhard teaches that the fathers exegetical writings are of ser-
vice if they are used as follows: (1) The true and genuine meaning of the
biblical text needs to be sought from the scope, context, original lan-
guages, the analogy of faith, etc.21 Only then can the conforming interpre-
tations of the fathers be added, in order to show that the interpretation is
not new. Sometimes also the fathers writings teach a sense of Scripture
that we would not have found by our own effort. Philipp Melanchthons
use of Judges 14:8 is applicable here: If you had not plowed with my heifer,
you would not have found my proposition.22
Here Gerhard gives reasons why students should read and note patris-
tic exegesis. If God wanted to admonish wise Moses through Jethro the
Midianite, then we should allow ourselves all the more to be instructed by
the writings of so many most excellent men.23 Moreover, While the inter-
pretations of the ancients are not to be considered authentic nor are to
be made equal to the canonical Scriptures, nevertheless their labors
should be acknowledged and proclaimed with a grateful and pious mind,
since they were the special instruments of the Holy Spirit and they ren-
dered their wholesome service to the church which at that time had been
18Methodus, 255.
19Methodus, 256.
20Methodus, 256. All translations are my own.
21See Bengt Hgglund, Glaubensregel und Tradition bei Martin Chemnitz, in
Chemnit-Gerhard-Arndt-Rudbeckius, 5564.
22Methodus, 257258; on Melanchthons use of Judges 14:18, see Fraenkel, Testimonia
Patrum, 234238.
23Methodus, 258.
gathered to Christ.24 (In connection with the claim that the fathers were
special instruments of the Holy Spirit, Gerhard cites 1 Thess. 5:1921.)
Again, Gerhard reasons, if we use the exegetical writings of recent authors
and benefit from them, then we surely should not completely reject the
exegetical writings of the ancients.25 And it is indeed true that most of
them were ignorant of the holy language [Hebrew], and as a result in
the interpretation of Scripture they sometimes stumble and depart from
the proper and genuine sense of the passage, yet in very many of them
they walk rightly according to the truth [Gal. 2:14] and observe the right
path.26 In summary, Gerhard says about patristic exegesis, Wherefore
one should think that God has preserved the writings of purer antiquity
not in vain, but rather that they might be an aid for investigating the posi-
tion of Scripture and that, when the true position has been seen from the
Scriptures, the minds of the godly may be confirmed even more.27 Thus
Gerhard in this section continues to emphasize that the fathers authority
is less than Scripture, but at the same time he here emphasizes not just
their usefulness as an exegetical resource, but he ascribes a certain amount
of authority to them and obliges students to become familiar with them
and learn from them.
Patristic Controversial and Didactic Literature

The next category of patristic writings, elenctic, also includes didactic
works.28 This section is notable for Gerhards discussion on the consen-
sus of antiquity, which he seems to take in the sense of a consensus of
evangelical Lutheran doctrine with antiquity. It is not just an appeal to
agreement with Scripture (the writings of the most ancient prophets and
apostles) but also to agreement with some, if not most, of the fathers who
lived after the apostles. He does not assume that there was complete una-
nimity and consensus among all the early Christians, so while the con-
sensus of antiquity functions to exclude novel doctrines, one must still
distinguish right from wrong in the fathers writings.29 Gerhard writes that
didactic works are those in which the fathers explain and confirm the
articles of faith, [and] show us the perpetual consensus of the catholic
24Methodus, 258.
25Methodus, 258259.
26Methodus, 259.
27Methodus, 259.
28Methodus, 259.
29Methodus, 259260.
church in the fundamental articles. He continues by both limiting the

fathers authority and praising them: We do not claim with the Papists
that the fathers writings are the norm of truth in the articles of faith. Yet
at the same time the consensus of antiquity in the truth must not be
despised; for what can be more delightful to a godly mind than to look
upon the kinship of doctrine that our churches have with the early church,
as Tertullian (De praescript.) names this consensus?30 Thus, according to
Gerhard, when the Papists accuse us of novelty in doctrine, it is not only
correct to appeal to the Ancient of Days (Dan. 7:13) and the most ancient
writings of the prophets and apostles, but it is also correct to show the
agreement of our doctrine with that of the early church fathers, especially
of those who lived closest to the time of the apostles. Our church, says
Gerhard, has always done this. Once again, as he does so often, Gerhard
bolsters his argument here with testimonies from Augustine and many
other fathers.31
This twofold approach to the fatherssometimes negative (denying
their authority) and sometimes positive (claiming their authority and
support)is found by Gerhard in Holy Scripture itself:
Therefore when the testimonies of the fathers agree with the oracles of
Scripture, then these admonitions find a place: Remember the days of old;
ask your father and he will announce it to you; your elders, and they will tell
you (Deut. 32:7). Do not move the ancient landmark that your forefathers
have set (Prov. 22:[28]). Do not depart from the discourse of the aged, for
they themselves learned from their parents, because from them you will
learn understanding (Sirach 8:[9, v. 11 Vulgate]). Thus says Jehovah: Stand
by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is;
and walk in it. Thus you will find rest for your souls (Jer. 6:16).32
But when the fathers strayed from the path of Scripture, then what applies
is Ezk. 20:1819; Matt. 23:910; and 1 Cor. 7:23. Gerhard quotes Athanasius
(De sent. Dionysii), who writes against the Arians: Seeing that they can
have nothing from Scripture for their heresy, they turn to the fathers, like
plunderers. Since they hear something bad about their efforts, they imag-
ine that they have upright and modest companions, and just as the Jews,
when convicted with Scripture, they take refuge in their father Abraham.33
Not only does Gerhard demote the fathers authority, his Roman Catholic
30Methodus, 259260.
31Methodus, 260.
32Methodus, [262]-263.
33Methodus, 263.
opponents do this, too, placing the fathers authority beneath the author-
ity of the pope, as the Expurgatorii indices testify.34 But what Gerhard is
emphasizing in this section is the usefulness and authority of the fathers
(subordinate to Scripture). Another reason to read and know the fathers is
polemical in nature: to see the stages of how the Roman bishop embraced
antichristian tyranny.35
Finally, in a long quotation from Aegidius Hunnius, whose works
Gerhard had studied avidly, Gerhard returns to the claim that all funda-
mental Lutheran doctrines can be found in the early church fathers, and
thus the fathers writings can be used to identify novel (and thus false)
doctrines.36 He writes, As a conclusion about investigating this consen-
sus of antiquity in articles of faith, I am noting down this passage of
Dr. Hunnius in Quaest. & respons. de praedest., tom. 1. Operum, col. 901.37
He then quotes Hunnius:
I do not deny that the fathers, or ecclesiastical writers, wrote in various ways
about various articles. But it is certain that when confirming all the articles
of the Christian religion some clear statements and testimonies can be cited
from their records. Now if the dogma [of the Huberians universal election]38
had been revealed in Holy Scripture, how could it have happened that dur-
ing so many centuries and even the entire time of the Christian church,
nothing had been handed down about it? We know that the fathers, or
ecclesiastical writers, had their blemishes and errors in diverse articles, yet
this remains firm and certain: no locus in all of theology can be demon-
strated, of which express testimonies are not found in that erudite antiq-
uityif not in this father, at least in that; if not in all, still in somenor can
any instance be given that would break this affirmation or even weaken it.39
By quoting Hunnius without reproach, Gerhard indicates his approval
for this approach to patristic authority; patristic testimony plays an
34Methodus, 263, referring to works such as Index Expvrgatorivs Librorvmsacri Concilij

Tridentini decretum ([Strasbourg:] Zetzner, 1599); Index librorvm prohibitorvm (Bologna:
Giovanni Rossi, 1564); and Index expurgatorius librorumsacri Concilii Tridenti decretum
Philippi II Regis (Strasbourg, 1609).
35Methodus, 264.
36Johann Anselm Steiger, Johann Gerhards Bibliothekein neuer Fund, ZfK 116
(2005): 243246.
37Methodus, 265; referring to Aegidius Hunnius, Articvlvs De Providentia Dei; Et Aeterna
Praedestinatione Sev Electione filiorum Dei ad salutem (Frankfurt: Spies, 1596), as contained
in Opervm Latinorvm (Wittenberg: Mller, 1607), 1:901.
38See Gottfried Adam, Der Streit um die Prdestination im ausgehenden 16. Jahrhundert:
Eine Untersuchung zu den Entwrfen von Samuel Huber und Aegidius Hunnius (Neukirchen-
Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1970).
39Methodus, 265266, quoting Hunnius, Articvlvs De Providentia Dei, in Tomvs
Primus Opervm Latinorvm, 901.
important role in excluding new, unheard-of doctrines. If the fathers did

not teach it, then it is falsewhich is not to say that everything they
taught was right. This approach, which might be called praescriptio novita
tis40 or an argument from patristic silence to exclude novel doctrines, is,
indeed, sometimes used by Gerhard to exclude Roman Catholic doctrines
in polemical contexts.41 However, in his Theological Commonplaces I have
so far only found him using this argument in the context of polemics
against Roman Catholics, who accorded the fathers too much authority in
his view. That is, this argument functions on the basis of Gerhards oppo-
nents assumptions. But does it function outside of that context? This
argument from patristic silence would only function if one held that the
extant writings of the early church fathers discussed every doctrine
revealed in Scripture. That is, one would have to hold to some kind of doc-
trine of the sufficiency of the fathers. Gerhard, however, does not believe
that this is true.42
When he uses the argument from patristic silence against his Roman
Catholic adversaries, he is careful to stress that the judge and norm of
truth in matters of faith is not the fathers, but Holy Scripture alone.43
Usually Gerhard does not use an argument from patristic silence. He pre-
fers instead to appeal to a consensus of his doctrine with the early church
fathers. In his locus On the Church, written in the same period of his life
as the Methodus, he claims that all Lutheran doctrines are testified by
the early church. Are the Evangelical churches joined by a kinship of
doctrine with the ancient church closest to the times of the apostles?
We affirm this constantly and prove this consensus of doctrine in the indi-
vidual controversies.44
Patristic Proclamation
Gerhards third category of patristic writings is proclamatory (demegor
ica), which he subdivides into admonishing (), consoling
(), and teaching (). Students should read the
40Fraenkel, Testimonia Patrum, 281282.

41Gerhard, Theological Commonplaces: On the Church, 205206, pp. 414423.
42See Johann Gerhard, Tractatus De Legitima Scripturae Sacrae Interpretatione (1610)
Lateinish-deutsch, ed. Steiger and von der Lieth (Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 2007),
90, 92, 142, 146; Theological Commonplaces: On the Church, 203, points 5 and 6, p. 410;
Theological Commonplaces: On the Nature of Theology and on Scripture, 463, point 4,
p. 419.
43E.g., Gerhard, Theological Commonplaces: On the Church, 415, 417.
44E.g., Gerhard, Theological Commonplaces: On the Church, 207, p. 423.
fathers and make excerpts of passages related to these practical topics.

Gerhard shows here his interest in practical piety, writing, I think it is
without controversy that more piety, conscience, and zeal existed in the
church in those first times nearest to the era of the apostles, than in the
exhausted and frigid old-age of these last times.45
Parts Three and Four: Rules for Reading the Fathers

The third part of this section of Gerhards Methodus gives general rules for
reading the fathers, while part four gives specific rules. Nearly all of these
rules lead Gerhards students to read the fathers critically. Only in this way
will their reading be fruitful.46
In part three, Gerhard gives the following rules:
(1)One must use judgment when reading the fathers, according to the
norm of Scripture (1 Thess. 5:21).
(2)First have a summary of the true doctrine in mind as a guide. This is
why study of the fathers was delayed until the fifth year of theological
study.47
(3)Distinguish the genuine writings of the fathers from corrupt and spu-
rious ones. Gerhard here gives a rather long discussion of the science
of distinguishing pseudepigraphal works from genuine.48 The results
of his own life-long work in this field were published posthumously as
his Patrologia.49
(4)Distinguish philosophical writings from theological. Here Gerhard
lists examples of errors that result when Platonic and Aristotelian phi-
losophies are applied to theology.50
(5)Even though the earlier fathers have some erroneous opinions, never-
theless the earlier fathers are by all means to be preferred to the later
ones. The farther from the apostles, the more impure the stream of
tradition becomes. Here Gerhard discusses various views of when the
patristic era ended. Some say it ended around 600 ad, at the time of
45Methodus, 266. On Gerhards focus on piety in the Methodus, see Nieden, Theologie
Rechtfertigung des Theologen?
46Methodus, 266.
47Methodus, 138139.
48Methodus, 268277.
49Johann Gerhard, Patrologia, sive De Primitivae Ecclesiae Christianae Doctorum Vita
ac Lucubrationibus Opusculum posthumum, ed. Johann Ernst Gerhard (Jena: Georg
Sengenwald, 1653).
50Methodus, 277. He also discusses the importation of pagan rituals into the church;
here his discussion parallels On the Church 227228, pp. 451457.
Gregory the Great (since then the antichristian Roman pontiff was
confirmed by Phocas, Gerhard says). Some extend the patristic era to
1000 ad, when scholastic theology began to reign in the church. But if
it is defined by complete purity of doctrine, Gerhard explains, then it
ended not long after the times of the apostles. Rather than defining
the patristic era in this way, Gerhard prefers to distinguish three
classes of fathers (so-called because they are distinct from the scho-
lastics). The first class includes fathers from the apostles to the Council
of Nicea, ad 325. The second class extends from Nicea to the Second
Council of Constantinople, 681 ad. The third class continues from
then until ad 1172, when Peter Lombard, the Master of the Sentences,
lived. Before moving on, Gerhard gives a list of ecclesiastical authors
in each century from the first to the twelfth, providing his students
with the beginnings of a patrology here within the confines of his
Methodus.51
(6)In what order should students read the fathers? In his usual fashion,
Gerhard first lists the opinion of others: a chronological order, giving
preference to Ambrose, or giving preference to Augustine. Then
finally Gerhard gives his own suggestion (modestly introduced as
being the position of others):
Others prescribe observing another order of reading in the fathers writings.
It seems most suitable during the fifth year of theological study to open and
read the letters of Ignatius; Justins Apologies and the Dialogue with Trypho;
Irenaeus Against Heresies; Tertullians Apology, The Prescriptions [of
Heretics], The Resurrection of the Flesh, and Against Marcion; Cyprians let-
ters; Nazianzens orations; Cyril [of Jerusalem]s Catechetical Lectures; the
didactic and polemical writings in the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh
tomes of Augustine;52 Damascenus The Orthodox Faith; etc. Afterwards, if
one has the desire and time, [it seems most suitable] to observe the tempo-
ral order among the others, with the exception of Bernard [of Clairvaux]
alone, who alone after Augustinejust as Augustine after the apostles
should be preferred to all others.53
Here the immense importance of Augustine is immediately obvious, along
with the claim that after the apostles, Bernard is second best. With regard
to Bernard, this is an interesting claim, since in many of Gerhards Theo
logical Commonplaces he quotes other fathers more often, such as John
51Methodus, 277283.
52For a full listing of what this includes, see Johann Gerhard, Patrologia, 3rd ed. (Jena:
Fleischer, 1673), 359393.
53Methodus, 286287. Cf. Nieden, Erfindung, 172.
Chrysostom or Athanasius.54 But the primacy of Augustine for Gerhards

theology should be apparent to even a casual reader.55 He quotes Erasmus
praise of Augustine with obvious approval:
In Athanasius we admire the sacred and diligent clarity of teaching. In Basil,
beyond his subtlety, we fondly kiss his pious and gentle sweetness of speech.
In Chrysostom we embrace the abundance of speech flowing forth freely. In
Cyprian we venerate his spirit, worthy of martyrdom. In Hilary we are
amazed at his greatness of speech, equal to the greatness of his subject mat-
ter, which is, so to speak, an exalted style [coturnum]. In Ambrose we love
some sweet stings and modesty, worthy of a bishop. In Jerome we rightfully
praise the riches of his provision of the Scriptures. In Gregory we acknowl-
edge pure sanctity, not embellished by any pretense. In Augustine there are
all these things.56
(7)Exegetical, dogmatic, and moral comments should be excerpted in
the students commonplace books (blank books prepared by students
for note-taking according to subject).57
Part four continues the list of rules for how to read the fathers fruitfully. In
these rules Gerhard is showing his concern that the accurate, genuine
understanding of Scripture be known. He is an exegetical theologian at
heart. The specific rules, set forth mostly in the form of warnings, are:
(1)In the proclamatory and homiletical writings, the fathers are rather
free with their rhetoric; therefore not all of their statements should be
taken too strictly.
(2)In polemical and dogmatic writings, they sometimes sieze on some-
thing and bend it too much against their adversaries.
(3)In exegetical writings, their emotions are calmer, but they all (except
Jerome) were ignorant of Hebrew. On account of their inexact version
of the Bible they often hallucinate and depart from the genuine
sense of Scripture, and sometimes they indulge their genius too much.
54Examples include On the Church and Theological Commonplaces: On the Nature of

Theology and on Scripture, trans. Dinda, rev. ed., ed. Mayes (St. Louis: Concordia, 2009).
55The same held true for most of the Reformers: Christoph Burger, Erasmus
Auseinandersetzung mit Augustin im Streit mit Luther, in Auctoritas Patrum, 113, here 13;
Robert Kolb, The Fathers in the Service of Lutheran Teaching: Andreas Musculus Use of
Patristic Sources, in Auctoritas Patrum II, 105123, here 123; Anthony Lane, Justification in
Sixteenth-Century Anthologies, in Auctoritas Patrum, 6995, here 95; Hgglund, Das
Verstndnis, 17, 21n, 40.
56Methodus, 284285.
57Methodus, 287. On the use of loci books, see Ann Moss, Printed Commonplace-Books
and the Structuring of Renaissance Thought (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996).
(4)In homiletical, exegetical, and didactic writings they sometimes skip

over the literal sense of a passage of Scripture, or touch upon it lightly,
and immediately sink into allegories that are harsh, forced, and
unfitting.
(5)In poetic writings they indulge their own genius quite freely and fol-
low the elegance of verse rather than the accurate understanding of
Scripture.
(6)When controversies had not yet arisen, they speak more securely.
(7)Sometimes they yield to the custom of their times.
(8)Sometimes they attribute too much to uncertain rumors and take
expressions from the common people. In historical matter they follow
the assertion and authority of their predecessors without any exami-
nation and judgment of discretion.
(9)One must pay close attention to whether they are setting forth and
confirming a dogma ex professo et in propria sede, or whether they are
just mentioning it in passing. One must also pay attention to whether
they are disputing as from their own position or as from the position
of someone else, and whether they are stating something as certain,
or just as probable.58
Summary
In the Methodus studii theologici, Gerhard taught his students how to

read the fathers fruitfully. He impressed upon them the importance of
using the best scholarly aids available. Spurious works and passages
must be distinguished from the genuine. The fathers must be read in the
context of their age and their controversies. That is to say, the fathers
must be approached within their historical context or they can be easily
misunderstood.
Gerhard has gone into detail to make clear what the fathers are not:
norms of truth in the church. But besides this negative approach to the
fathers, Gerhard also has a very positive approach. Constructively for
Protestant theology, Gerhard recognizes that without the writings of the
fathers, many exegetical insights would be lost. Thus one cannot simply
replace the fathers with an appeal to sola Scriptura. The fathers are irre-
placeable. Without the fathers, the churchs knowledge of Scripture would
be decreased. The fathers also play an important role in polemics for
58Methodus, 288298.
Gerhard. They were, after all, the common patrimony of the divided con-
fessions, and an appeal to their writings was important and effective
among discussion partners who wanted to be the successors of those
revered fathers. Gerhard in the Methodus also includes the argument from
patristic silence against novel doctrines, although more often his polemi-
cal use of the fathers simply demonstrates continuity between his teach-
ing and some, if not all, of the fathers.
The fathers are lumina, non numina, lights, not divinities. Gerhard
does not allow the fathers to fall into the tenebrae. If his many rules seem
to lessen the fathers authority and discourage students from believing
what they read, his actual use of the fathers shows the immense impor-
tance they had in his theological writing throughout his life. Whatever
criticism Gerhard had toward the fathers, he criticized as one who stood
within that very Christian tradition. He criticized not all that the fathers
wrote, but only some; he criticized not from the outside, but from the
inside; he criticized not on the basis of subjective whim or the spirit of
the age, but on the basis of Holy Scripture. His theology continued to be
intensely formed by the fathers, since the tradition of the ancient church
was not just his history, but also a part of his own present.59
59Cf. Hgglund, Das Verstndnis, 53.

THE LOGIC OF THE HEART:
ANALYZING THE AFFECTIONS IN EARLY REFORMED ORTHODOXY
David S. Sytsma
Introduction
While the study of early modern Reformed anthropology, particularly

with respect to Calvin and the imago Dei, has lately become a subject of
greater focus,1 the study of the emotionsor affections and passions
as they were known2has been largely neglected by scholars of early
modern Reformed theology. Despite the fact that affections played a
prominent role in the theological anthropology of many Reformed theo-
logians,3 including Jonathan Edwards,4 scholarship on the seventeenth-
century background has not advanced much beyond Perry Millers general
observation that Puritans displayed Aristotelian and Thomistic tenden-
cies.5 By contrast, there is now enough secondary literature on the history
of emotions in the medieval period to provide an initial sketch of major
schools of thought, and studies on Aquinas and Thomism have grown to
1See Jason Van Vliet, Children of God: The Imago Dei in John Calvin and His Context
(Gttingen: V&R, 2009), 1618.
2tienne Chauvin, Lexicon rationale sive thesaurus philosophicus (Rotterdam: Van der
Slaart, 1692), s.vv. affectus, passio ethic.
3Kelly M. Kapic, Communion with God: The Divine and the Human in the Theology of
John Owen (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), 53; cf. J.I. Packer, The Redemption & Restoration of
Man in the Thought of Richard Baxter (Vancouver: Regent College, 2003), 109111.
4See Brad Walton, Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections and the Puritan Analysis of
True Piety, Spiritual Sensation and Heart Religion (Lewiston: Mellen, 2002); and Paul Lewis,
The Springs of Motion: Jonathan Edwards on Emotions, Character, and Agency, JRE 22.2
(1994): 275297.
5See Perry Miller, The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century (Boston: Beacon,
1961), 254, with sources on 515516. Miller had a wider grasp of the materials, including
continental sources, than J.R. Fulcher, Puritans and the Passions: The Faculty Psychology
in American Puritanism, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 9 (1973): 123139;
C.L. Cohen, Gods Caress: The Psychology of Puritan Religious Experience (Oxford: OUP,
1986), 2829, 118119; and Norman Fiering, Moral Philosophy at Seventeenth-Century
Harvard (Chapel Hill: UNCP, 1981), 147198. Reformed orthodoxy is entirely neglected
in Karl-Heinz zur Mhlen, Affekt II. Theologiegeschichtliche Aspekte, in TRE 1:599612;
Karl-Heinz zur Mhlen, Die Affektenlehre im Sptmittelalter und in der Reformationszeit,
Archiv fr Begriffsgeschichte 35 (1992): 93114; and J. Lanz, Affekt, in Historisches
Wrterbuch der Philosophie (Basel: Schwabe, 1971-), 1:89100.
472 david s. sytsma
the point of observing that early modern Thomism was a variegated and
in no way homogenous commentary tradition.6 Likewise, historians of
early modern philosophy, although mostly motivated by the desire to
understand so-called canonical philosophers (e.g., Descartes, Hobbes,
and Spinoza), have begun to contextualize these philosophers against the
background of Thomist and Protestant traditions.7
The relative neglect of the affections by scholars of early modern
Reformed theology is understandable given that historical theologians
tend to focus on systematic and controversial topics from dogmatic theol-
ogy where discussion of the affections is largely (though not entirely)
absent.8 Even so, affections were an integral part of Reformed theology,
appearing in the law and prayer sections of catechisms, which inter
preted the commandments as applying beyond outward actions to the
souls affections.9 Thus, while affections did not feature prominently in
dogmatic loci, they were important for genres of a practical nature.
The present essay will examine the development of Reformed treat-
ments of the affections in the period of early orthodoxy (ca. 15651640),
during which time extensive treatments of the affections flourished. I will
argue that discussion of the affections during this period grew within the
broad framework of the Aristotelian psychology and certain polemical
concerns initially established by early Reformed theologians. With the
6On the medieval period see Peter King, Emotions in Medieval Thought, in The
Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion, ed. Goldie (Oxford: OUP, 2009), 167187; and
Simo Knuuttila, Emotions in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (Oxford: OUP, 2006), 177
286. On early modern Thomism see Peter King, Late Scholastic Theories of the Passions:
Controversies in the Thomist Tradition, in Emotions and Choice from Boethius to Descartes,
ed. Lagerlund and Yrjnsuuri (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2002), 229258.
7See literature in Amy M. Schmitter, 17th and 18th Century Theories of Emotions,
in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/emotions
-17th18th/; Schmitter, Passions and affections, in The Oxford Handbook of British Philo
sophy in the Seventeenth Century, ed. Anstey (Oxford: OUP, 2013); and Martin Pickav and
Lisa Shapiro, ed., Emotion and Cognitive Life in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy
(Oxford: OUP, 2012). Among the older sources see Anthony Levi, French Moralists: The
Theory of the Passions 15851649 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1964); and Voukossava Miloyevitch,
La Thorie des Passions du P. Senault et la morale chrtienne en France at XVIIe sicle (Paris:
Rodstein, 1934).
8Cf. Aza Goudriaan, The Synod of Dordt on Arminian Anthropology, in Revisiting the
Synod of Dordt (16181619) (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 81106, at 103: The Synod indicated much
less disagreement over the sinful status of the affections, the third component of the soul,
after the Fall.
9Jean Calvin, Catechismus ecclesiae Genevensis (1545), in OC, 6:70, 72, 76 (Law), 86
(Prayer); HC Q/A 109, 113 (Law), in CC, 3:347148; WLC Q/A 99, 105, 135136, 138, 139142,
147148 (Law), 189 (Prayer), in The Confession of Faith, and the Larger and Shorter
Catechisme (London, 1651), 106, 109, 123127, 130131, 147. Also note CoD III/IV.1 (CC, 3:564).
analyzing the affections in early reformed orthodoxy 473
advent of Protestant universities and academies, Reformed ethicists and

theologians treated the affections in greater detail, with a majority draw-
ing on a generally Thomistic approach to the nature and division of the
affections, although not without a dissenting Scotistic minority. As an
introduction to an often-overlooked topic, the essays scope will be lim-
ited to setting forth attempts to describe the most general nature and
divisions of the affections, as well as some recurring controversial themes
related to the nature of affections themselves, leaving aside treatments of
particular affections or their relation to conversion and soteriology.
Affections at the Intersection of Ethics and Anthropology
Discussion of affections both prior to and during early orthodoxy was scat-
tered over a variety of intersecting topics. On the one hand both theolo-
gians and philosophers were interested in the ontological aspect of the
affections in relation to faculties of the soul. On the other hand since affec-
tions relate to the perception of good and evil, philosophers often treated
affections in the context of ethics as principles of action. Theologians, for
their part, felt obliged to address the related problem of concupiscence
in the context of the scope of the Decalogue. Thus, among the Reformers,
in the context of philosophical genres, we typically find a more detailed
description of the nature of the affections, while in the context of theo-
logical genres we find a greater focus on fallen corrupt desires. For exam-
ple, Calvin, in addition to recognizing the rational appetitive faculty
of the will, follows Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics in distinguishing
between irascible (vim irascendi) and concupiscible (vim concupiscendi)
appetitesa traditional division of the affections, as we shall seeyet he
does not dwell on the details of these appetites.10 Rather, Calvin repeatedly
returns to the problem of inordinate desire in relation to the Decalogue.11
10The marginal note to the 1559 Institutes reads Arist.lib.1./Ethi.cap.ult./Item lib.6./

cap.2. See Jean Calvin, Institutio christianae religionis (Geneva: Stephanus, 1559), I.xv.6
(p. 59). The Battles/McNeill edition (1:193n23) contains various errors: (1) it omits this refer-
ence to Aristotles Ethics with respect to the appetites; (2) it inaccurately cites Themistius,
whom Calvin does not cite until later; and (3) it translates vim concupiscendi as the capac-
ity to desire inordinately rather than the neutral (and correct) power of desiring. The
sixteenth-century editions avoid these problems, including Thomas Nortons translation,
which correctly translates vim concupiscendi as power of Desiryng. See The Institution of
Christian Religion (London, 1561), fol. 55r. For Calvins relation to medieval Aristotelian
faculty psychology, see Muller, UC, 159173, and for problems with the Battles/McNeill
edition, 6778.
11Calvin, Institutio, II.ii.24, II.viii.39, II.viii.45, II.viii.4950, III.xvii.1.
474 david s. sytsma
By contrast, in their philosophical works on ethics, Philipp Melanchthon,

Peter Martyr Vermigli, and Andreas Hyperius offer somewhat more detailed
discussion of the nature and kinds of passions, albeit quite cursory by
comparison to some seventeenth-century treatments.12
With the rise of Reformed orthodoxy, we find continued discussion of
the affections in anthropological treatises, expositions of the Decalogue,
and ethical treatises. The Aristotelian psychology of the earlier Reformers
was more fully fleshed out in larger treatments de homine, including the
affections, as theologians and philosophers more explicitly drew on medi-
eval precedents. Girolamo Zanchi, for example, follows Aquinas division
of the passions and cites him to the effect that in the state of innocence
Adam had passions directed toward the good, such as love and joy, but not
toward evil, such as sadness or hatred.13 The affections of course also con-
tinued to be addressed in the context of expositions of the tenth com-
mandment throughout the era of orthodoxy, which often cursorily address
the nature of the affections before turning to the problem of inordinate
desire.14 More than either anthropological treatises or expositions of the
Decalogue, however, ethical treatises addressed the nature and divisions
of the affections in great detail. Among these books of Reformed ethics,
one of the most impressive treatments of the affections, although ignored
by surveys of the era, is the Ethicorum Libri Duo (1603) of Abraham
12See Vermigli, NE, 314324; reprinted in Vermigli, Common Places (London, 1583),
405411; Philip Melanchthon, Philosophiae moralis epitome, I (CR 16:5056); Ethica doctri-
nae elementa, I (CR 16:201207); Enarrationes aliquot librorum ethicorum Aristotelis, III.v
(CR 16:352355); and Andreas Hyperius, In Aristotelis Ethica annotationes (Basel, 1586),
9597. On Melanchthons influence on Reformed ethics, see Donald Sinnema, The
Discipline of Ethics in Early Reformed Orthodoxy, CTJ 28 (1993): 1044.
13Girolamo Zanchi, De operibus Dei intra spatium sex dierum (Neustadt, 1591), pars ter-
tia, II.iii (527a-528a), III.iv (643b-644b), citing Aquinas, ST, Ia.95.2. Others who dealt with
the affections in the context of psychology include: Lambert Daneau, Isagoges christianae
pars quinta, quae est de homine (Geneva, 1588), 15v-17r; Pierre de La Primaudaye, Academie
francoise, 4th ed. (Lyon, 1591), 14v-18r; Otto Casmann, Psychologia Anthropologica; Sive
Animae Human Doctrina (Hannover, 1594), 403422; and Philippe de Mornay, The true
knowledge of a mans owne selfe (London, 1602), 118172.
14See Lambert Daneau, Ethices christianae (Geneva, 1577), II.xvii (302v-312v); Jeremias
Bastingius, In Catechesin Religionis ChristianaeCommentarii (Dordrecht, 1588), 393397;
Andrew Willet, Hexapla in Exodum (London, 1608), 427430; George Downame, An
abstract of the duties commanded, and sinnes forbidden in the Law of God (London, 1620),
M4v; John Weemes, An Exposition of the Morall Law, or Ten Commandments of Almightie
God (London, 1632), 329343; Johannes Wollebius, Christianae theologiae compendium
(Basel, 1634), 406415; Andr Rivet, Praclectiones in cap. XX. Exodi. (Leiden, 1637), 314b-317b;
Anthony Tuckney, Praelectiones theologicae (Amsterdam, 1679), 235242; Johannes
Marckius, Compendium theologiae Christianae, 3rd ed. (Amsterdam, 1722), 260262; and
Turretin, Institutio, XI.xxi.
Scultetus (15661625), court preacher to Frederick V of the Palatinate.15

This work contains an extensive 180-page section on the affections that
dwarfs the previous sections on virtues (100 pages) and the blessed life
(15 pages).16 Although the affections are a regular feature of later ethical
treatises of Reformed orthodoxy, few of them display such an intense
interest in the affections.17
Until the early seventeenth century the affections remained a small
part of disparate works relating to anthropology and ethics. But in the first
half of the seventeenth century, particularly ca. 16201640, we witness a
new development in England. Likely due to the practical focus of Puritans,
there is a remarkable surge of interest in the affections with treatises
either focused on, or entirely devoted to, the affections. Among the earli-
est of these is The Portraiture of the Image of God in Man (1627; 2nd ed.
1632; 3rd ed. 1636) by the Scottish minister John Weemes, which as the
title page advertises, The second [part] containing, the passions of man
in the concupiscible and irascible part of the soule All set downe by
way of collation, and cleared by sundry distinctions, both out of the
Schoolemen, and moderne Writers.18 Unlike some of the Puritan works of
this time, which were often written in popular sermonic form, Weemes
does not hide many of his scholastic sources and distinctions.19 Only a few
years after the third edition of Weemes Portraiture, Edward Reynolds
(15991676), a Westminster divine and later Bishop of Norwich, wrote
15Scultetus was later professor of OT at Heidelberg and a delegate to the Synod of

Dordt. See Cuno, Scultetus, Abraham (ADB, 33:492496).
16Abraham Scultetus, De affectionibus animi dignoscendis & emendandis, in
Ethicorum Libri Duo (Ursellis, 1603), 123308.
17See Franco Burgersdijck, Idea philosophi moralis, vii-viii, in Idea philosophi, tum
moralis, tum naturalis (Oxford, 1631); William Pemble, A Summe of Morall Philosophy
(Oxford, 1632), 1557; Pierre Du Moulin, Ethicorum seu Doctrinae Moralis (Amsterdam,
1645), 10, 6274; J.H. Alsted, Scientiarum omnium Encyclopaediae, 4 vols. (Lyon, 1649),
3:2325; Daniel Sinapius, Dissertationes Ethic (Leiden, 1645), 3843; Adrian Heereboord,
Collegium Ethicum, 5461, in Philosophia, Naturalis, Moralis, Rationalis (Leiden, 1654);
Gisbert ab Isendoorn, Ethica Peripatetica (Harderwijk, 1659), 201237; Isaac Schoock, Idea
Philosophiae Moralis (Frankfurt an der Oder, 1672) 2030; Johann Rudolph Rodolph, Ethica
duobus libris comprehensa (Amsterdam: Daniel Tschiffely, 1696), 74112; and Benedict
Pictet, Medulla ethicae christianae (Geneva, 1712), 273341. As far as I am currently aware,
only Pictets is comparable, but he writes in a post-Cartesian framework.
18John Weemes, The Portraiture of the Image of God in Man, 3rd ed. (London, 1636),
139231.
19Other popularly oriented Puritan works include Thomas Cooper, The Mysterie of the
Holy Government of our Affections (London, [1620?]); William Fenner, A Treatise of the
Affections; Or the Soules Pulse (London, 1641); and John Ball, The Power of Godlines (London,
1657), 172272. Fenners Treatise was subsequently republished on multiple occasions
(1642, 1650, 1657; Works: 1651, 1657, 1658).
476 david s. sytsma
A Treatise of the Passions and Faculties of the Soul of Man (1640) that like
Weemes drew heavily on scholastic sources and distinctions.20 Although
some attention has been given to Reynolds Treatise in past accounts of
early modern affections, such studies have largely ignored the Reformed
treatments that preceded him, including Weemes.21
The developments sketched here point to common affective concerns
shared by Reformers, Reformed scholastics, and Puritans that belies the
older caricatures of Protestant orthodoxy as dry and arid.22 It also under
scores the problematic character of any rigorous contrast between the
academic concerns of Reformed scholastics and pietistic Puritans.23 In
fact, the Puritan treatises on the affections grew up in the soil of an already
abundant scholastic literature, which furnished categories for popular
works such as Richard Baxters Saints Everlasting Rest.24
The Nature of the Affections
Treatments of the affections during the early orthodox period, like those
of the medieval scholastics, typically begin by defining them in relation to
the parts of the soul in general and the faculties of intellect and will more
specifically. The medieval scholastics, although generally in agreement on
the (Aristotelian) division of the soul into rational and sensitive parts,
resulting in a twofold division of rational appetite (will or voluntas) and
sensitive appetite, were not agreed on whether affections were found pri-
marily in the sensitive appetite or in the rational appetite. Anselm and
Abelard, following the suggestion of Augustines City of God XIV.6 that
affections are no more than acts of the will, held that affections are kinds
of willing. Scotus and Ockham continued this reading of Augustine, argu-
ing that affections were in the appetitive faculty in general, and therefore
20Edward Reynolds, A Treatise of the Passions and Faculties of the Soul of Man (London,
1640), 31344 (326344 are misnumbered). Reynolds Treatise was often reprinted (1647,
1650, 1651, 1656, 1658; Works: 1678, 1679), and translated into Dutch by Petrus Heringa: Een
verhandeling van de herts-tochten en mogentheden van de ziele des menschen (Amsterdam,
1667).
21Miller, New England Mind, 251252; Fulcher, Puritans and the Passions, 130131; Jill
Kraye, A and in Early Modern Discussions of the Passions: Stoicism,
Christianity and Natural History, Early Science and Medicine 17 (2012): 230253 at
250252.
22Cf. Muller, AC, 2526, 4748.
23Cf. Muller, AC, 105121; and Schuringa, Orthodoxy, Scholasticism, and Piety in this
volume.
242nd ed. (London, 1651), Part 4, Chapter 9 (184185, 191208).
in both will and sensitive appetite. Although Aquinas also drew heavily on
Augustines City of God, he nonetheless argued that since bodily changes
are essential to emotions (e.g. ones blood boils when angry), they must be
located in the sensitive appetite. Aquinas thus sharply distinguished
between acts of the sensitive and rational appetites, preferring the term
passiones for ordinary emotions and affectiones for analogous volitional
acts of God, angels, and humanity.25
Although not uniform in the use of terminologythey refer variously
to passiones and affectionesmost of the Reformed orthodox authors fol-
low Aristotle and Aquinas in placing the affections in the sensitive appe-
tite and view bodily change as essential to them. Franco Burgersdijck
offers this definition of affectus: An affection is a motion of the sensitive
appetite, with an unnatural change of the body, with respect to a good
or evil object, a proposition, and evaluation, from the imagination (phan-
tasia), for pursuing the former and avoiding the latter.26 A nearly identi-
cal definition, employing the more Thomistic term passio, is found in
Weemes: A passion, is a motion of the sensitive appetite, stirred up by the
apprehension, either of good or evill in the imagination, which worketh
some outward change in the body.27 Like Aquinas, Weemes places the
passions betwixt the body and the minde in the sensitive part of the soul
and not in the reasonable (ruling out Scotus), so that they are in the will
and understanding, as commanding and ruling them; but in the sensitive
part, as in the proper subject. More specifically, the affections depend on
the imagination (or phantasie) to apprehend an object, the intellect to
judge it as true or false, and the will to determine its relative good or evil
in relation to us. Only under the guidance of the intellect and will are the
affections moved with respect to some perceived good or evil.28 Although
Weemes does not cite Aquinas on the affections subordinate dependence
and participation in the intellect and will, Reynolds makes the same point
and he does cite Aquinas.29
25This is a simplification of a much more complicated narrative. See King, Emotions,

171182; and on the distinction between passiones and affectiones, Robert Miner, Thomas
Aquinas on the Passions: A Study of Summa Theologiae 1a2ae2248 (Cambridge: CUP, 2009),
3538. For Aquinas use of Augustine, see Mark D. Jordan, Aquinas Construction of a
Moral Account of the Passions, Freiburger Zeitschrift fr Philosophie und Theologie 33
(1986): 7197.
26Burgersdijck, Idea philosophi moralis, 75. Cf. Rudoph Goclenius, Lexicon philosophi-
cum (Frankfurt, 1613), s.v. Passio; Aquinas, ST, IaIIae.22.3.
27Portraiture, 139. See similarly, Zanchi, De operibus Dei, 527a.
28Portraiture, 140141.
29Reynolds, Treatise, 38, citing Aquinas, ST, Ia.81.3.
478 david s. sytsma
A somewhat more eclectic approach to the nature of the affections is

found in Abraham Scultetus. Having defined affections as commotions of
the souls appetitive faculty (commotiones ab appetente facultate), he
devoted a chapter to the question, In what way do commotions arise
in the rational part?30 In that chapter, after contrasting the positions of
Augustine and Scotus to those of Aristotle and Aquinas, he tries to recon-
cile the two positions: Therefore the souls affections are in the lower
appetite, as the proper seat, although they also consider, and as we
explained, affect the higher. In which way Scotus can be united with
Thomas, nor do I suppose Augustine and Galen to have thought differ-
ently.31 Despite this conciliatory stance, by placing the proper seat of
the affections in the sensitive appetite, Scultetus appears to favor the posi-
tion of Aquinas.
Although the majority of Reformed authors in early orthodoxy favor
the placement of the affections in the sensitive appetite, there is at least
one significant deviation from this view. The Puritan William Fenner, rec-
ognizing the majority opinion, argued like Augustine and Scotus for the
affections as kinds of willing. In his words, As the affections are motions,
so they are the motions of the will. I know Aristotle and most of our Divines
too, doe place the affections in the sensitive part of the Soule, and not in
the will, because they are to be seene in the beasts.32 He provides both
psychological and Scriptural argument. Psychologically, the affection of
shame shows that it is possible to be moved without relation to the sensi-
tive part of the soul. From Scripture he observes that Paul in 1 Thess. 2:8
(Being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing) couples his affec-
tions and his will together in one, and his affection that he had to the
Thessalonians, hee seats in his will. Likewise, Fenner argues, Scripture
says that good angels desire (1 Pet. 1:12) and evil angels believe and trem-
ble (James 2:19), which would not be possible unless the angels, who lack
a sensitive soul, have affections in their will.33 Then leaving no doubt as to
his Scotist sympathies, Fenner concludes the argument, and therefore
Austen, and Galen, and Scotus, and why say I them, the scriptures say the
affections are motions in the heart.34
30Ethicorum, 129, 132.

31Ethicorum, 134. On p. 133 he contrasts the opinions of Augustine, Galen, and Scotus
with those of Cicero, Aquinas, and Aristotle.
32Fenner, Treatise, 5. Fiering, Moral Philosophy, 159165, notes that Fenner was known
to leading New England Puritans, but does not discuss him in relation to Reformed trea-
tises such as Weemes and Reynolds.
33Treatise, 56.
34Treatise, 6.
The fact that Fenner felt compelled to provide such arguments against
the opinion of most of our Divines illustrates the dominance not of a
Scotist, but rather of an Aristotelian or Thomist opinionreflecting a
sharp distinction between sensitive and intellectual appetitesamong
the Reformed. At the same time, the examples of Fenner and Scultetus
show that there was not complete uniformity of opinion, and should
therefore caution us from concluding that the Reformed tradition was
without qualification either Thomist or Scotist with respect to the nature
of the affections. We can conclude, however, that the Reformed tradition
prior to the spread of Descartes concept of the soul, which denied a sensi-
tive part, generally placed the affections in the sensitive appetite with a
minority favoring a Scotist view. Incidentally, this conclusion places
Jonathan Edwards in discontinuity with the mainstream of early Reformed
orthodoxy, though perhaps in continuity with Fenner, since Edwards
located the affections entirely in the will.35
Categorizing the Affections
Of all the medieval scholastics, Aquinas Treatise on the Passions (Summa

theologiae, IaIIae, qq. 2248) was, in the estimation of one medieval histo-
rian, the most extensive medieval treatise on the subject,36 and in
another, a treatment so masterful that it eclipsed the works of his prede-
cessors.37 By contrast, although their respective treatments of the affec-
tions were deep and principled, Scotus and Ockham did not offer
complete treatises on the topic.38 Given also the availability of early mod-
ern Roman Catholic treatises on the passions that adapted and popular-
ized Aquinas treatise, it is understandable that the Reformed would draw
on Aquinas treatise.39
35Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections, ed. Smith (New Haven: YUP, 1959), 9798.
Fiering, Moral Philosophy, 164, plausibly sees in Fenner an anticipation of Edwards. Contra
Walton, Jonathan Edwards, 146148, who on the basis of Aquinas view of volitional love as
the first mover of both the will and affections (ST, Ia.20.1), argues that there is precedent in
Aquinas for Edwards placement of the affections entirely in the will. If there were any
medieval precedent here, it would be Scotus not Aquinas. For further discontinuities with
Reformed orthodoxy on the related faculty of the will, see Richard A. Muller, Jonathan
Edwards and the Absence of Free Choice: A Parting of the Ways in the Reformed Tradition,
Jonathan Edwards Studies 1.1 (2011): 322.
36Knuuttila, Emotions, 239.
37King, Emotions, 176.
39In addition to the numerous commentaries on the Summa theologiae, there were
popular vernacular treatises, e.g., Nicolas Coffeteau, A Table of Humane Passions. With
480 david s. sytsma
A variety of factors contribute to analyses of the affections in both

medieval and early modern treatises on the affections. Generally all
authors presume that affections require an object to which they relate,
considered under various aspects.40 Since such objects can appear to be
either good or evil, present or future, simple or difficult to obtain, they
allow for a variety of emotional responses. Ancient philosophers, upon
whom both medieval and early modern authors elaborate, observed these
factors and based their classifications on them. The Stoics identified four
basic affections: delight (present good), distress (present evil), desire
(future good), and fear (future evil). Plato and Aristotle distinguished
between simple and difficult to obtain objects, from which they derived
the distinction between concupiscible (simple desiring) and irascible
(angry) affections. Augustine bequeathed these ancient classifications to
the medieval scholastics.41
Aquinas drew on these ancient classifications and built an elaborate
classification of the affections. Following Augustines City of God XIV.7, he
arranges the affections in a teleological path from inclination to move-
ment to rest, reflecting the beginning, middle, and end of a series of emo-
tions in the process of pursuing good and avoiding evil.42 In this schema,
the concupisible affections of love (amor) and hate (odium) are principle
inclinations toward good and evil, respectively; desire (desiderium) and
aversion (abominatio) are motions toward or away from imminent good
or evil; and joy (gaudium) and sadness (tristitia) are final affections resting
in present and obtained good or evil.43 Aquinas classifies the irascible
affections, which respect objects as difficult to obtain, according to
whether they tend toward or away from either good or evil, whether future
or present. The affections of hope (spes) and despair (desperatio) tend
toward or away from good, respectively, while the affections of boldness
(audacia) and fear (timor) tend toward or away from evil, respectively.44
Anger (ira), which seeks to overcome a present evil, is a unique affection
their Causes and Effects, trans. E.G. Sergiant (London, 1621), a translation of Tableau des
passions humaines (Paris, 1620); and Thomas Wright, The Passions of the Minde in Generall,
2nd ed. (London, 1604). On Coffeteau, see Levi, French Moralists, 142152.
40E.g., Zanchi, De operibus Dei, 527b; Vermigli, NE, 316.
42Aquinas, ST, IaIIae.25.2. Cf. Miner, Thomas Aquinas, 8287; Kevin White, The
Passions of the Soul (IaIIae, qq. 2248), in The Ethics of Aquinas, ed. Pope (Washington:
Georgetown UP, 2002), 107; and Jordan, Aquinas Construction, 9093.
43Aquinas, ST, IaIIae.25.2, 4.
44Aquinas, ST, IaIIae.23.2.
without a contrary, since the contrary tendency away from a present evil
is not possible.45
Both the Reformers and their orthodox successors distinguish between
concupiscible (; concupiscibilis) and irascible (; irasci-
bilis) faculties in the sensitive appetite. The distinction is a commonplace,
and as such only indicative of a shared Aristotelian psychology rather
than a particularly Thomist influence. Many authors simply refer to
Aristotle for the distinction.46 All the passions, writes Weemes, may be
reduced first, to the concupiscible and irascible faculties of the Soule.47
Similarly, Pierre Du Moulin explains, There are two kinds of appetite, one
is called concupiscible, the other irascible. The concupiscible is first, for
anger is not stirred up except after desire. On that account we become
angry since [something] is opposed to our desire.48 With respect to the
further question of exactly how these appetites are distinguished, there is
less agreement. The Jesuit Francisco Surez (15481617) is known to have
departed from Aquinas real distinction between concupiscible and iras-
cible powers, favoring rather a merely conceptual distinction of various
functions exercised by a single appetitive power.49 While many Reformed
authors do not seem to oblige a merely conceptual distinction, since they
speak of multiple appetitoria or facultates (Zanchi, Scultetus, Weemes),
others writing after Surez grant a conceptual distinction. Burgersdijck
clearly states that the concupiscible and irascible are not faculties differ-
ing in the thing itself, but by reason alone. For there is one and the same
faculty, which is called and .50 Adriaan Heereboord,
while conceding that a real distinction is the more common opinion, yet
like Burgersdijck argued that a conceptual distinction is more probable
because the appetites subjects and objects do not differ as things them-
selves but rather by reason.51
While Reformed theologians even prior to the rise of orthodoxy had
divided the sensitive appetite into concupiscible and irascible aspects,
45Aquinas, ST, IaIIae.23.3.

46See Calvin, Institutio, I.xv.6; Vermigli, NE, 403; Hyperius, In Aristotelis Ethica annota-
tiones, 96; Zanchi, De operibus Dei, 527a; Scultetus, Ethicorum, 135143; Burgersdijck, Idea
philosophi moralis, 9192; Goclenius, Lexicon philosophicum, s.v. Appetibile, Irascibile;
Du Moulin, Ethicorum, 10; Pemble, A Summe of Morall Philosophy, 19; Heereboord,
Collegium Ethicum, 56b-57a; Isendoorn, Ethica Peripatetica, 216; Sinapius, Dissertationes
Ethic, 38; Voetius, SDT, 5:225; and Turretin, Institutio, XI.xxi.1.
47Weemes, Portraiture, 142.
48Du Moulin, Ethicorum, 62.
49King, Late Scholastic Theories, 238244.
50Burgersdijck, Idea philosophi moralis, 9293.
51Heereboord, Collegium Ethicum, 56b-57a.
482 david s. sytsma
over time Aquinas particular account of the eleven affections gained in

popularity, as contemporaries attest. In an appendix to a 1638 disputation,
Gisbertus Voetius observed that while the affections are commonly
treated in small physical, ethical, and practical books (libelli), the scholas-
tics on Thomas [Summa theologiae] IaIIae.2249 should be consulted
above all for solid learning.52 Benedict Pictet, writing in a post-Cartesian
context, still observed three main opinions on the enumeration of the
affections: The opinions vary, some ennumerate thirteen as Aristotle
does, others ennumerate eleven as Thomas Aquinas, and Descartes ennu-
merates six, to which he reduces all others.53 Likewise, Heereboord noted
that all the scholastics follow [Aquinas enumeration] and [it is] the
common [opinion] of the philosophers.54 Although neither Pictet nor
Heereboord were personally satisfied with Aquinas account, their retro-
spective remarks indicate that prior to Descartes Aquinas classification
figured largely in accounts of the affections, and this is exactly what
we find.
The Reformed authors during the early orthodox period often turned
to Aquinas classification of the affections at least to frame the state of
the question, and many of them followed Aquinas quite closely. Among
the authors who clearly agree with Aquinas enumeration are Alsted,
Scultetus, Weemes, Du Moulin, and Reynolds. These authors, while recog-
nizing various alternative theories, ultimately follow Aquinas account of
six concupiscible and five irascible affections. Alsted reproduces Aquinas
eleven affections in a Ramist chart bifurcated first according to concupis-
cible and irascible appetites, and second according to their relation to
good or evil, where the concupiscible appetites are ordered in temporal
sequence (like Aquinas) by initial motion, absence of object, and presence
of object.55 Scultetus states, I, along with Thomas, draw up eleven par-
ticular affections: love, hate, desire, flight or aversion, joy or delight,
sadness, and these in the concupiscible part, but in the irascible part hope,
despair, fear, boldness, and anger.56 Weemes, who repeatedly cites
Aquinas throughout his particular exposition of the affections, draws up
52Voetius, Paralipomna ad disp. 10. de creatione, in SDT, 1:804.

53Pictet, Medulla ethicae christianae, 273274.
54Heereboord, Collegium Ethicum, 58b.
55Alsted, Encyclopaediae, 3:25a.
56Scultetus, Ethicorum, 154. In his following explanation he draws on Aquinas for how
particular affections relate to one another, as e.g., despair follows fear (Ethicorum, 155,
citing ST, IaIIae.45.2), hope precedes joy, and fear precedes sadness (Ethicorum, 158159,
citing IaIIae.25.1). He also writes that Aquinas teaches erudit in IaIIae.23.2 (Ethicorum, 158).
the same schema as Aquinas, including identical definitions of each par-

ticular affection.57 Reynolds, like Scultetus and Weemes, had obviously
been reading Aquinas carefully on the nature of the affections, although
his exposition of particular affections is mostly peppered with classical
and biblical illustrations.58 In addition to the methodological similarity
with Aquinas in providing separate treatments of the nature, causes, and
effects for each of the eleven affections, Reynolds overview of the divi-
sions of the affections mirrors Aquinas by placing the concupiscible affec-
tions in a teleological path from the first springings (hate and love), to
those in between but not yet united to their object (desire and aversion),
to those finally united to present good or evil (delight and sorrow).59
Reynolds perhaps represents the most developed Reformed treatise on
the affections that follows a Thomist enumeration. Without examining
in detail the contents of each affection, it is safe to say that a significant
number of Reformed authors of early orthodoxy adopted a generally
Thomistic division of the affections. This Thomist schema continued to be
espoused throughout the seventeenth century.60
Polemical Themes
There are at least two recurring polemical themes in early orthodoxy that
relate directly to the nature of the affections. First, the Reformed deny the
Stoic notion of . Second, they affirm, against many contemporary
Jesuits, the sinfulness of involuntary appetitive motions that precede the
affections (primo primi motus). These areas of controversy are traditional
points of debate which, originating prior to the Reformation, were
addressed by Reformers but then developed in more detail in early
Reformed orthodoxy.
The Reformers and Reformed orthodox sided with a tradition of oppo-
sition to Stoic going back to Augustines City of God XIV.9by
no means the dominant patristic opinion61and perpetuated by some
57Weemes, Portraiture, 142143, citing Aquinas, e.g., on 164, 172, 175, and 212.
58Cf. citations to ST in Reynolds, Treatise, 37, 38, 49 167, 259.
59Reynolds, Treatise, 3940.
60E.g., in New England by Charles Morton; see Fiering, Moral Philosophy, 233. See also
Isendoorn, Ethica Peripatetica, 217237; and Richard Baxter, Methodus Theologiae
Christianae (London, 1681), I.225, who adopts Aquinas six concupiscible passions with
out modification, but expands Aquinas five irascible passions to nine to fit his unique
trichotomization.
61See Knuuttila, Emotions, 118135, 141144, 176; Grard Verbeke, The Presence
of Stoicism in Medieval Thought (Washington: CUAP, 1983), 48; and Paul Gondreau, The
484 david s. sytsma
medieval theologians, including Aquinas.62 Melanchthon and Calvin

included polemics against , while Vermigli openly disagreed
with Basil and Gregory Nazianzen, whose must be completely
rejected.63 Furthermore, the revival of Stoicism in the 1580s led by Justus
Lipsius ensured that the early orthodox authors would oppose
with even greater vigor.64 While the Reformed adherence to a generally
Aristotelian doctrine of the soul, with its affirmation that moderated affec-
tions are natural and good, certainly strengthened this opposition, these
polemics also shared with Augustine a theological motivation.65 Many
authors include distinct polemical chapters or sections against ,
and others, following Augustine, appeal to the example of Christs affec-
tions.66 Weemes, for example, cites the same proof texts as Augustine:
Christ himselfe tooke these passions upon him, therefore they cannot bee
sinne, Luke 10.21. Hee was angrie, Marke 3.5. He was sad, Math. 26.38. and
rejoyced, Luke 10.21. They are sanctified by regeneration. The Apostle, Rom.
1.30 condemnes the want of naturall affection, hee calls them , with-
out naturall affection.67
In order to clarify that Christ was in full control of his passions, many
theologians also make use of a medieval notion, originating with Jeromes
exegesis of Mt. 26:37 (Jesus began to be sad), of propassion or pre-
passion.68 Even while making the dogmatic point against , some
Passions of Christs Soul in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Mnster: Aschendorff,
2002), 284n50.
62Knuuttila, Emotions, 155156, 160; Gondreau, Passions, 5354, 127128, 285286;
Miner, Thomas Aquinas, 8892, 290.
63See Melanchthon, Philosophiae moralis epitome, I (CR 16:5155); Ethica doctrinae
elementa, I (CR 16:205206); Enarrationes aliquot librorum ethicorum Aristotelis, III.v
(CR 16:352); Calvin, Institutio, III.viii.9; and Vermigli, NE, 317318.
64On Neo-Stoicism, see Jill Kraye, Neo-Stoicism, in Encyclopedia of Ethics, ed. Becker
and Becker, 2nd ed., 3 vols. (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2001), 2:12281232; Levi, French
Moralists, 51111; and for England, J.H.M. Salmon, Stoicism and Roman Example: Seneca
and Tacitus in Jacobean England, JHI 50.2 (1989): 199225. Opposition was strong in
England; see Henry Sams, Anti-Stoicism in Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century
England, Studies in Philology 41.1 (1944): 6578; and Kraye, A and ,
230253.
65Cf. Miller, New England Mind, 253255, 261.
66See Reynolds, Treatise, 4650; Du Moulin, Ethicorum, 7374; Scultetus, Ethicorum,
144145; and Isendoorn, Ethica Peripatetica, 210211.
67Weemes, Portraiture, 159, citing Rom. 1:31 incorrectly as 1:30. These verses are cited in
Augustine, City of God, XIV.9.
68See Weemes, Portraiture, 146147; Reynolds, Treatise, 49; and Edward Leigh,
Annotations upon all the New Testament Philologicall and Theological (London, 1650), 156.
Cf. Kevin Madigan, The Passions of Christ in High-Medieval Thought (New York: OUP, 2007),
5758, 6771; Gondreau, Passions, 366372; Kraye, A and , 247252.
writers play down differences by stating with Augustine that when one
considers their view of reasons rule over the passions, there is little overall
difference between the Stoic and Peripatetic views.69 In general, an antip-
athy for Stoic , inherited from Augustine and utilizing the example
of Christ, is characteristic of early Reformed orthodoxy.
If the polemics against reflect the per se goodness of the appeti-
tive faculty and its passions, the polemics with respect to primo primi
motus reflect the Reformed consensus on the post-lapsarian condition of
humanity, in which humanity contracted impurity in all its affections.70
The controversy, in a nutshell, is whether initial inordinate motions of
non-rational appetites, prior to the consent of the intellectual faculties,
constitute sins of concupiscence.
This question was widely debated among medieval theologians.
Augustine viewed inordinate initial desires as a result of original sin, but
denied the actual sinfulness of such desires until one actually delights in
it.71 Peter Lombard, drawing on Augustine, provided a succinct account in
Sentences II dist. 24.612. However, he altered Augustines view by adding
that initial inordinate desires are the lightest venial sins.72 Those who
disagreed with Lombard introduced a distinction between first and sec-
ondary initial movements, the former being exempt from sin.73 Although
Aquinas among others followed Lombard in affirming the sinfulness of
initial inordinate desires, the contrary view gained popularity among late-
medieval Franciscans, and the doctrine became dominant among Roman
Catholics through the influence of the sixteenth-century Parisian nomi-
nalists and the school of Salamanca.74 By the early seventeenth century,
the Jesuit controversialist Martin Becanus could write that while Lombard,
Aquinas, and Cajetan held that the initial motions of the sensitive appe-
tite are venial sins, yet the common opinion among Roman Catholics is
that these motions are neither mortal nor venial sins.75
69See Sinapius, Dissertationes Ethic, 40, citing Augustine, City of God, IX.4; and
Reynolds, Treatise, 49, citing Aquinas, ST, IaIIae.24.2,3 (wherein Augustine is cited).
70CoD III/IV.1 (CC 3:564).
74R.A. Couture, Limputabilit morale des premiers mouvements de sensualit de
Saint Thomas aux Salmanticenses (Rome: Editrice Pontificia Universit Gregoriana, 1962),
esp. 220.
75Martin Becanus, Summae theologiae scholasticae pars secunda (Paris, 1620), 326327.
Note Becanus against Cajetan: Est contra Caiet. cuius sententia est erronea. (333).
486 david s. sytsma
Early Reformed orthodoxy found this contemporary Roman Catholic,

and particularly Jesuit, development entirely problematic. Weemes and
Andrew Willet offer some of the most detailed responses to contemporary
Roman Catholic opinion on primo primi motus.76 Weemes summarizes
the Roman Catholic view thus: The Church of Rome granteth that the
full consent is mortall sinne. Secondly, that the delight is a veniall sinne,
because it is but semiplena deliberatio, but they deny motum suggestionis
to be a sinne.77 He also notes the alternative terms primo-primi motus,
secundo-primi motus, and secundi motus, while arguing that the primo-
primi motus are condemned by the tenth commandment, and the others
are condemned by Christs interpretation of the seventh commandment
(adultery) in Matt. 5:28.78 Perhaps reflecting Lombards description of first
motions as the lightest venial sins, Weemes says their involuntary nature
excuses sin in part, but not fully (in tanto, sed non in toto).79 Willet, for his
part, in his Exodus commentary after dividing sin into three degrees of
appetitus, assensio, and actio, cites Calvins interpretation of the tenth
commandment that even without consent if desire tickles (titillat) us,
this suffices for guilt.80 Willet also notes a minor difference among the
Reformed: whereas Franciscus Junius interprets the tenth commandment
as applying only to initial inordinate motions, Zacharius Ursinus inter-
prets it as applying to the broader category of original corruption itself.
Willet agrees with Ursinus.81 In his Romans commentary, Willet includes
a polemical section on the sinfulness of involuntary motions, in which he
responds in detail to the Jesuit Benedictus Pererius assertion that desires
lacking the wills consent are not sinful.82
As the seventeenth century advanced, the early orthodox polemic
on primo primi motus became a common aspect of Reformed treatments
76See also Daneau, Ethices christianae, 304v-307r; Bastingius, In Catechesin, 297298;

and John Dod, A Treatise of Exposition upon the Ten Commandments (London, 1603),
97v-98v.
77Weemes, Exposition of the Morall Law, 332.
78Weemes, Portraiture, 139140. Cf. William Perkins, The Workes, 3 vols. (London, 1631),
3:55b (on Matt. 5:28).
79Weemes, Portraiture, 139.
80Willet, Hexapla in Exodum, 428, citing Jean Calvin, Mosis libri V, cum Johannis Calvini
commentariis (Geneva, 1563), 396 (CO 24:720).
81Willet, Hexapla in Exodum, 429; cf. Franciscus Junius, Opera theologica, 2 vols.
(Geneva, 1607), 1:309; and Ursinus, Commentary, 605606.
82Andrew Willet, HexaplavponRomanes (London, 1611), 342346; cf. Benedictus
Pererius, Secundus tomussuper Epistola beati Pauli ad Romanos (Ingolstadt, 1603),
755761.
of the tenth commandment.83 One Reformed controversialist, Festus

Hommius (15761642), even detected a similar problem with the Arminian
view of concupiscence. He argued that various Arminians, including
Arminius himself, held that the inclination to sinning is not a fault, or
sin properly so called, but thus metonymically named, because it is the
cause or effect of sin.84 Hommius further noted that Arminius referred
to an inclination to sinning, which existed even before [the Fall] in
humanity.85 Although a detailed comparison of Arminian and Jesuit
views of primo primi motus is beyond the scope of this essay, if Hommius
is correct (a point that would require a study in its own right), then it is
possible that one could findin addition to the Arminian use of the
Jesuits scientia media opposed by the Reformedanother convergence
of Arminian and Jesuit opinion in contrast to that of the Reformed.86
Conclusion
In the era of early Reformed orthodoxy (ca. 15651640), the affections

were treated in a variety of genres, both philosophical and theological. As
this era progressed, with the rise of Puritanism, distinct treatises focusing
on the affections flourished particularly in England (ca. 16201640).
Reformed authors, following a strict Aristotelian division between the
intellectual and sensitive appetites, generally define the nature of the
affections as motions of the sensitive appetite, although William Fenner
represents an exception to this mainstream opinion. They divide the
affections themselves according to the ancient division between concupi-
scible and irascible appetites. While these aspects reflect an Aristotelian
psychology shared with Reformers including Calvin and Vermigli, many
83See Rivet, Praclectiones, 315a; Tuckney, Praelectiones, 235237; Turretin, Institutio,

XI.xxi; and Andreas Essenius, Synopsis Controversiarum Theologicarum (Utrecht, 1677), 39.
84Festus Hommius, Specimen controversiarum Belgicarum (Leiden, 1618), 53. I am
grateful to Aza Goudriaan for drawing my attention to this source. See similarly, Goudriaan,
The Synod of Dordt on Arminian Anthropology, 103n107.
85Hommius, Specimen, 54. He cites Jacob Arminius, Articuli nonnulli diligenti examine
perpendi ([ca. 1607]), 18. On the approximate date for Arminius Articuli see Keith
Stanglin and Richard Muller, Bibliographia Arminiana, in AAE, 277.
86On the Arminian use of scientia media, along with Reformed opposition to it, see
Richard A. Muller, Arminius and the Scholastic Tradition, CTJ 24.2 (1989): 263277;
Muller, Arminius, 143166; Muller, PRRD, 3:417432; Eef Dekker, Was Arminius a Molinist?
SCJ 27.2 (1996): 337352; Stephen Hampton, Anti-Arminians: The Anglican Reformed
Tradition from Charles II to George I (Oxford: OUP, 2008), 210211, 254259; Keith Stanglin
and Thomas McCall, Jacob Arminius: Theologian of Grace (Oxford: OUP, 2012), 6569.
488 david s. sytsma
early orthodox authors also accept Aquinas classification of six concupis-

cible and five irascible passions and adopt Aquinas specific definition
of each.
The polemics with respect to the affections concern both their nature
and corruption. There is a general consensus, shared with the Reformers,
against Stoic . Here the traditional arguments from Christs exam-
ple, originally put forth in Augustines City of God, play a large role. We
also find a strong polemic against the Roman Catholic majority opinion,
argued by Jesuits, that first motions of the sensitive appetite (primo primi
motus) are not sinful on account of their involuntary nature. In both cases
the early Reformed orthodox respond to long-standing debates stretching
back at least to the medieval erathey are, as Heiko Oberman and
Richard Muller have contended, participants in an ongoing dialogue.87

REFORMED EDUCATION FROM GENEVA THROUGH
THE NETHERLANDS TO THE EAST INDIES
Yudha Thianto
John Calvin believed that education should be an integral part of the

churchs work in ensuring that Christians know what they believe. His first
edition of the Institutes was developed following the standard format of a
catechism, with some elaborate explanation on the Ten Commandments,
the Apostles Creed, the Lords Prayer, the sacraments, and relationship
between church and state. Knowledge stands front and center in Calvins
theological argument. While the 1536 edition of the Institutes was short
enough to function as a handy instruction in faith, Calvin saw the need to
provide more suitable materials to be used as catechetical tools for the
young. The publication of his first catechism in 1537 was a testimony to his
effort to provide a suitable teaching tool. Written in French, the 1537 cate-
chism, according to Paul Fuhrmann, was Calvins own popular compen-
dium of his earliest Institutio.1
In his lifetime Calvin published additional catechisms.2 One year after
the publication of the 1537 catechism, he published another one, in Latin,
entitled Catechismus, sive Christianae Religionis Institutio.3 Pointing to the
1537 French edition of the catechism, in the preface of the 1538 catechism
Calvin stated that a similar work has been published by the approval of
the church of Geneva, but currently the work is published in Latin for the
1Paul T. Fuhrmann, Historical Foreword, in John Calvin, Instruction in Faith (1537)

(Philadelphia: WP, n. d.), 8. The original French title of the catechism is: Instruction et con-
fession de foy dont on use en lglise de Genve (CO 22:2574). Unless otherwise noted, quota-
tions from Calvins 1537 catechism in this essay will be taken from this English translation,
referenced as: Catechism 1537, followed by page number.
2Some of them are: LInstitution purile de la doctrine Christienne faicte par maniere de
dyalogue, written between 1538 and 1541 (OS 2:152156), Le Catchisme de lglise de Genve,
cest a dire le formulaire dinstruire les enfents en la Chrestient, published in 1542 (CO 6:1
134), and the 1545 Latin translation of the catechism under the title: Catechismus ecclesiae
Genevensis, hoc est, formula erudiendi pueros in doctriner Christi (CO 6:1146). For a more
complete description of the publications of Calvins works, see Wulfert de Greef, The
Writings of John Calvin, Expanded Edition, trans. Bierma (Louisville: WJKP, 2008).
3CO 5:313362. English translation in I. John Hesselink, Calvins First Catechism:
A Commentary, trans. Battles (Louisville: WJKP, 1997), 1. Unless otherwise noted, quotations
of Calvins 1538 catechism will be taken from this English edition, and referenced as:
Catechism 1538, followed by page number.
490 yudha thianto
purpose that the sincerity of that faith may be manifest also to other
churches everywhere.4 This short statement clearly indicates that he had
the global church in mind.
In Geneva, during Calvins lifetime there were some booklets being
published that contain basic instruction for young children to learn how
to read and write. An example of such booklets is entitled LABC Franois.5
These booklets do not bear the names of the authors, most likely because
they were not original works by an author, but only a collection of teach-
ing material, as well as selection of biblical texts, the Lords Prayer, the
Apostles Creed, the Ten Commandments, and several standard prayers to
be used at school. These booklets also functioned as a very basic instruc-
tion to reading and writing for young children.6 While these works do not
bear the name of any particular author, one can see in them Calvins
influence.
A similar idea was adopted by the Dutch Reformed churches in the
sixteenth century. Later on, when the Dutch sailed to the East Indies to
monopolize the trading of spices it was adopted by the ministers who
brought Reformed Protestantism to the archipelago. Six years after the
first Dutch people set their feet on the coasts of the East Indian archipel-
ago in 1596, the Dutch established the United Dutch East India Company
(Verenigde Oost-Indische Company; hereafter VOC) in 1602 with its head-
quarters first located in Ambon, but then moved to Batavia. In 1611, the
company published its very first book for the East Indies, a small booklet,
written in Malay, entitled Sovrat ABC, or the ABC Letter which is in many
ways an adaptation of the church of Genevas idea of combining the teach-
ing of literacy to young children and faith instruction. While this booklet
does not bear the name of its writer or compiler, scholars and historians of
the VOC believe that this booklet was composed or written by Albertus
Ruyl, a koopman or merchant working for the VOC in the East Indies.7
The focus of this essay is a close comparison between the Sovrat
ABC and the 1551 LABC Franois8 to show that the extent of Calvins
4Catechism 1538, 1.
5LABC Franois ([Geneva: Crespin], 1551). Another similar work came under the title
ABC et chrestienne instruction bien utile, (Geneva: Davodeau and de Mortire, [1552]).
6De Greef, The Writings of John Calvin, 117.
7[Albert Ruyl], Sovrat ABC, Akan meng ayd jer anack boudack sepercy deayd jern ja
capada segala manusia Nassarany: daen berbagy sombahayang Christiaan (Amsterdam,
1611).
8A copy of this work is kept at the British Museum, London, call number 3504. dg. 15.
first section. There is a modern reprint of the text by Rodolphe Peter in Revue dHistoire et
de Philosophie Religieuses 45 (1965): 1145. English translation of the text in Rodolphe Peter,
reformed education from geneva to the east indies 491
reformation reached the other side of the globe in less than a century. In
so doing the essay will demonstrate that Reformed education in the six-
teenth and early seventeenth centuries always took into consideration the
integration of the knowledge of the content of the Christian faith and the
knowledge of the world surrounding believers.
The LABC Franois roughly follows the structure of Calvins 1537 and
1538 catechisms, with the focus on the Ten Commandments, the Lords
Prayer, and the Apostles Creed. The main goal of the catechism is to teach
the youth with the basic doctrines of the church. The catechism was used
to prepare these young people to make profession of faith before they
were allowed to partake in the Lords Supper. For Calvin this profession is
the reaffirmation or confession of the peoples baptismal vow. He makes
it clear that those who want to be reckoned among Gods people and be
admitted to that spiritual and most sacred banquet must make their own
oath.9 He likens the relationship between baptism and confirmation to
circumcision and renewal of the covenant in the Old Testament time.10
Neither of the 1537 and 1538 catechisms take the question and answer
format.11 In these catechisms, Calvin starts with the explanation on sensus
divinitatis, followed by an explicit statement that in contrast with non-
believers who pervert the idea and knowledge of God, believers must
ensure that seeking the true is the focus of their lives.12 He then moves on
to the topic of the true and false religion, with an obvious polemical inten-
tion, without naming names, that the Papacy is the false religion. From
here he continues to the big theme of human beings as created good, the
fall of human beings into sin, and salvation only found in Jesus Christ.13
Explanation of the Ten Commandments follows the topic on salvation.
Calvin makes it clear that following the law of God as expressed in the Ten
Commandments is not a condition for salvation, but an expression of
what righteous living must look like.14 Directly connected to the teaching
The Geneva Primer or Calvins Elementary Catechism, trans. Raynal, in Calvin Studies V,
ed. Leith (Davidson: Davidson College, 1990), 135161. References to this work in this essay
will be taken from this English translation as LABC, followed by the original page number-
ing of the 1551 edition provided by Peter in the reprint of this text.
9Catechism 1538, 3.
10Catechism 1538, 4.
11The dialogue or question and answer format was used in the in the publication of
Calvins subsequent French Catechism LInstitution purile de la doctrine Christienne faicte
par maniere de dyalogue, written between 1538 and 1541.
12Catechism 1537, 17, cf: Calvin, Catechism 1538, 7.
13In both editions of the catechism, these are the topics of articles 47.
14Catechism 1537, and Catechism 1538, articles 812.
492 yudha thianto
on the Ten Commandments is Calvins view of election and predestina-

tion. The placement of this topic shows Calvins clear intention to teach
the people that salvation completely depends on Gods goodness toward
his people, and is not a result of work.15 Faith, justification and sanctifica-
tion are the next main teachings to be discussed. Calvin plainly shows that
faith is a gift of God.16 People are justified in Christ through faith so that
they can lead a sanctified life through faith in order to obey the law. The
symbol of our faith, he shows, is the Apostles Creed. In the catechism he
carefully explains, very much as he does in the Institutes, each article of
the creed.17
Faith brings hope. Calvin explains that hope is a sure persuasion of the
truth of God which can neither lie nor deceive us, and be neither vain nor
false.18 This hope rests on faith as its foundation, but at the same time,
hope nourishes faith.19 A person who is well grounded in her faith under-
stands that she has nothing to rely on herself, and therefore in order to
find help she must go outside of herself and rely on God. That is why
Christians must pray. Calvin simply explains prayer as a communication
between God and us, in which we pour out in words our joys, sighs, and
all the thoughts of our hearts.20 In order to assist us to pray correctly, he
writes, God our Father has provided us a model for us to pray in the Lords
Prayer.21 The next part of the catechism is Calvins elaborate explanation
of the meaning of the Lords Prayer, dividing the prayer into six petitions
and carefully explicating the significance of each petition in the lives of
believers.
The last part of the catechism deals with the sacraments, ecclesiastical
offices, excommunication and the relationship between the church and
the civil magistrates. In many ways the catechism follows the develop-
ment of Calvins thoughts from the 1536 edition of the Institutes. The cat-
echisms of 1537 and 1538 can be seen as a very condensed form of the
Institutes. However, the catechism is still not a handy tool to be used in
the classroom to teach the children. Simpler pedagogical material was
still needed for more practical purposes to teach the children in the
classroom.
15Catechism 1537, 37; Catechism 1538, 17.

16Catechism 1537, and Catechism 1538, article 15.
17Article 20 in both the 1537 and 1538 catechisms.
21Catechism 1537, 59; Catechism 1538, 29.
The LABC Franois serves the practical need to teach the young chil-
dren. It can be seen as a very condensed version of Calvins earliest cate-
chisms intended specifically to lay the ground to teach Reformed beliefs
to the children. Rodolphe Peter believes that even though Calvin was not
even the editor of the booklet, the fact that the main content of this teach-
ing material closely resembles Calvins catechism bears witness to the
Reformers strong influence behind this work. Peter is very confident in
calling this booklet an excellent rsum of Calvins catechism, bearing the
imprint of the master.22
The LABC Franois starts with the introduction to the alphabet.
According to the instruction, the teaching of the alphabet is to be done in
one week, with the first day devoted to teaching the children the letters a,
b, c, and d, the second day to teaching e, f, g, and h, and so forth until the
sixth day in which the pupils should learn the last four letters in the alpha-
bet. The seventh day is intended as a review day when the pupils are to
repeat all the letters.23 The editor of the booklet comments that this peda-
gogical method of introducing about four letters per day within one weeks
period is more efficient than making the pupils memorize all the letters all
at once. In so doing, the editor writes, the apprentice will learn more in a
week than [s]/he can in two months, if [s]/he says all the letters at one
time.24 Once the pupils memorize the letters, they must then be taught
how to write those letters, one or two letters on each day. The teacher or
the master is required to demonstrate to the students how to write each
letter two or three times before the pupils attempt writing on their own.
The section ends with the list of the letters in upper case.25
Following the lesson on the alphabet is the text of the Lords Prayer,
printed with each petition occupying one line, and on the margin the edi-
tor includes notes that say first petition, second petition, and so forth.26
These notes are meant to help the pupils to connect between this primer
and Calvins catechisms. In the catechisms Calvin clarified the meaning of
the Lords Prayer one petition at a time to show how one should pray. By
learning through this primer the pupils will also be able to see that each
line in the prayer amounts to one petition. The Apostles Creed is listed
after the Lords Prayer. The editor writes marginal notes to show that the
22Peter, The Geneva Primer, 139.

23LABC, 3.
24LABC, 3
25LABC, 3.
26LABC, 45.
494 yudha thianto
creed is divisible into four parts. The first part is the belief in God the
Father Almighty. The second part is on Jesus Christ, the third part is the
belief in the Holy Spirit. The fourth part covers the belief in the church.27
The text of the Ten Commandments comes after the Apostles Creed.
The booklet mentions that the Ten Commandments are written in Exodus
chapter 20.28 There are clear headings to show the parts of the Ten Com
mandments. The first statement, I am the Lord your God is called the
preface, which is then followed by the commandments that are grouped
into two tables, following the standard Reformed understanding of the
Ten Commandments.29 This division is a reminder of Calvins insistence
on understanding the division of the two tables. In the catechism he
explains that the first table has in a few commandments set forth the wor-
ship appropriate to [Gods] majesty, the second, the duties of charity owed
to ones neighbor.30 At the end LABC Franois includes the summary of
the Law as given by Jesus in Matthew 22, to love the Lord with all heart,
mind, and soul, and to love neighbors as oneself.31
The booklet includes standard prayers to be used by the pupiland by
extension by the entire familyat home. These are some variations of
prayers before a meal and after a meal, in longer or shorter forms, morning
prayer, evening prayer before bed time, a morning prayer based on Psalm
119, and a brief prayer before starting to work.32 These prayers are certainly
intended to help the youngsters say the right prayers besides the Lords
Prayer on each appropriate occasion. In faithfully following the prayers
they will then learn to pray constantly, throughout the day, in their
vernacular.
The LABC Franois has a section it calls a treatise to teach those
who intend to make a profession of faith before they are allowed to
partake of the Lords Supper.33 The placing of this short treatise in the
booklet clearly shows that after the children are taught how to read and
write, and once they have an adequate understanding of the Lords Prayer,
the Creed, and the Ten Commandments, they are ready to move on to
make their profession of faith. Toward the end of the booklet there is a list
of questions and answers to be used for the ministers to ask the children
27LABC, 56.
28LABC, 7
29LABC, 8.
31LABC, 11.
32LABC, 1216.
33LABC, 16.
their knowledge of the doctrine of the church before the children are
allowed to partake in the Supper.34 There are 21 questions that the minis-
ter should ask and 21 answers provided for the children to answer. These
questions and answers are also included in the last part of Calvins 1553
catechism.35
The booklet includes an elaborate list of Bible verses that are consid-
ered especially useful and of great value.36 It is obvious that these verses
are meant for the children to know the teaching of the Bible and to live
accordingly. The first passage to be included is taken from Colossians
3:204:1, in which Paul instructs children to obey their parents because
it pleases the Lord. When we look at this passage in conjunction with
Calvins teaching on the Ten Commandments, especially on the fifth com-
mandment, we can see that the decision to place this passage here is a
well-considered decision to teach the children to obey, in Calvins own
view, not just their biological parents, but also any other people whom
God has placed to have authority above them, including the civil magis-
trates, ministers, and teachers.37 There are 44 passages in total that are
included in this booklet, covering 13 pages of the booklet.38 Some of these
passages are only one verse long, but many are quotations from multi-
verses passages, such as the Beatitudes, Jesus teaching of the judgment
day in Matthew 25, and many of Pauls exhortations for people to be obedi-
ent to God.
The last section of the LABC Franois is a list of cardinal numbers from
1 to 100.39 Its placement here must not have been an afterthought, but an
appropriate introduction for the children to know how to count, after they
know how to read (and write) and understand the basic teaching of their
Christian faith. In all, the entire booklet could then function as pedagogi-
cal materialor a simple curriculumto teach the young children to live
as Christians who can also function properly in society.
The Dutch came to the East Indies for the first time in 1596. While the
their main intention in colonizing the region was for gaining wealth
through the spice trade, an intention to spread Christianity in the form of
34LABC, 3538.
35John Calvin, Catechisme cest a dire le formulaire dinstruire les enfans en la Christiente,
faict en maniere de dialogue, ou le Minsitre interogue, & lenfent respond ([Geneva]: Estienne,
1553), 114117.
36LABC, 20.
38LABC, 2033.
39LABC, 39.
496 yudha thianto
Reformed Protestantism came alongside. Only within a decade after the

Dutch started the VOC in 1602 efforts to establish Reformed churches in
the land were visible. Almost exactly copying what Calvin did, the Dutch
ministers took the education of the young in the knowledge of the
Christian doctrine as their first step. Also mimicking Calvins approach,
the ministers saw the importance of using the vernacular as the language
of instruction. Even though the East Indian archipelago is a vast chain of
islands with hundreds of different ethnic groups speaking their own
regional languages, the archipelago had long before the arrival of the
Dutch been united by the use of Malay as the lingua franca. For the Dutch,
teaching the young children of the East Indies in Malayinstead of in
Dutchproved to be a significant move toward ensuring that the children
would be able to understand the content well, and the use of Malay
throughout the entire archipelago helped the Dutch maintain unity and
control over all the people.
The 1611 publication of the Sovrat ABCor the ABC Letterwas clear
proof that the approach of the church of Geneva in educating the young
was adopted by the Dutch and then applied in the East Indies. In the
Netherlands, Philip van Marnix (15401598) had written a short catechism
with teaching material somewhat similar to the LABC Franois. The little
book was never published in Van Marnix lifetime.40 In the Netherlands
this work was known as Cort Begryp.41 This short catechetical book was
seen to be a suitable tool to spread Christianity to the East Indies,
the newly colonized region.42 Even though the Sovrat ABC does not men-
tion the name of the author or translator, there is strong reason to believe
that Ruyl was the translator of the work of Van Marnix into this Malay
edition. We find proof in Ruyls other work. In 1612 Ruyl translated and
published another catechetical book of Van Marnix, entitled Spieghel van
de Maleysche Tale.43 In this translation, Ruyl wrote a dedicatory epistle,
explaining that in the previous year he had translated another work of
Van Marnix, entitled A. B Boek from low Dutch into Malay.44 Van
Toorenenbergen believes that Ruyl translated the Sovrat ABC based on
40J.J. van Toorenenbergen, Het Cort Begryp in de Oost-Indin, in his Philips van
Marnix van St. Aldegonde Godsdienstige en Kerkelijke Geschriften, vol. 3 (The Hague: Nijhoff,
1891), xxvii.
41Gerrit Tjalma, Phillips van Marnix, Heer St. Aldegonde, (Amsterdam: Scheffer, 1896), 147.
42Van Toorenenberger, Het Cort Begryp in de Oost-Indin, xxvii.
43Albert Ruyl, Spieghel van de Maleysche Tale ende Welcke sich die Indiaensche Jeucht
Christlijck ende Vermackelick Kunnen Oeffenen (Amsterdam: Pietersz, 1612).
44Ruyl, Spieghel van de Maleysche Tale, A2 recto.
Van Marnixs work.45 The anonymity of the publication of the Sovrat ABC
was also a reflection of what happened in Geneva. Like its Genevan coun-
terpart, the Sovrat ABC does not clearly mention an author or compiler,
because what is important is the content of the work.
The Sovrat ABC starts with a list of the alphabet in four different
typescripts.46 The second page is an introduction to vowels and a list
of combinations of consonants and vowels to help the children learn
how to read. Unlike the LABC Franois, the Sovrat ABC does not explicitly
provide direction on how the school teacher should introduce the pupils
to read. The text of the Ten Commandments is printed right after the
lesson on the alphabets. The Sovrat ABC also mentions Exodus 2047
underneath the title of the Ten Commandments to show the biblical
source of the commandments. It is worth noting here that by the time this
booklet was published for the people in the East Indies, there was no
Malay translation of the Bible available for the people to use. The first
Malay translation of the Gospel of Matthew was published in 1629, and the
entire Bible was finally translated into Malay in 1733. The mention of
Exodus 20 in the booklet, therefore, functions as an early introduction of
the Biblical text for the people in the East Indies, before they had the Bible
in their language. The placement of the Ten Commandments first in the
booklet follows the order that Calvin set in the 1537 and 1538 catechisms.
The text of the Apostles Creed is included right after the Ten Com
mandments,48 which is then followed by the text of the Lords Prayer.49
Directly following the Lords Prayer are short teachings regarding baptism
and the Lords Supper.50 The placement of these two teachings about the
sacraments after the Lords Prayer demonstrated Dutch adaptation in
transplanting the Reformed beliefs and practice in the East Indies. As they
started to teach the young people the rudiments of Reformed Christianity,
they also had to teach them the meaning of the sacraments. Since the
people were still in the earliest stage of understanding what it means to
be Protestant,51 these two texts helped them understand what the
45Van Toorenenberger, Het Cort Begryp in de Oost-Indin, xxix. See also John
Landwehr, VOC: A Bibliography of Publications Relating to the Dutch East India Company,
16021800 (Amsterdam: van der Krogt, 1991), 662.
46Sovrat ABC, A2 r.
47Sovrat ABC, A3 r.
48Sovrat ABC, A4 r.
49Sovrat ABC, A4 v.
50Sovrat ABC, A5 r.
51Roman Catholicism had already been introduced to the people of the East Indies
more than half-a-century before the arrival of the Dutch. The Portuguese had been to the
498 yudha thianto
sacraments were about. The teaching on baptism is a paraphrase of Jesus

charge to the disciples to go and make disciples of all nations and to bap-
tize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The instruction
on the Lords Supper is a paraphrase of Jesus institution of the Lords
Supper as written in the four gospels. There is no mention of the sources
of the biblical passages in the booklet. The teaching on the sacraments
does not go into deeper theological explanation of the sacraments as
visible signs of Gods promises like what we find in the LABC Franois.
Such theological explanation was not yet needed by the new Protestants
in the archipelago. What they needed was just a biblical foundation to
celebrate the sacraments. At that point in the history of the Reformed
church in the East Indies, what the people needed to know was that
the celebration of the sacraments was something that Jesus had told the
disciples to do.
The Sovrat ABC includes instruction on how to confront brothers or sis-
ters in faith who sin, as Jesus teaches in Matthew 18.52 This inclusion fur-
ther shows the effort of the Dutch to teach the indigenous people how to
live as Christians in obedience to the teaching of Jesus. As disputes were
undoubtedly common among people, new believers should know how to
rebuke their brothers and sisters privately. By following the teaching of
Jesus faithfully, the people could prevent much bigger fights with their
neighbors.
Morning prayer, evening prayer, prayer before meal, and prayer after
meal form the last part of the Sovrat ABC.53 This is another clear proof that
the Dutch wanted to apply the teaching and practice of the Reformed
church in Geneva to the East Indies. Unlike the LABC Franois, the Sovrat
ABC only includes one example of each prayer. This is understandable,
considering that the Malay-speaking people were still learning the basic
teachings and practices of Reformed Christianity. They did not need dif-
ferent texts to say their prayers. It was only important for them to know
how to pray without being burdened with various ways of praying.
In the East Indies, the task of educating the children of the indigenous
people fell on the laps of the schoolmeesters or schoolteachers. The Church
Order of Batavia, or the Batavia Kerkenordening, published in 1643,
archipelago in the middle of the sixteenth century and some Jesuit missionaries had
spread Roman Catholicism into the archipelago before the Dutch brought Reformed
Protestantism.
52Sovrat ABC, A5 v.
53Sovrat ABC, A6 rA7 v.
included the regulation for schoolteachers in the East Indies.54 The church
order specifically regulated that schoolteachers had the duty to teach the
young the fundamental teachings of the church, to teach them how to
pray, to sing the Psalms, and to catechize. In addition, schoolteachers must
also teach the youngsters to obey their parents, the government, and the
ministers, as well as to learn how to read and write and to live morally.55
Each week the schoolchildren had two half-day play times, on Wednesdays
and Saturdays. In the afternoons the children must learn the fundamen-
tals of Christianity.56 School teachers in the orphanages must lead the
morning and evening prayers before meals, the singing of the Psalms, and
also read the questions from the catechism and expect the children to give
the answer to the question. The question and answer of the catechism were
based on the previous Sunday afternoons sermon on the catechism.57
They must also teach the children of the natives the fundamental teach-
ingof Christianity, while teaching them reading and writing. The Dutch
interest in educating the young of the Indies in religious knowledge had
already been reflected in the earlier form of the church order of Batavia,
written in 1624.58 Since then there had been significant emphasis on
teaching the young children of both the Dutch and the native people, not
just writing and reading, but also the catechism. The schools were opened
for both groups of children. Van Boetzelaer notes that the church decided
that unbaptized children of the local people who received blessing
from the church through the imposition of hands were bound to the
church and therefore should be included as children who belonged to
the church.59
A report sent by the church council of Ambon in the eastern part of the
archipelago to the church council in Batavia, dated 14 June 1626 testified
that the young children in Ambon and the smaller islands surrounding
it had been well catechized by a school teacher by the name Anthoni
54For a further look at the early transplantation of Reformed Protestantism in the

Indies and the use of the church orders of Batavia, see Yudha Thianto, Elements of Calvins
Theology and Practice in the Reformed Churches of Java in the Seventeenth Century, in
John Calvin, Myth and Reality, ed. Burnett (Eugene: Cascade, 2011), 91106.
55Kerkenordening van Batavia 1643, article 78.
58Kerken Ordeninge Gestelt voor de Kercken in Oostindien Articulen, Batavia 1624.
The archive of the document used in this essay is a part of the collection of The Oud-
Synodaal Archief van de Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk, catalogued by Janssen, Catalogus
van het Oud-Synodaal Archief.
59Van Boetzelaer, De Protestantsche Kerk in Nederlandsch-Indie, 34.
500 yudha thianto
Clement, who was a young man with good dedication to what he did.60
The report further says that within the Fort of Ambon the school had been
doing well with 115 students registered at the region of Hative. Another
school in a nearby village named Soya had 94 students.61 Another report
from Ambon to Batavia, dated 8 September 1628, told the church in Batavia
that catechism classes in Ambon were held every Sunday afternoon.
Included in this report is a request for more catechism books to be sent
from Batavia to Ambon, because there was a great need of such books, for
the good work among the children in Ambon.62
A letter from the church council of Ambon to the church council of
Batavia written on 15 September 1631 showed an even faster growth of
the schools in Ambon. At the time of the writing of the letter there were
20 schools located in and around Ambon, with a total of 702 children
enrolled. The annual need of these schools included 11 or 12 reams of
writing paper, 30004000 pens, 2000 copies of catechism books in Malay,
and 50 psalm books.63 While the request did not specify which Malay
catechism book the church in Ambon needed, we can see that education
in Ambon progressed as it was intended. The request of catechism books
for the schools in Ambon showed that catechizing was done at school.
Considering that the Sovrat ABC was published only a couple of decades
earlier, the small catechism book could very well be the most important
teaching material used in the schools there.
This close comparison between the LABC Franois and the Sovrat ABC
demonstrates that education stood at the center of the Reformed mindset.
Geneva had ably shown that teaching the young people the most basic
doctrines of the church would ensure the growth of the church. Calvins
insistence proved to be effective, since the teaching of the Reformed faith
spread wider within the next few decades of the work that he started in
Geneva. As the Netherlands became Reformed a similar approach was
also adopted. Interestingly, as we have seen here, the Dutch were quick to
bring a similar approach half a globe away, as they started colonizing
the East Indies. This move alone shows an indication that the Dutch had
seen the usefulness of the method to teach the young people this basic
knowledge of Christianity together with instruction on how to read and
60The report was signed by J. de Praet V.D.M., the clerk of the church in Amboina, and
Adriaen Gijsbertsz, an elder of the church. See, Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia (ANRI),
Archief protestantse gemeenten 136, fol. 3133.
61ANRI, Archief protestantse gemeenten 136, fol. 33.
writepresumably at schoolin their country. This must have been the

reason why they were quick to apply the method for the children in the
East Indies.
In the East Indies the task of teaching the young people was the pri-
mary responsibility of the schoolteachers. As indicated through the
reports written by the church council of Ambon to Batavia during the first
three decades of the presence of the Dutch in the archipelago, Reformed
education for the indigenous children grew significantly. The correspon-
dence between the two church councils also demonstrated that catechism
books were greatly needed by the schools in Ambon and the surrounding
areas.
PART FOUR
HIGH ORTHODOXY (ca. 16401725)

A GRIEVOUS SIN: GISBERTUS VOETIUS (15891676)
AND HIS ANTI-LOMBARD POLEMIC
Willem J. van Asselt
Introduction
The motto of Utrecht University, which dates from 1634 and continues
to be used today, reads Sol Justitiae Illustra Nos, and was consciously cho-
sen by the universitys founding fathers. Based on Psalm 84:11 (The Lord
our God is a sun and a shield) and Malachi 4:2s reference to the Sun
of Righteousness, the motto was a prayer for the illumination of the mind
through the light of Gods justice as the source of all knowledge and
scholarship.1
In the current secular society of the Netherlands, such a maxim hardly
holds any meaning for Utrechts state university, especially after the
faculty of theology was recently forced to give up its place following
more than 400 years of existence. Lest we forget this tradition, and above
all to pay tribute to the impressive contribution to scholarship made by
my dear friend and colleague Richard A. Muller, who in 1999 even held
an honorary chair at Utrecht University, I would like to consider the
most important of the universitys founding fathers, Gisbertus Voetius
(15891676). His scholarship and social and ecclesiastical activity as a
protagonist of a further reformation (Nadere Reformatie) in the Dutch
Republic were emphatically built on that prayer: Sol Justitiae Illustra Nos.
This prayer is one with which Richard Muller will certainly be able to
identify as well.
A Grievous Sin: Lombard Banking
In 1673, Jean-Baptiste Stouppe, the French commander during the French

occupation of the city of Utrecht, reported the following about the elderly
Voetius:
1In 1634 the Utrecht City Council founded a Gymnasium Illustre which two years
later was elevated to the status of a university. The arms and motto of the Illustrious School
were taken over by the university and have formed the emblem of Utrecht University ever
506 willem j. van asselt
Voetius held and continues to hold that it is a sacrilege to leave the use of
ecclesiastical goods to lazy bellies that serve neither church nor state, and
that so-called Lombards who lend money at usurious rates should in no
way be admitted to the Lords Supper because they practice a trade forbid-
den by the Word of God.2
One element mentioned in this quote is Voetius persistent battle with the
Lombards, or private lending bankers. An outsider like Stouppe clearly
understood this campaign as one of the most remarkable features of the
professor and pastors public activity. What were the background and
motives for this campaign, and what do they tell us about Voetius con-
cern for the people of small means (klein vermogen) in the Golden Age?3
For as prosperous as the Dutch Republic may have been at the time, we
must be careful not to form any illusions guided by our own modern
standards. Recent scholarship estimates that as much as ten percent of
the population was forced to seek welfare help.4
One of the points that found its way frequently to the agenda of provin-
cial synods in the seventeenth century was the protest (gravamen) against
grievous or grave and manifest sins (roepende or krytende ende uyt-
stekende zonden). Voetius addressed such sins in a wide variety of his
writings, and his biographer A.C. Duker concluded that this expression
encompassed a wide-ranging variety of sins ranging from rather trivial to
serious ones.5
since. It consists of the escutcheon of the City of Utrecht in the middle of a radiant sun,
surrounded by the words Sol Justitiae Illustra Nos. See R. van den Broek, Hy leeret ende
beschuttet. Over het wapen en de zinspreuk van de Universiteit Utrecht (Utrecht: Universiteit
Utrecht, 1995).
2Jean-Baptiste Stouppe (Stoupa), La religion des Hollandais, represente en plusieurs
lettres crites par un officier de l arme du Roy, a un pasteur & professeur en theologie
de Berne (Cologne: Pierre Marteau, 1673), 35 (held in the Bibliotheek van de Mij der
Ned. Letterkunde). Stouppes booklet appeared in Dutch translation with the title:
De religie vande Hollanders, vertoont in diversche Brieven, Gheschreven door een Officier
vande Conincklijcke Fransche Arme, aen eenen Professeur vande Theologie in Berne
(Ceulen: Meertensz, 1673, held by the library of the Universiteit van Amsterdam).
3See A.Th. van Deursen, Mensen van klein vermogen. Het kopergeld van de Gouden
Eeuw (Amsterdam: Bakker, 1992).
4See e.g. Catharina Lis and Hugo Soly, Armoede en kapitalisme in pre-industrieel Europa
(Antwerp: Standaard Wetenschappelijke Uitgeverij, 1986); Van Deursen, Mensen van klein
vermogen, 7382 (Eerlijke armoede); L. Noordegraaf, De Arme, in H.M. Belin et al.,
Gestalten van de Gouden Eeuw (Amsterdam: Bakker, 1995), 315347; Joke Spaans, Haarlem
na de Reformatie. Stedelijke cultuur en kerkelijk leven 15771620 (The Hague: Stichting
Hollandse Historische Reeks, 1989); eadem, Armenzorg in Friesland 15001800. Publieke zorg
en particuliere liefdadigheid in zes Friese steden (Hilversum: Verloren and Leeuwarden/
Fryske Akademy, 1997).
5See A.C. Duker, Gisbertus Voetius (Leiden: Groen, 1989; repr. Leiden: Brill, 18971915),
2:271n10. Cf. Voetius, SDT, 4:9798, 297.
voetius and his anti-lombard polemic 507
The grievous sins in all cases included the business of the Lombards
or pawnbrokers. The name Lombard derives from the fact that they
came from Lombardy or Piedmont in Italy. When a civil war ravaged this
area in the middle of the thirteenth century, many of its inhabitants scat-
tered to different cities spread throughout Europe. When the economy
grew in much of the Netherlands and a shortage was experienced in
means of exchange, the Lombard bankers established themselves there.
With their knowledge of money and loans they functioned as financial
development workers.6 Whether or not they could settle in a particular
area depended on the permission of the local government, but it was often
readily granted because the government charged fees for granting a pat-
ent (octrooi). Furthermore, the Lombards were appealing to the govern-
ment because they stimulated economic growth and in particular the
development of cities.7
Although the lending banks developed in different ways in different
countries, one of the features common to them was their monopoly on
pawnbroking. There were government regulations for this sector, but
private Lombards often circumvented these regulations illegally. Such
unauthorized loans directed particularly at the poorest segment of the
population were mostly responsible for the Lombards bad reputation.8
Although even in large cities there were not many lending banks at the
beginning of the sixteenth century, and although they were commonly in
the hands of a small number of family networks, they did play a consider-
able role in public life.9 They were characterized as usurers as an indica-
tion of the moral and legal revulsion they incurred by their profession.
The same revulsion is evident from the measures taken against them in
the sixteenth century by the Roman Catholic Church in the Southern
Netherlands.10 During the early years of the Republic, their bad reputation
underwent no change. In fact, the social denunciation of the Lombards
6For the history of these lending banks, see H.A.J. Maassen, Tussen commercieel en
sociaal krediet. De ontwikkeling van de bank van lening in Nederland van lombard tot
gemeentelijke kredietbank, 12401940 (Hilversum: Verloren, 1994).
7It is remarkable that the oldest known patent in the Netherlands was granted in 1260
by the city of Utrecht. See Maassen, Tussen commercieel, 4042.
8See C.J. van Heel, De Banken van Leening in Nederland nader onderzocht (Haarlem:
Kruseman, 1851), 2.
9See G. Voetius, C. de Maets, Joh. Hoorbeeck, Res judicata, dat is: Extracten uyt de
resolutien der synoden, ende oordelen der academien in dese Vereenichde Nederlanden over
de negotie der ghenaemde lombarden (Utrecht, 1646), 28, 48 (2nd ed. 1657). Cf. Voetius,
SDT, 4:585588.
10For an overview, see S. Conard, God en Goud. De situatie van de lombarden in de
Zuidelijke Nederlanden van de zestiende eeuw (M.A. thesis, University of Ghent, 2004; http://
www.ethesis.net/lombarden/lombarden_inhoud.htm).
even increased. Accordingly, merchants attempted on the whole to dis-

tance themselves from the Lombards and their pawnbrokers. In their
eyes, the Lombards were usurers who lacked the class of large bankers
and investors.11
The Position of the Reformed Church
In the middle of the seventeenth century, the grudge held against the
Lombards was only increased by the Reformed church and its repeated
anti-Lombard decisions made between the 1581 synod of Middelburg and
ca. 1650.12 Of course, the measures could touch only the bankers who were
members of the church, and forbade the table holders (tafelhouders),
their family, and their staff from attending the Lords Supper table. Already
before the resolution enacted at Middelburg in 1581, the 1574 synod of
Dordrecht forbade the Lombards from partaking of the Lords Supper, and
the synod of Bolsward in 1588 similarly suspended a woman who lived
with a Lombard from the table. Sometimes even magistrates who leased
lending banks were placed under ecclesiastical censure. In 1619 the synod
of Leeuwarden forbade deacons to accept gifts from Lombards for the
poor. Other synods decided that Lombards were not welcome as a part of
the church at all, and that they or their spouses could not act as witnesses
to a baptism. Table holders, whether they were members of the church
or not, had to stand at the back of the church during the service. The bells
were not tolled at their passing, and they were buried under the gallows
alongside thieves and murderers.
Lending banks were like the two faces of Janus: while they were in
theory intended to aid the poor, in practice they imposed an overly great
burden on societys weakest members. For many governments, however,
the Lombards not infrequently remained desirable foreigners because
they represented an economic interest and because their services were
absolutely necessary. In his study on the development of lending banks in
the Netherlands from 1260 to 1940, H.A.J. Maassen noted that the number
of Lombards increased during the period of the Republic. In fact, they
could be found in every provincial city of some significance.13
11See Conard, God en Goud, 4849.

12See J. Reitsma and S.D. van Veen, Acta der provinciale en particuliere synoden,
gehouden in de Noordelijke Nederlanden gedurende de jaren 15721620, 8 vols. (Groningen:
Wolters, 18921899), 2:148; 3:155, 252, 284; 4:92, 345; 5:246; 6:37, 237, 240, 280, 452.
13For the exact numbers in each province during this period, see Maassen, Tussen
commercieel, 297.
In order to prevent excesses, some cities decided to institute their own

lending banks.14 The Amsterdam town council thus established a house
of lending to serve the alleviation of the poor and the prevention of all
other improper usury. These banks did not only serve the poor, however.
The Dutch West India Company also borrowed money from it, while the
names of stadholders and royals appear in their books as well.
In this time of an incipient capitalism, however, the government-run
lending banks were of greater interest to the economy than to the people
of small means who could only pledge items of low value as security.
They had to turn to private Lombards and their pawnbrokers, since they
were more accessible than the governments lending banks. The Lombards
were often in business even on Saturday evenings and on Sundays. Those
who needed money urgently could even obtain one day loansalthough
some brokers charged interest for an entire week. Furthermore, they sold
the pawned items at much higher prices and kept the proceeds to them-
selves. Particularly valuable pledges were left in the bank for two or three
years until the interest was so high that the owner was no longer able to
redeem them. The poor reputation of the lending bankers was mostly due,
however, to the small securities they took and to the profit they made on
these items by failing to keep to the rates that applied to them.15
The Republics opposition to these practices was inspired by Reformed
theologians and pastors. Already in the Leiden Synopsis purioris theologiae
(1625), a leading manual of Reformed theology, the high interest rates
were identified as usury (foenus) and condemned for being cruel (sae-
vum) and monstrous (immane) to the poor.16 Numerous commentaries
on the Heidelberg Catechism addressed the practice of lending at interest
in their exposition of Q&A 110 (you shall not steal), although not all
commentators were agreed.17 The difference between them is something
to which we will return later on.
Utrecht as the Center of the Reformed Protest
The city of Utrecht formed the center of the opposition to usury. In

1646 the Utrecht professors of theology Voetius, Carolus De Maets, and
14For example, Rotterdam, Gouda, Hoorn, Middelburg, Oudewater, Arnhem,

Amersfoort, Deventer, and Groningen.
15See Maassen, Tussen commercieel, 146147.
16Synopsis purioris theologiae, disp. XXXVII.35.
17See A.Th. van Deursen, Rust niet voordat gy ze van buiten kunt. De Tien Geboden in de
17e eeuw (Kampen: De Groot Goudriaan, 2004), 192195.
Johannes Hoornbeeck published a collection entitled Res judicata con-

taining numerous decisions made by Dutch academies and synods on
the issue.18 The criticism of the Utrecht theologians stemmed from their
conviction that it was specifically societys poorest members who were
victimized by the lending banks, because the Lombards only lent money
to them with a security and because the interest they charged was often
not at the 32.5% maximum fixed by the government, but at 50% or even
80%. They stated that no interest at all could be demanded from the
totally destitute who live on alms. Furthermore, securities with a value
of fl. 100 or less could incur no more than 16.25% interest. Loans of fl 4.- or
less should not incur any interest after a period of 32 weeks had passed.19
Lombards with much higher rates were a cancer and plague exhaust-
ing the citys poorest people.20 Their practices were characterized as
enticements and impulses to theft and robbery and as thievery and
piracy on land, equal to squeezing down to the very marrow the blood
out of the poor, who have to go door-to-door to find bread.21 Furthermore,
this treatise hardly bothered to distinguish between the government
lending banks and the Lombards. The Utrecht theologians thought that
both all too often charged much too high a rate of interest. What is more,
the government banks lent money for useless expenditures, for squander-
ing, and for questionable purposes.22 The core objection of the theolo-
gians, however, was to usury. But what exactly should be qualified as
usury? Was there legitimate interest, and if so, what were the criteria?
When and how could one speak of a legitimate and acceptable code of
conduct for creditors and debtors at a lending bank? Voetius devoted
himself to this question over a period stretching more than two decades.
Voetius Disputations on Interest
It was shortly after he first occupied a chair in theology that Voetius

had his students defend theses on interest (De usuris).23 Two such dis
putations were in fact held, the one on 25 June 1636 and the other on
13 May 1637. Later he added an appendix to these disputations in which
18The full title reads: Res judicata, dat is: Exracten uyt de resolutien der synoden, ende
oordelen der academien in dese Vereenichde Nederlanden over de negotie der ghenaemde
lombarden (Utrecht, 1646).
19Voetius, Res judicata, part II,17. See also preface, 38.
20Voetius, Res judicata, 25 and part II, preface, 5.
21Res judicata, II,28; II,21. Cf. Duker, Voetius, 2:275, 276.
22Van Deursen, Mensen van klein vermogen, 7476.
23See Voetius, SDT, 4:555576.
he explicitly addressed the position of trapezitae or table holders.24 The

occasion for these disputations was a 1629 publication of a Franeker
banker, Jean Jacques Gerbin, in which the author offered numerous argu-
ments in favor of such pawnbroking.25 In the first disputation Voetius
treated the question at the hand of a number of Old and New Testament
passages which Christian thinkers had used in their condemnation of the
practice of exacting interest, including Exodus 22:25, Leviticus 25:3537,
Deuteronomy 23:1920, and Luke 6:3335. He also approvingly cited a
long list of medieval scholastic discussions and conciliar decrees in which
usury was seen as a sin against justice.26 According to Voetius, the rejec-
tion of usury depended on a number of fundamental principles. Usury was
first of all a legal problem to be treated according to the current view of
law. Human law can change, and is only an application of the unchange-
able law of nature. Above it stands the divine law which God has revealed
through Scripture, and it condemns the practice of usury. When it came to
a fixed rule (regula) and norm for acceptable interest, Voetius referred his
readers to existing civil lawalthough, he charged, it had to follow the
rules of Christian love (caritas), equity (aequitas), and prudence (pruden-
tia). Christians distinguish themselves in this matter in the restraint of
moderation (temperamentum epieikias) they show when they seek less
profit than the law actually permits. Theologically he derived this code of
conduct from Matthew 7:12 (in everything, do to others what you would
have them do to you), 1 Thessalonians 4:6 (no one should wrong or take
advantage of a brother), and 1 Corinthians 13:6 (Love does not delight in
evil but rejoices with the truth).27
In an appendix to the second disputation (de trapezitis), Voetius treated
fifteen anticipated objections to his position. He focused in particular on
numerous statements regarding the exacting of interest made by various
authorities (auctoritates) from the history of the church, especially the
church fathers, early church councils, and canon law. Of special note is
24Voetius, SDT, 4:575.

25Voetius, SDT, 4:575: Hunc enim in finem Franekerae anno 1629 vernaculo sermone
edita est anonymi D.I.W.P.P. diascepsis de Usura trapezitica a Joh. Jac. Gerbino trapezita
Franequerano appensa in frontispicio hac hedera: Ad exercitium studiosae juventutis.
26For medieval discussions on interest, see J. Noonan, The Scholastic Analysis of Usury
(Cambridge: HUP, 1957). In 1139 the second Lateran Council pronounced a blanket ban on
the exacting of interest. Forty years later, the third Lateran Council excommunicated all
usurers and kept them from a Christian burial. The same tough stance was followed by the
councils of Lyon (1274) and Vienna (1312).
27Voetius, SDT, 4:573: Quaest[io]: Ex te ipso conferes temperamentum epieikias, ut scil.
in stipulatione minus lucrum quaeras, quam leges concedunt; ad haec non tam quaeras,
quam a ditiori honeste oblatum acceptas [] Quo applicandae illae regulae Matth. 7.12, 1
Thess. 4.6, 1 Cor. 13.6.
Voetius discussion of Thomas Aquinas, who had argued that exacting

interest (usura; the English is derived from quod interest, what comes in
between, namely what makes the difference) is as such unjust and in
conflict with the law of nature because when someone exacts interest, he
sells something two times or else sells something that is not (quia idem bis
venditur, vel venditur id quod non est).28 Voetius was as suspicious of money
as Thomas had been, for he did not consider the value of money to equate
its use.29 However, Thomas Aquinas argument could no longer be main-
tained in a seventeenth-century urban and commercial society that no
longer could be imagined without money as the medium of exchange.
This reveals once more that Voetius did not oppose every form of loans
that had to be repaid with interest. He did polemicize heatedly against the
extreme or merciless usuryfoenusthat table holders imposed on
everyone, including the poor, foreigners, and even the victims of fire,
flood, plague, exile, or captivity.30 He considered the table holders to be
leeches that sucked the blood from the oppressed members of society:
their misery allowed the bankers to lead a grandiose life.31 Voetius was
also indignant at the kinds of securities the Lombards took in pledge.
He thought an exception ought to be made for tools and especially for
clothing, since the latter was the only way in which people could appear
decently in public places such as the street, market, or church. Voetius
argued that for many people, lending banks were nothing less than hell
because once they had fallen in, they could no longer escape.32
Protest against the Establishment of

a Government Lending Bank in Utrecht
When soon afterwards the government of Utrecht entertained the possi-

bility of opening a Christian and upright lending bank as an alternative
28Aquinas, ST, IIaIIae.78.1

30Voetius used the term usura in the classical way of pledging land, goods, or cattle as
security. He chose the term foenus for a specific application of this custom, namely, the
abuse of a monetary loan which current English usage refers to as usury.
31Voetius, SDT, 4:575: Injustas esse usuras illas [Longobardorum] dicimus tum ratione
debitoris, tum ratione creditoris. Ratione debitoris, quia promiscue exiguntur ab omnibus
faribus & civibus aeque ac peregrinis, pauperibus, tenuibus, incendio, inundatione,
pestis bellive flagello, exilio, captivitate, aliave calamitate oppressis; & magnam, si non
maximam partem illorum exsucto sanguine tam splendide vivunt trapezitae, contra
Ex. 22:25, Lev. 25:35, 36, 37, Deut. 15:11, Amos 8:6.
to the Lombards and sought the advice of the theological faculty, Voetius
together with his colleagues Schotanus and De Maets composed a brief
document in November 1642 that urged the magistracy in clear words not
to throw its reputation to the wind by permitting a destructive usury that
gradually brings the lender down. Usury was like drinking the blood of
the poor down to the very marrow.33 Did lending banks for many people
not represent the last stop on their way to poorhouses? In their advice, the
Utrecht theologians drew attention in particular to the poor for whom the
interest rates were simply too high. The theologians also set a number of
conditions drawn from Scripture to determine to whom money could be
lent (Ex. 22:25, Lev. 25:3538) and what kinds of things could and could
not be pledged as security (Ex. 22:26 and 22:27, Deut. 24:1013).34
The theologians advice was not heeded, however. The acts of the
Utrecht city council from 27 November 1643 report that, after consultation
with several local Lombards, the proposal of Voetius and his colleagues
was not adopted.35 Instead of establishing a bank itself, in August 1645 the
city in fact enacted an ordinance granting a patent to an existing lending
table in Utrecht. The ordinance and patent were proclaimed from city
hall and published in print. It was argued that the best way to control
usury was to regulate it.36
The Utrecht theologians refused to give up so easily, however. In their
sermons, lectures, and speeches they, under Voetius leadership, contin-
ued to bemoan what they saw as a grievous sin on the part of the lending
banks. In mid-December 1645, Voetius preached a sermon on Luke 19:23
(the parable of the talents) in the Domkerk and called the practice of the
table holders an evil that no Christian could bear with a good conscience
because outrageously high interest rates were charged and because the
bankers drew no distinction between different people and different kinds
of security taken in pledge. The Lombards, appealing to their contract
with the citys magistracy, submitted a gravamen against this sermon and
requested that the government to take measures against the insults and
slander emanating from the pulpits.37
33On this, see Res judicanda judicata, part II,51.

34On this advice, see Duker, Voetius, 2:275278.
35The Lombards whom the Utrecht magistracy had commissioned to serve the lending
bank were Johanna del Corne, widow of the Lombard Daniel de Milaen, and her son-in-law
Paulo Emilio de Fareris. For them, see Duker, Voetius, 2:279n1, 281.
36For the text of the patent issued by the Utrecht magistracy, see Duker, Voetius, 2:XCIX
(appendix LXXXIV).
37See Duker, Voetius, 2:281.
The Lombards Suspended from the Lords Supper in Utrecht
After 1646, the polemics over the lending banks quieted down for some
time until they broke out again in 1655. The occasion was the conflict
between the Utrecht consistory and a table holder and his wife. Johanna
Cold, who had come to Utrecht with an attestation from Dokkum in
late-1656 together with her husband Gerrit de Jongh, who was a treasurer
of the lending bank, was barred from the Lords Supper immediately
upon her arrival. She was informed that her husbands profession was an
impropriety and that she had to do everything to bring her husband
to detest himself.38 She protested fiercely and sent an appeal to the clas-
sis and synod. The classis of Utrecht dealt with the case in June of 1657 and
decided against the consistory.39
These events led the theological faculty of Utrechtthen composed of
the professors Voetius, Essenius, and Nethenusto publish a sequel or
second volume to their Res judicata, a work that was reprinted in 1657 as
well. This second work is the most exhaustive of the polemical works
against the table holders.40 It is introduced with an account of the con-
flict to date numbering more than 60 pages quarto. The first two chapters
once more enumerated the arguments against the sinful business of the
Lombards, now supplemented with new explanations from a variety of
synods, theologians, and jurists. In the third chapter, the arguments by
which the Lombards had defended their profession were countered, while
the fourth chapter refuted the complaints (exceptien) of the lending
bank owners.
A National Affair
The bank issue did not remain restricted to Utrecht alone. For an under-
standing of the proportions the polemics took on, one can turn with profit
to a bundle in the holdings of the Utrecht University library that collects
various writings for and against lending banks.41
38Notulen Utrechtse kerkenraad, 29 December 1656. See Van Lieburg, De Nadere

Reformatie in Utrecht, 87. Van Lieburg writes Cond rather than Cold.
39Voetius refers to this matter in SDT, 4:585586.
40The full title reads: Tweede deel van Res judicata vervattende het gemeijn ende kerckeli-
jck gevoelen, over de negotie der genaemden lombaerden. Tot noodige verdedinge van de
eere en leere der gemeijne Gereformeerde kercken. Uytgegeven door de professoren der
theologie in de academie tot Utrecht (Utrecht, 1657). Cf. Voetius, Politica Ecclesiastica,
I, pars I, 779788.
41Shelfmark: F. qu. 381.
All works date from between 1656 and 1658, when the issue was debated
at a national level.42 One interesting piece is the eight-page pamphlet
Vrage raekende t stuck van leeninghe op interest ende panden (Question
Touching the Lending with Interest and Securities) from a certain Sebastiaen
Coningh from Leiden, who held a share in the publicly patented bank
in that city.43 When in 1656 he was kept from the Lords Supper table,
he appealed to the States of Holland which decided that he ought to be
admitted to the sacrament. With a long list of quotations from other
Reformed theologians like Johannes Maccovius and Johannes Cloppen
burg, Coningh gave a rebuttal of the Utrecht position in the first part of
this pamphlet. At the end he published a number of church attestations
that demonstrated that some Lombards had indeed been accepted as
members of the church in Delft and elsewhere and were admitted to the
table. He further sought support from Petrus Cabeljau (16101668), pastor
at Leiden and regent to the States College (Statencollege), who held that
Lombards ought to be admitted to the celebration of the Eucharist.44
Aside from this pamphlet, the bundle contains a work from the Utrecht
advocate Justus Kriex, himself the son of a Lombard and husband to a
table holder, entitled Noodige verantwoording voor de huysen ofte bancken
van leeninghe (Urgent Apology for Lending Houses or Banks; 1658). This
work was directed against the second part of the Utrecht theologians
Res judicata.45 Eleven years earlier, Kriex had already thrown himself
into the controversy with his pamphlet Noot-wendig bericht (Necessary
report; 1647) in which he addressed the first part of the Res judicata
and appealed to arguments from Claudius Salmasius, professor at Leiden,
and Samuel Maresius, professor at Groningen, who both defended table
holders and lending banks.46 Kriex may well have identified himself on
42See also J.A. Cramer, De theologische faculteit te Utrecht ten tijde van Voetius (Utrecht,
1932), 5658.
43The full title reads: Vrage raekende t stuck van leeninghe op interest ende panden, den
eerwaarden, godvrugtigen, hooghgeleerden, wijsen, ende seer bescheijdenen leeraers ende
opsienders der Gereformeerde Kercken Jesu Cristireverentelijck voorghestelt door Sebastiaen
Coningh, deel-genoot der publijcke, gheoctroyeerde bank van leeinghe binnen Leyden.
(Johannes Coole, Boeckvercoper, 1656).
44For Cabeljau (or Cabbeljauw), see BLNP 2:114115.
45The full title reads: Noodige verantwoording voor de huysen ofte bancken van
leeninghe, binnen de Vereenigde Provincien, tegen sekere boeckskens genaemt: Res Judicata,
oordeel des eerw. Classis, & vande professoren der theologie tot Utrecht, ende anderen, uytge-
geven door J. Kriex, der Rechten Doctor, ende Advocaat inden Ed. Hove van Utrecht. Matth. VII.I,
Ne judicate, ut ne judicemini. (Utrecht: Dirck van Ackersdijck, en Gijsbert van Zijll, 1658).
46Claude de Saumaise (Salmasius, 15881653), originally from France, was a late
humanist scholar who succeeded J.J. Scaliger at Leiden in 1630. He denied that the
the title page as a doctor of law most consciously, since in 1636 Voetius
had attempted to prevent him from his receiving his doctorate at the
university of Utrecht.47
The bundle also contains the work by means of which Maresius came
into conflict with Voetius. In his Considerationes erotematicae circa foenus
trapeziticum (1657) as well as earlier writings on the matter, Maresius indi-
cated that he was no proponent of taking measures against the practices
of the table holders. Moreover, he thought that he had Calvin on his side
in that the Genevan Reformer considered the exacting of interest to be
lawful and the government had the duty to maintain laws against usury.48
But for the rest, the Groningen professor saw no reason to keep table
holders from the Lords Supper. Maresius also pointed out to his Utrecht
colleague that the government in many cities had itself taken charge of
the lending banks, and that Voetius kindred spirit and friend Johannes
Cloppenburg had considered this lawful.49 Maresius asked whether
Voetius ought to bar from the table even the public servants who worked
for the governments that maintain this policy. If table holders declared
that they were ready to reduce interest rates, Maresius saw no reason to
prevent their admission to the sacraments.50
Lords Day 42 of the Heidelberg Catechism
When the issue regarding lending banks had spread from Utrecht to
Leiden through the Coningh affair, the Leiden classis published a trea-
tise entitled Res iudicanda, saecke die noch staet te beoordelen (Res iudi-
canda, A Matter That Still Needs to be Decided Upon) as a response to
exacting of interest was in conflict with natural and divine law. For Salmasius tenure as
professor at Leiden, see W. Otterspeer, Groepsportret met Dame. Het bolwerk van de vrijheid,
de Leidse universiteit 15751672 (Amsterdam: Bakker, 2000), 290291, 335337.
47See L. Rietema, Kriex: een familie van Tafelhouders, in Jaarboek van het Centraal
Bureau voor Genealogie en het Iconographisch Bureau (The Hague: Centraal Bureau, 1977),
7677.
48Calvin allowed the exacting of interest as long as it did not conflict with aequitas and
brotherly love. Maresius failed to mention that Calvin and other Reformed theologians did
not allow all forms of interest. On this topic, see Christoph Strohm, Ethik im frhen
Calvinismus (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1996), 258n313, and the secondary scholarship there.
49In 1637 Cloppenburg, when he was still pastor at Brielle, authored a treatise
Onderwijsinge van woecker at the commissioning of the synod of South Holland in which
he approved the establishment of lending banks by the magistrates (100101, cap. 11).
50For a summary of this work, see D. Nauta, Samuel Maresius (Amsterdam: Paris, 1935),
295296.
Utrechts Res judicata (= A Matter That Has Been Decided Upon).51 This
work too is found in the bundle held at Utrecht University, and it is largely
composed of arguments that were already offered by Conigh, Kriex, and
Maresius. According to the deputies appointed by the classis of Leiden,
the Utrecht theologians were introducing an entirely unheard of usury
theology into the teaching and liturgy of the Reformed church. Their
qualification of lending banks as stores of injustice was entirely mis-
guided. Individual Lombards may indeed have cheated, but in principle
their profession was honest and reputable. It was not up to the church to
decide on money matters and to determine what is and is not a lawful
profession. This was the prerogative of the political judge.52
Theologically the debate soon came to revolve around the explanation
of Lords Day 42 of the Heidelberg Catechism. The Utrecht theologians
considered that this Lords Day, as well as the admonition in the Lords
Supper form to the unrepentant to abstain from the table, specifically
included usurers among those who break the eighth commandment.
For that reason, they argued, those who practice usury must be kept from
the Lords Supper. The Leiden deputies emphatically discarded this inter-
pretation. In support, they alleged that the adjective unjust in the cate-
chisms clause referring to unjust weights and measures, merchandise,
money, and usury (onrecht gewicht, el, maat, waar, munt, ende woeker)
applied individually to each of the members of that list. This meant, so
they argued, that the catechism implicitly draws a distinction between
different forms of usury: proper usury and improper usury.53 The
Leiden deputies furthermore argued that the laws concerning usury in
Exodus 22, Leviticus 25, and Deuteronomy 23 ought not, as the Utrecht
51The full title reads: Res judicanda, Saecke die noch staet te oordeelen, van de bancken
van leeninghe, by de magistraten opgerecht, ende onder soo danighen ordre ghebraght, als sy
oordeelen met de billijckheyt ende het voordeel van hare onderdanen wel over-een te komen.
Off de selve, by de opsienders der Kercke, moeten werden aangemerckt als winckels van
onrechten woecker, aen welcke geen litmaet der Gereformeerde Kercke magh ghemeenschap
hebben? Waer-in overwogen werden de bedenckingen van de Eerw: Heeren Professoren der
H. Theologie tot Wtrecht, in haer Schrift, ghenaemt Res Judicata. Ende wert verdedicht het
gravamen en advijs der Eerw. Classis van Leyden, ende Neder-Rhijnlandt, als wettigh en wel
ghestelt, conform de H. Schriftuere, Catechismus, Liturgie, Synodale Resolutien, ende de
ghemeene pracktijcke der Gereformeerde Kercken. Door de Gecommitteerden des E. Classis
van Leyden, volghens speciale last en order daer toe aen haer E.E. gegeven. (Leyden:
Hendrick Verbiest. Boeck-verkooper, woonende op de Lange-Brugge, 1658).
52See Res judicanda, Aenspraeck tot den Christelijcken Leser, 8 en 9. For this view the
Leiden classis referred to 2 Chronicles 19:1011. Christ too, so the classis claimed, did not
want to be a judge in matters concerning money and goods: he left them to for the
worldly authorities to decide upon. In support, the classis appealed to Luke 12:13.
53Res judicanda, 81.
theologians had done, to be considered as part of the Old Testament moral

laws as an expression of the law of nature that is common to all nations,
but as part of the civil law and the specific legal system of the nation
[of Israel].54 As a result, the laws could not simply be applied to the bank-
ing question of those days.
In that very same year, a 112-page treatise entitled Res judicanda judi-
cata ofte apologie voor den armen en geringen in den lande (A Matter-To-Be-
Decided That Has Been Decided Upon, or Apology for the Poor and Weak in
the Land) appeared in Utrecht.55 Although the author cannot be identi-
fied, Voetius, Essenius, and Nethenus in their approbation wrote that he
was well-known to them, and someone through whom the truth concern-
ing destructive usury is defended with force and clarity in a godly man-
ner. This work supplied extensive critical annotations to the Leiden
publication and sharply condemned governments that tolerated or even
initiated lending banks with the churchs approval. The author further
charged that the Res judicanda was not really written by the deputies
of the Leiden classis, but came from the arsenal of Petrus Cabeljau, an
outspoken proponent of the governments involvement in banking.56
The Leiden classis was compared to Ephraim and its leaders over whom
the prophet Isaiah made the following pronouncement: Woe to those
who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive
the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my
people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless (Is 10:12).
The argument that the Heidelberg Catechism in Lords Day 42 drew a dis-
tinction between different kinds of usury was also indignantly rejected.
Both the catechism as well as the liturgical form for the celebration of the
Lords Supper speak not of usury in the air, but of usury in time especially
in regard to the Lombards.57 What is more, the author argued that the
54Res judicanda, Aenspraek tot den Christelijcken Leser, 6.

55This work too is found in the aforementioned bundle with the shelfmark F. qu. 381.
The full title reads: Res judicanda judicata, ofte apologie voor den armen en geringen in
den lande: waer in vertoont wort dat de negotie van de particuliere tafel-houders, lombarden
genaemt, strijt met Godts woort, catechismus, liturgie, en synodale resolutien, en de gemene
praktijke der Gereformeerde kerken. Zijnde een antwoort op seker boeksken genaemt
Res judicanda, etc. Met een consultatie hoe de banken van leenigh van haer gewone gebreken
gesuyvert souden worden. Jes. 10 vs. 1, 2: Wee den genen, die ongerechtige insettingen insetten,
etc. (Utrecht: Jan van Waesberge. Boeckverkoper over het Stad-Huys, 1658). On this
pamphlet, see Duker, Voetius, 2:293n1.
56See Res judicanda judicata, Aen de Leser, 2: maar [wij] waren door den naem van
Gecommitteerden, gestelt op het hooft des Boecks, in die dwalingh misleyt: Nu beter
onderrecht zijnde, willen wij geern schult bekennen, en dit voor ongetwijffelt vasthouden,
t is alleen Cabeljauws werk.
57Res judicanda judicata, 80.
Latin text of Lords Day 42 did not support the interpretation according to
which the adjective unjust (inaequalis) ought to be understood as apply-
ing to the noun interest (usura) as well.58 Thus the business of the table
holders was not only in conflict with the Word of God, but also with the
catechism, liturgy, synodical resolutions, and the general practice of the
Reformed churches.
The Government Settles the Dispute
The implacable struggle against the table holders which the Utrecht
faculty waged under the leadership of Voetius was brought to an end by
the States of Gelderland and Holland.59 A resolution of 30 March 1658
determined that the subject of lending banks does not pertain to the
province of the consistories. They further determined that ecclesiastical
bodies had had no right to pronounce themselves on interest rates, and
that the Utrecht pastors had no business numbering bankers who had a
government patent among the ranks of unjust usurers.60 In 1664 the
States of Utrecht announced to the synod that the issue of lending banks
pertained to the civil government. Bankers who followed the interest rates
set by the government21 2/3% instead of 32.5%could no longer be
considered usurers.61 These measures weakened the churchs attack on
the lending banks, and the critical idealism of the Nadere Reformatie
suffered a defeat at the hands of the government. When, shortly before his
reconciliation with Voetius, Maresius looked back on the battlefield, he
noted with some satisfaction that his view had been victorious in both the
ecclesiastical and political arena.62
Conclusions
The social involvement of the Nadere Reformatie was expressed by

Voetius among other ways by his polemic against the Lombards. In his
radical, prophetic criticism of what he saw as a serious abuse, he showed
58Res judicanda judicata, 79. The Greek (!) and Latin editions of the Heidelberg
Catechism are said to add an adjective to all examples with the exception of usury.
59This resolution can likewise be found in the bundle with shelfmark F. qu. 381:
Resolutien op het stuck van de bancken van Leeninghe, genomen door de Staten van
Gelderland en Holland (Amsterdam, 1658).
60Resolutien, 78.
61Gemeentelijk Archief Utrecht: Bewaarde Archieven II no. 1216.
62Nauta, Maresius, 297.
his empathy with and compassion for the interests and needs of the weak-
est members of society in his time. Although he could at times be rather
fierce in his activity against this grievous sin, it all came from his concern
for the temporal and eternal welfare of the people.63 His polemical stance
caused his voice to be heard, and he strove indefatigably to implement the
social consequences of his program for further reformation. Voetius hoped
for the governments unconditional support, while rejecting any form of
authority that gave the government a say in the church. As we saw, this
stance not only was bound to bring about conflict with local and national
governments as it indeed did, it furthermore caused division within the
Reformed church itself.
All the same, Utrecht was like the smiths fire in which weapons were
forged to protest against the policy of the regents who out of economic
and political motives often had little interest in the radical social criticism
of Voetius and his followers. As shareholders in various city banks or else
as pawnbrokers and regulators, they had a vested interest in the conflict.
Aside from this power struggle with the government, anti-Roman Catholic
sentiments may also have played a role in the affair. After all, many table
holders and their descendants were of Italian origin and could easily be
associated with the church of Rome. A certain degree of xenophobia may
also have been a factor. Poor social conditions always need their scape-
goat, and the pawnbrokers origin no doubt made them an easy target.
Over the course of the centuries, the spiritual leaders had built up a rather
negative image of the bankers, and Voetius could make easy use of it.
All the same, this does not take away from the fact that the Utrecht
professor and pastor took up the cause of the poor masses (schamele
gemeente) in his conflicts with the government.64 He employed all his
exegetical knowledge and rhetorical capacities to express his compassion
for the poor in his city and land. In one of his disputations on interest he
noted the following words: Only let there be equity with every outcome
and case; let us not build our houses on the ruin of our neighbor.65
63Elsewhere I have described Voetius efforts as a soteriological and social pragmatism.

See W.J. van Asselt, Gisbertus Voetius, gereformeerd scholasticus, in Vier eeuwen theolo-
gie in Utrecht, ed. de Groot and de Jong (Zoetermeer: Meinema, 2001), 99108 (104).
64The expression comes from Nauta, Maresius, 297.
65Voetius, SDT, 4:573: Modo in omnem eventum & casum parata sit aequitas; nec ex
ruina proximi quis domum suam aedificet.
VOETIUS ON THE SUBJECT AND FORMAL ACT
OF HAPPINESSA SCHOLASTIC EXERCISE
Andreas J. Beck
Gisbertus Voetius (15891676) is surely one of the theologians who was of

particular importance for both church and school in early modern Protes
tantism. When he became professor of theology at the new Illustrious
School of Utrecht in 1634, he had already served as a pastor for 23 years,
and he continued to combine church ministry with four decades of
professorship, including even a rectorate. He not only trained generations
of students in academic theology, but was also the major theological
leader of the Dutch Nadere Reformatie.1
Voetius was also famous for his disputations over which he presided
on Saturdays in the aula of the University of Utrecht, many of which
can be found in the five volumes of his Selectae Disputationes. The second
volume includes two exercises on articles of Thomas Aquinas Summa
Theologiae.2 In the present essay I want to honor the groundbreaking
work of Richard A. Muller on Reformed orthodoxy and scholasticism
by looking at the exercise on the article about the subject and formal
act of happiness (as Voetius called it).3 This scholastic exercise deals
with the debate between the Thomistic and Scotistic schools on the
question whether beatitude or happiness (beatitudo) is situated in
the intellect (as Aquinas held), or the will (as Scotus argued), or in both
faculties.4
1See Muller, AC, 109115; Aza Goudriaan, Reformed Orthodoxy and Philosophy, 16251750.
Gisbertus Voetius, Petrus van Mastricht, and Anthonius Driessen (Leiden: Brill, 2006);
Andreas J. Beck, Gisbertus Voetius (15891676). Sein Theologieverstndnis und seine
Gotteslehre (Gttingen: V&R, 2007).
2Voetius, SDT, 2:11931217, 12171239.
3Exercitatio ad Thomae I.II. Q. III. Art. IV. de beatitudinis subjecto et actu formali,
pars 1, resp. Johannes Petko Somoso, 5 March 1563 (SDT, 2:12171218); pars 2, resp. Isaacus
Clemens, 12 March 1653 (SDT, 2:12281239).
4Cf. Georg Wieland, Happiness: The Perfection of Man, The Cambridge History of
Later Medieval Philosophy, ed. Norman Kretzmann et al. (Cambridge: CUP, 1982), 67386;
James McEvoy, Ultimate Goods: Happiness, Friendship, and Bliss, The Cambridge
Companion to Medieval Philosophy, ed. A.S. McGrade (Cambridge: CUP, 2003), 253274.
522 andreas j. beck
Aquinas on the Formal Act of Happiness
The articulus under consideration is part of Aquinas tract on happiness or

beatitude at the beginning of the prima secundae of his Summa Theologiae
(qq. 15).5 In this tract, Aquinas first discusses mans last end or ultimate
purpose of life, which is God, whereas happiness means the acquisition of
the ultimate goal (q. 1). Next he explains that happiness does not consist
in earthly things or created good, but in God alone (q. 2). The other three
questions deal with the nature of happiness (q. 4), its conditions
(q. 5) and how it is attained (q. 6). Each question includes eight articles,
making up a total of forty articles.6
Aquinas starts his discussion of the nature of happiness in the third
question by arguing that happiness is non-creaturely (a. 1). After that, he
spells out that it is an activity or operation (a. 2), but only of our intellec
tive part, not of our sensitive part (a. 3). The fourth article is the one which
Voetius discusses in his exercise; it argues that happiness is an activity of
the intellect rather than of the will. The next article specifies that it is an
activity of the speculative and not the practical intellect (a. 5). This activ
ity, in turn, consists in dwelling on the theoretical sciences (a. 6), but not
in the consideration of angels (a. 7). Instead, human happiness consists in
the vision of Gods essence (a. 8).
Aquinas conception of happiness or beatitude has clearly intellectual
ist traits by which he departs from the Augustinian tradition. This is
partly due to Aristotelian influences, although it should be noted that
Aquinas by no means follows Aristotle in all respects, but surely speaks
as a Christian theologian.7 The intellectualist setting of happiness in
Aquinas theology becomes especially clear in the article that is discussed
by Voetius.
In his discussion, Voetius follows the structure of this article. But first,
he renders its question: If happiness be an activity of the intellectual part,
is it an activity of the intellect or of the will? Voetius rightly observes, that,
5ST, IaIIae.3.4. I use in this article the New Blackfrairs edition: Thomas Aquinas, Summa
Theologae, vol. 16: Purpose and Happiness (IaIIae.15), ed. Thomas Gilby (Cambridge: CUP,
2006), along with the more literal translation of the Fathers of the English Dominican
Province.
6Cf. Georg Wieland, Happinness (Ia IIae, qq. 15), in The Ethics of Aquinas, ed.
Stephen J. Pope (Washington: Georgetown University, 2002), 5768; Stefan Gradl, Deus
beatitudo hominis: eine evangelische Annherung an die Glckslehre des Thomas von Aquin
(Leuven: Peeters, 2004), 161361.
7See Denis J.M. Bradley, Aquinas on the twofold human good: reason and human
happiness in Aquinas moral science (Washington: CUAP, 1997), 323481.
voetius on the subject and formal act of happiness 523
as the corpus of the article shows, the question at stake is actually more
limited: it concerns the activity related to the being of happiness and
what happiness essentially is, thus its very essence.8
Next, Voetius presents the five objections in article 8 in the form of
syllogisms. They all argue that happiness consists in the will: because
happiness consists in peace (with reference to Augustine and Ps. 147:3);9
because happiness is the supreme good, which is an object of will; because
the last end corresponds to the first mover, which is the will in regard to
operations; because happiness belongs to the most excellent activity,
which is of the will (with reference to 1 Cor. 13); and finally because of the
authority of Augustine who sees a relationship between human good will
and happiness.10
The authoritative text that Aquinas cites in the sed contra is John 17:3a:
And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God.
Voetius, however, thinks that it does not help to answer the question
at stake. Referring to commentaries of the Jesuits Juan de Maldonado
(15351583) and Cornelius Lapide (15671637) and the Franciscan
Alfonso de Castro (14951558), he argues that the text is not about
knowledge of God in the next life (in patria), but only in this life (in via).
Moreover, it relates knowledge to eternal life in a metonymic sense
only. Thus this Scripture does not even prove that eternal life exclusively
consists in knowledge in this life, not to mention the afterlife.11
When he moves to Aquinas solution in the corpus of the article, Voetius
first admits that, according to Aquinas, happiness not only consists in
its essence but includes its proper accident, the accompanying pleasure
or delight (delectatio). Still, the position of Aquinas is quite rigid when he
says that as to the very happiness, it is impossible for it to consist in an act
of the will.12 According to Voetius, Aquinas supports his rigid statement
with one single argument, namely that happiness can only formally
consist in the act that attains it, which is not true for the act of will.13
Voetius hastens to make clear that he is not convinced by the argument
of Aquinas. In addition, he refers to the refutations by the Franciscans
Richard of Middleton (ca. 12491302) and Juan de Rada (ca. 15451608)
8SDT, 2:1217.
9SDT, 2:1217; Augustinus, De civitate Dei XIX.10 (PL 41:636); Ps. 147:3.
10SDT, 2:12171218; Augustine, De Trinitate XIII.6 (PL 42:1020).
11SDT, 2:12181219. For the last point, Voetius quotes Juan de Maldonado, Commentarii
in quaturo evangelistas, vol. 5 (Paris/London: Moguntiae), 503.
12Aquinas, ST, IaIIae.4.3co.
13SDT, 2:1219.
524 andreas j. beck
and the Jesuit Gregorio de Valencia (15491603).14 What is more, he also

cites Scotus who criticized Aquinas for not distinguishing a priority of ori
gin or generation from a priority of perfection and for not including love
(amor) in his list of relevant acts of will, but only desire and delight.15
In his own response, Voetius insists, with Scotus, that the relevant
priority in the act that attains happiness concerns the priority of perfec
tion, which the will has over the intellect, and not the priority of origin,
according to which the intellect indeed comes first. Moreover, it is the act
to will friendship, namely the enjoyment of love, by which we adhere to
God as he is seen and loved because of himself.16
It does not come as a surprise that Voetius is also not convinced by
most of Aquinas answers to the five objections mentioned above; he
can only accept the first one. Interestingly, he applies Scotus distinction
of two kinds of priority to 1 Cor. 13: Love is higher than faith in perfection,
although the act of faith comes before the act of love in the order of
generation. The same is true for the will in relation to the intellect.17
The Controversy
After having introduced the text of Thomas himself, Voetius moves to
the controversy itself. He starts his discussion by giving a detailed over
view of the diverse opinions of scholastic theologians, the church fathers,
and the Reformed theologians. In the works of scholastic theologians
which he has at hand, Voetius distinguishes no less than eight different
positions.18
First, there is the position of Aquinas and the Thomists who say,
that the act of happiness is essentially and formally in the intellect to
the exclusion of the will (1222). Voetius refers to Durandus of St. Pourain
(ca. 12301296), Johannes Capreolus (ca. 13601444), and the Dominicans
Paulus Soncinas (d. 1494), Francis de Sylvestris (14741528), and Domingo
de Soto (14941560).19
14Richard of Middleton, Super quatuor Libros Sententiarum (Brescia: V. Sabbius, 1591),

ad Sent. IV, d. 49, a. 1, q. 7 (653b-655a); Juan de Rada, Controversiae theologicae inter
S. Thomam et Scotum, 4 vols. (Cologne: J. Crithius, 1620), pars 4, controv. 12 (4:268a-321b);
Gregorio de Valencia, Commentariorum theologicorum tomi quatuor, 4 vols. (Ingolstadt:
Sartorius, 15911597), vol. 2, d. 1, q. 3 p. 4 (2:5876).
15SDT, 2:12191220 with Scotus, Ordinatio IV, d. 49, q. 4, nn. 89 (ed. Vivs XXI, 99b-100b);
Voetius seems to use the phrasing of Cajetanus (or a common source); see S. Thomae
Aquinatis Opera omnia iussu impensaque Leonis XIII P. M. edita, t. 6 (Rome: 1991), 30a-31b.
16SDT, 2:1220.
17SDT, 2:1221.
18SDT, 2:1222.
19SDT, 2:1222.
Second, Voetius mentions the opinion of Scotus and most Scotists

who situate the formal act of happiness in the will. This position has
also been defended by Alfonso de Castro, O.F.M. (14951558) and, espe
cially subtle and elaborately, by Juan de Rada, O.F.M. Obs. (ca.
15451608).20
All the other opinions defend in one way or another a middle ground
between both extremes. Thus the third group of scholastics even abstains
from judgment and states that both opinions can be defended as being
equally plausible. For this, Voetius cites the Thomist Juan Alfonso Curiel
(d. 1609), the quasi-Thomist Gregorio de Valencia, the nominalist Gabriel
Biel (ca. 14201495), and two authors of famous commentaries on Script
ure, namely, Juan de Maldonado and Cornelius Lapide.21
The fourth position finds essential happiness constituted in both
acts and is defended by Hugh of St. Victor (ca. 10971141), Albertus Magnus,
O.P. (ca. 12001280), John of Bassolis, O.F.M. (d. 1347), Thomas of
Strasbourg O.E.S.A. (d. 1357), Marsilius of Inghen (ca. 13401396), the
Franciscans Richard of Middleton, Andrs de Vega (14981549),
and Antonio de Crdoba (14851578), and the Jesuits Francisco Surez
(15481617) and Rodrigo de Arriaga (15921667).22
Another position is taken by the Dominican Petrus de Palude
(ca. 12801342), who distinguished a double happiness: the contemplative
happiness of the intellect and the practical happiness of the will. According
to the sixth opinion the act of happiness consists in the vision of the
intellect, the love of the will, and its delight in the seen and loved God.
This is defended by the Franciscan Bonaventura (12211227) and endorsed
by John Major (14671550).23
The seventh option is advocated by Peter Auriol, O.F.M. (ca. 12801322),
who constitutes the act of happiness in joy or delight. Surez indicates
that he once inclined to a similar opinion, and Adam Tanner, S.J. (15711632)
also inclined to it. Finally, there is an eighth position, taken by Giles of
Rome, O.E.S.A. (12431316), that happiness forms a genus, whose species
are the acts of intellect and will.24
Concerning the church fathers, Voetius observes that it cannot be
reconstructed for certain what they would have thought about the
20SDT, 2:1222.
21SDT, 2:12221223.
22SDT, 2:12231224.
23SDT, 2:1224.
24SDT, 2:1224. Voetius is careful enough to indicate that he could not consult the works
of Giles of Rome and depends on the summary by Nicholaus Denyse O.F.M. Obs. (d. 1509).
526 andreas j. beck
question at stake. When discussing the Reformed theologians, Voetius

first notes that very few of them touched that question at all. Some of
them remain undetermined with the Heidelberg Catechism (q. 58), while
others, such as Polanus, just enumerate all things about the glorious
perfection of the soul and body in heaven.25 Voetius also mentions
Lambert Daneau (ca. 15301595), who rejects the Thomistic opinion.
There are very few others who follow Aquinas, although they, as Voetius
thinks, did not precisely exclude with Thomas the act of will from essen
tial happiness, but rather wanted to express that the vision is the prin
ciple and foundation of happiness.26
Interestingly, Voetius here gives a brief biographical note and explains
that initially he did not object to the opinion of Aquinas, although he did
not want to exclude the will as the subject of happiness.27 This position
turned out to be unsatisfying, however: But later, when I weighed the
issue more carefully, I came to believe that the opinion of Thomas barely
could sustain a rigorous examination and that essential and formal hap
piness is to be constituted either in both acts, or in the act of will alone.28
Voetius is now ready to discuss the state of the controversy or the status
quaestionis.29 First, he clarifies what the controversy is not about. To men
tion only some points, it is not about the questions whether both the act
of intellect and will are required for happiness, or whether both acts are
included in happiness, or whether knowledge, perfect love, holiness,
delight, joy, enjoyment, and glory all belong to the state of happiness.
It is also not debated whether the vision of God is the ultimate perfection
of the intellect and the enjoyment of God the ultimate perfection of
the will.30
Having clarified what the controversy is not about, Voetius defines the
status controversionis:
Does the happiness of the whole intellectual nature, which can be made
happy in itself, formally consist in the act of the intellect, namely, in vision,
25SDT, 2:1125. See Amandus Polanus von Polansdorf, Syntagma Theologiae Christianae,
2 vols. (Hanau, 16091610), VI.lxxv (2:33373338).
26SDT, 2:1225. Voetius refers to the Synopsis purioris theologiae, disp. 52, thesis 14
(with theses 10 and 11) and notes that Daniel Tilenus (15621633) nevertheless defended the
Thomistic opinion. Cf. also Muller, PRRD, 3:381384.
27Cf. Voetius, Syllabus problematum theologicorum. Pars prior (Utrecht: Aegidius
Roman, 1643) A2vA3r; SDT, 5:226227.
28SDT, 2:1125.
29I skip Voetius discussion of several related hypotheses in SDT, 2:12251226.
30SDT, 2:1228.
or in the act of the will, and the latter either in love (or enjoyment) [amore
seu fruitione], or in delight (or joy) [delectatione seu gaudio]? Or does it con
sist in those two, or even three acts together, so that happiness is one act, not
by an essential union in itself, but an aggregation, or so that those acts are
partial (or two) moments, which essentially constitute one essential whole?31
This is surely a complex and perhaps even cumbersome formulation, but
its benefit is that it covers the whole array of possible options which
Voetius has discussed earlier in this bipartite disputation. He also clarifies,
in the passage omitted from the citation, that the controversy is restricted
to happiness that can be attained by mind-gifted creatures, namely, angels
and human beings, and does not include the uncreated happiness of
God himself.
Voetius Own Opinion

Voetius now moves to his own solution, the determinatio, which he intro
duces with a note of caution. Thus he makes it very clear that this debate
does not affect the doctrine of the church, as it is expressed in the confes
sions and catechisms, nor does it affect Reformed theology as it is taught
in the schools. It only concerns a discussion within scholasticism. Voetius
again underlines that almost all Reformed theologians do not touch this
debate in their works.32
Voetius presents his own opinion in the form of seven conclusions. The
first five conclusions repeat some points on which both Thomists and
Scotists could agree.33 In the sixth conclusion, Voetius shows his clear
preference for the Scotistic answer, if the question is formulated in a clear
and focused way. If the act is considered in its ultimate analysis as it
attains the happy making object completely, ultimately and immedi
ately, Voetius agrees with the Scotists that the act at stake is the act of
love or enjoyment rather than the act of vision. In the seventh conclusion,
he insists that those who prefer to leave the matter undecided should
at least recognize that the opinion of Aquinas is not certain or solid.
Thus happiness should not be ascribed to the act of intellect only and to
the exclusion of the act of will.34
31SDT, 2:12281229. An essential union is a union of parts which are inextricably or

inseparably linked to each other, whereas an aggregation is a composition of separable
parts. Cf. Rudolph Goclenius, Lexicon philosophicum quo tanquam clave philosophiae fores
aperiuntur (Frankfurt: M. Becker, 1613), 291302, esp. 300301.
32SDT, 2:1229. Cf. for Voetius on happiness Beck, Voetius, 184189.
33SDT, 2:12291230.
34SDT, 2:1230.
528 andreas j. beck
Voetius now proceeds to give reasons for his opinion. First, he mentions
his own arguments before he discusses those of Scotus and of others who
argue against the position of Aquinas. Voetius first reason assumes that
formal happiness belongs to the most outstanding act of the intellectual
nature, as Thomas himself acknowledges.35 Since such an act is love, and
not cognition, it follows that formal happiness is situated in the act of love.
Voetius here presupposes that relevant conclusions can be drawn from
inchoative happiness in this life (in via) to full happiness in the afterlife
(in patria), as it is also defended by Martinus Becanus, S.J. (15631624).
Moreover, Thomists should acknowledge that love is more important
than faith.36
Voetius presents his second argument in the form of a syllogism, as he
did with the first and with many other arguments in this disputation.
It runs as follows:
(1)In which act there is formally the last attainment of the beatific object,
and consequently the final perfection of the intellectual nature, in that act
consists formal happiness.
(2)But the last attainment of the beatific object, and consequently the final
perfection of the intellectual nature, is in the act of will and not in the act
of the intellect.
(3)Therefore formal happiness consists in the act of will and not in the act of
the intellect.37
The conclusion (3) indeed follows from the major premise (1) and the
minor premise (2). Voetius proceeds by giving an argument for the minor,
again in the form of syllogism. This argument boils down to the point that,
in faculty psychology, the act of intellect precedes the act of will, whereas
the act of will finally attains the object.38
Voetius gives a third but less important reason for his position: Since
the arguments of Aquinas are not really convincing, it is safer to stay away
from the opinion of Aquinas and to follow Scotus who is able to present
counterarguments. In this way one avoids related discussions about the
superiority of the contemplative life or theoretical speculative theology.39
Voetius does not seem to like the articles of the question at hand, in which
35SDT, 2:1230. Voetius seems to have in mind ST, IaIIae.3.4 obj. 4 together with IaIIae.3.4
ad 4, and perhaps also IaIIae.5.5 ad 2.
36SDT, 2:1230. Voetius cites Martin Becanus, Summa theologiae scholasticae
(Rouen: Joh. Behourt, 1652), pars 1, tract. 1, cap. 1, q. 3 (209b).
37SDT, 2:12301231.
38SDT, 2:1231.
39SDT, 2:1231.
Aquinas defends such positions.40 Moreover, theology is for Voetius a

practical rather than a theoretical or mixed discipline, as he argues
elsewhere.41
Voetius complements his own reasons with three reasons from Scotus
himself. Although Voetius refers to Ordinatio IV, d. 49, qq. 45, these
reasons are not directly traceable to Scotus works, but rather reflect the
summaries of Scotus opinion in scholastic manuals and commentaries.42
Still, they are surely in line with the position of the doctor subtilis.43
The first reason says that the love of friendship (amor amicitiae), which
presupposes the vision of God, is closer to the happy making object
than the vision of God. Thus happiness consists formally in the love of
friendship.44 The second argument also centers around love: The act of
understanding is ordered to love, and not vice versa, and thus love must
be the ultimate formal end rather than the act of understanding.45 The
third argument says that formal happiness consists in the act of will
because this act is more desirable than the act of the intellect. Voetius is
aware, of course, that these reasons have been rejected by Thomists such
as Johannes Capreolus, Paulus Soncinas, Cajetanus, Juan Alfonso Curiel,
Gregorio de Valencia, and Martinus Becanus, but he does not find their
responses convincing if you look at the substance of the reasons.46
Having discussed the arguments of Scotus, Voetius adds thirteen other
supporting arguments which are defended by other opponents of Aquinas,
including the Scotists.47 Three arguments are particularly interesting:
the sixth argument says that the will is essentially made happy because
it is essentially and formally free.48 According to the eighth reason,
happiness belongs to the highest potency, which is the will, as it is made
complete by love.49 And the last argument exemplifies that an absurd
40See ST, IaIIae.3.6, 8; cf. ST, Ia.1.4.

41See Beck, Voetius, 175181; cf. Muller, PRRD, 1:340354.
42Cf. Scotus, Ordinatio IV, d. 49, qq. 45, incl. q. ex latere (ed. Vivs XXI, 93b-180a) and
Scotus, Rep. Par. IV, d. 49, qq. 24 (ed. Vivs XXIV, 620a-640b) with Juan Alfonso Curiel,
Lecturae seu Quaestiones in D. Thomae primam secundae (Antwerp 1621), q. 3, tract., q. 6,
512 (69a-78a); Juan de Rada, Controversiae theologicae, pars 4, controv. 12, art. 4
(4:296a-305a).
43Cf. Walter Hoeres, Der Wille als reine Vollkommenheit nach Duns Scotus (Mnchen:
Pustet, 1962), 220226, 297311 (esp. 303308).
44SDT, 2:1231; cf. Scotus, Ordinatio IV, d. 49, q. 5 nn. 23 (ed Vivs XXIV, 171b-172b).
45In support of this argument Voetius adopts from Scotus an alleged quote of Anselm,
which in fact is a summary of Anselm, Cur Deus Homo II.1 (PL 158:400C-401C).
46SDT, 1:1232.
47SDT, 2:12321234.
48SDT, 2:1232.
49SDT, 2:12321233.
530 andreas j. beck
consequence would follow if every act of will were to be excluded from

essential happiness, namely, the consequence that one could be blessed
if one only sees God without having delight in him. Voetius indicates
that he supports this argument, if delight (delectatio) is replaced by
love (amor), by which the intellectual nature finally and perfectly
achieves, holds, and keeps God, and enjoys Him.50
Voetius ends the discussion of Scotistic arguments by pointing out
some other absurd consequences of the Thomistic responses to the Scoti
stic position: The beatific vision could be upheld without love and joy
by Gods absolute power. Likewise, misery and sadness would not be
absolutely incompatible with happiness. Moreover, it would be possible
that the human will would not love God, the Highest Good, and never
theless possess him by the beatific vision and be completely satisfied.
And finally a beatific making vision would be purely speculative, not
practical. Thus this vision would not steer us to love God, because only
free acts are steerable.51
The concluding part of the determinatio or solution of Voetius consists
in a lengthy refutation of Thomistic arguments. He derives these argu
ments from Curiels Lectura seu Quaestiones and uses manuals of de Rada
and Gregorio de Valencia for his response.52 Voetius discussion does not
substantially add new aspects to what already has been said during this
disputation, but it is worth mentioning that he repeatedly refers to the
importance of love for happiness and the union with God.53
The Weight of the Controversy

In the next section of the disputation Voetius discusses the weight of this
controversy. First, he reports that some Catholic scholastics judge that
this dispute is more philosophical or metaphysical than theological in
nature. Some consider the question as merely theological-scholastic and
admit that one may safely hold different opinions. Next, Voetius observes
that most Reformed theologians do not even touch this debate and tacitly
50SDT, 2:12331234. Voetius also rephrases the fifth argument by referring to the
Heidelberg Catechism (q. 58).
51SDT, 2:1234. See also Martin Becanus, Summa, pars 1, tract. 1, cap. 1, qq. 45 (210b-212a);
the first three consequences are discussed in q. 4 and the final one in q. 5.
52Curiel, Lecturae seu Quaestiones, q. 3, tract., q. 6, 89 (71b-74); de Rada, Contro
versiae theologicae, pars 4, controv. 12, art. 4 (4:296a-305a); de Valencia, Commentariorum
theologicorum tomi quatuor, vol. 2, d. 1, q. 3 p. 4 (2:5876, esp. 6166).
53See esp. SDT, 2:1235, where Voetius also refers to his disputation De amore Dei
(SDT, 3:7991).
assume that it is not part of ecclesiastical doctrine. Voetius own opinion

is that this controversy indeed belongs more to philosophical-theological
meticulousness and subtlety than to common faith and theology. This
does not mean, however, that it would be inappropriate to deal with this
question, as it surely has its own benefit. This debate does not only help
to untangle some related issues, but also to better understand the scho
lastics. Voetius confesses that it pleased him to compare the scholastic
opinions with his own theology and find fault with their less solid
speculations.54
Concerning the weight of this debate, Voetius is not entirely happy
with Becanus summary according to which it concerns mainly formal
happiness in its perfect and formal status and in its nature and essence.55
He prefers the assessment of Richard of Middleton, who says that
the blessed are immediately united with God by the intellect in the
aspect that God is the first and most true being, and by the will in
the aspect that God is the highest being. Richard also clarifies that
happiness is more situated in the act of will than in the act of intellect.56
The best judgment, however, is given by de Rada, who concludes that the
vision of God is related to the intellect and the enjoyment of God to
the will.57
In the last section of this disputation, Voetius formulates three con
cluding remarks. First, he notes, in general against the scholastics, that
they repeatedly construct axioms that lead to errors and uncertain theol
ogy. Second, it turns out that the distinction of the Thomists between
the contemplative and active life is not helpful as they erroneously
presuppose the vision of God by his essence. Third, Voetius lists several
obsolete questions that follow from the opinion of the Thomists and
are discussed by them to no avail. In contrast, he only addresses a single
question to the Scotists, namely whether it is not rather an eager desire
(concupiscentia) than the love of friendship, by which we love God as
our good.58
54SDT, 2:1237.
55SDT, 2:12371238; cf. Becanus, Summa, pars 1, tract. 1, cap. 1, q. 3 (209a).
56SDT, 2:1238; cf. Richard of Middleton, Super quatuor libros, IV, d. 49, a. 1, qq. 67
(4:651a-655b).
57SDT, 2:12381239; cf. de Rada, Controversiae theologicae, pars 4, controv. 12, art. 3
(4:291a-296a, esp. 292a-295a). Voetius mentions also three other conclusions of de Rada.
58SDT, 1:1239. For the last conclusion, Voetius refers to Becanus, Summa, pars 1, tract. 1,
cap. 1, q. 3 (210a).
532 andreas j. beck
Concluding Remarks
At the very beginning of this exercise, Voetius cites 1 Cor. 2:9 and warns
the reader that one can only speak with modesty about the nature of eter
nal life. Where the Scriptures remain silent, docta ignorantia is more
appropriate than holding strong opinions.59 This is also true for the
controversy on the subject and formal act of ultimate happiness, which is
not part of the confessional statements, as Voetius repeatedly emphasizes.
Thus he does not find fault with the other Reformed theologians who,
with very few exceptions, did not touch this controversy at all. In contrast
he complains that the scholastic theologians were prone to inappropriate
speculations. On the other hand, Voetius seems to believe that such an
exercise related to a scholastic debate is useful for students in an academic
setting and for their preparation for church ministry. Moreover, he shows
a clear preference to Scotus more voluntarist view, although in earlier
works he was inclined to the intellectualist Thomistic position. With
the Franciscans, Voetius formally locates happiness either in both of the
faculties or, preferably, in the will alone, since love, not knowledge, is
the noblest act of an intellectual nature. What Voetius finds lacking in
Aquinas position is the enforcement of the love of friendship or in fact
an eager desire and enjoyment with which the will finds rest in God as
the greatest good. It might not be by chance that the central figure of the
Nadere Reformatie had a clear sympathy for the Augustinian-Franciscan
tradition in this debate, as he also had in his doctrine of God where he
emphasized the pivotal role of the divine will.60
59SDT, 2:1217.
60See Beck, Voetius, 329358, 435439.
REVEALING THE MIND OF GOD: EXEGETICAL METHOD
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
Henry M. Knapp
The Criticism and Reassessment of

Seventeenth-Century Exegesis
It is a commonly held belief that the seventeenth-century exegetical work

produced by Reformed authors contributed little, if anything, to the devel-
opment of scriptural interpretation. The whole period is often viewed as a
regressive time in biblical studies where the advances in hermeneutics
and exegesis made by the sixteenth-century Reformers were arrested and
betrayed by the very theologians who claimed to be their intellectual
descendants, a retreat to the false methods, presuppositions, and conclu-
sions of the medieval period.1
This traditional critique of seventeenth-century biblical interpretation
falls largely along three lines: (1) that the exegesis of that time served only
to provide proof texts for dogmatic and polemic works;2 (2) that their exe-
gesis reverted to the scholasticism of the medieval times, abandoning the
freshness and vitality of the humanism as promoted by the Reformers;3
and (3) that the biblical interpretations of this era were academically
mediocre due to the expositors neglecting and/or rejecting scientific
advances in biblical studies and their embracing of erroneous and
1Howard Teeple, The Historical Approach to the Bible (Evanston: Religion and Ethics
Institute, 1982), 6670; Frederic Farrar, History of Interpretation (New York: Dutton, 1886);
Robert Grant, The Bible in the Church (New York: MacMillan, 1960); J.K.S. Reid, The
Authority of Scripture: A Study of Reformation and Post-Reformation Understanding of the
Bible (London: Methuen, 1962); Kemper Fullerton, Prophecy and Authority (New York:
Macmillan, 1919).
2Farrar, History of Interpretation, passim; Henry Virkler, Hermeneutics: Principles and
Processes of Biblical Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981), 67; Dean Freiday, The Bible:
Its Criticism, Interpretation and Use in 16th and 17th Century England (Pittsburgh: Catholic
and Quaker Studies, 1979).
3David Dockery, Study and Interpretation of the Bible, in Foundations for Biblical
Interpretation, ed. Dockery et. al. (Nashville: B&H, 1994), 43; Jack Rogers and Donald
McKim, The Authority and Interpretation of the Bible: An Historical Approach (San Francisco:
Harper and Row, 1979), 147188; David Dockery, Biblical Interpretation, Then and Now
(Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 160161.
534 henry m. knapp
debilitating presuppositions about the Scripture. As a consequence, in

the view of one scholar, the Reformation principle of exegesis, namely,
the one grammatico-historical sense, is in the way of being completely
abandoned.4
In recent decades there have been a growing number of scholars who
have challenged this analysis of seventeenth-century exegesis. Rather
than mining Scripture for isolated proof texts, these scholars claim that
the orthodox exegete saw his role as bridging the gap between the techni-
cal aspects of exegesis and the application of the text to the contemporary
body of believers.5 The definition and value of scholasticism, particularly
in a pejorative sense, has equally been challenged, effectively undercut-
ting the negative prejudice applied to anything which appears to have
scholastic characteristics.6
This debate between the older, critical evaluation of seventeenth-cen-
tury exegesis and its more recent reassessment is part of the larger dispute
over the faithfulness of the post-Reformation orthodox to the Reformers
thought. Under the epithet of Calvin vs. the Calvinists, one theory claims
that there is a great discontinuity between the Reformers and their follow-
ers, either a substantial modification or a fatal deviation from the refresh-
ing theological insights of the sixteenth century. A subset of this theory
asserts that the exegetical practices of orthodoxy followed the same dete-
riorating path, reflecting the precritical presuppositions7 common during
the medieval era, instead of the more scientific, higher critical views
which, reportedly, germinated in the Reformation, lay stagnant during the
orthodox period, and finally flowered with the development of biblical
higher criticism. This discontinuity theory has been countered by more
recent scholarship which has argued that there is a strong trajectory
4Fullerton, Prophecy and Authority, 175.

5Richard A. Muller, Biblical Interpretation in the 16th & 17th Centuries, in Historical
Handbook of Major Biblical Interpreters, ed. McKim (Downers Grove: IVP, 1998), 135136;
Richard Muller, Joseph Hall as Rhetor, Theologian, and Exegete: His Contribution to the
History of Interpretation, in Solomons Divine Arts, ed. Sheppard (Cleveland: Pilgrim, 1991),
1137; Milton Terry, Biblical Hermeneutics: A Treatise on the Interpretation of the Old and
New Testaments (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974), 683.
6Muller, PRRD; Muller, S&O; PS.
7The term precritical is clearly anachronistic and is being used here in its modern
scholarly sense to denote the set of presuppositions and exegetical approach to the Bible
which dominated the practice of interpretation until the late seventeenth and early eigh-
teenth centuries. See David Steinmetz, The Superiority of Pre-Critical Exegesis, Theology
Today 37 (19801981): 2738; Richard Muller and John Thompson, The Significance of
Precritical Exegesis: Retrospect and Prospect, in Biblical Interpretation in the Era of the
Reformation, ed. Muller and Thompson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 335345.
exegetical method in the 17th century 535
of thought between the three erasmedieval, Reformation, and ortho-

doxyand the greatest discontinuity is in fact between the precritical
and modern higher critical periods.8
In order to evaluate the validity of the older criticism directed at the
interpretive practices of the seventeenth century, and its more recent
positive reassessment, this study will survey various post-Reformation
English exegetical manuals and other works which addressed biblical
interpretation. The goal will be to see how the Puritan divines themselves
approached the interpretive process.
Source Material
There is a wealth of primary material which may be examined in this exer-

cise. The preface to published commentaries frequently included some
discussion of important methodological principles, as for instance in the
commentaries by William Perkins, John Mayer, and Matthew Poole.9
Larger systematic and theological workssuch as those by Edward Leigh
and William Whitakeroften also contain explicit interpretive rules or
canons.10 Robert Boyle, Francis Osborne, Nicholas Byfield, and others
wrote tracts encouraging the reading of Scripture by the laity, including
guidelines for proper interpretation, and Thomas Hall authored an intro-
ductory text on biblical exegesis for students preparing for ministry.11
Other theoretical works focused on specific interpretive techniques, such
as John Wilsons defense of the analogy of Scripture in The Scriptures
Genuine Interpreter Asserted and John Weemes use of Hebraic insights in
interpretation in his Christian Synagogue and Exercitations Divine.12 Most
8See especially the summary and the literature in Muller, Calvinists I and Calvinists II.
9Rodolfe Cudworth writes the Epistle Dedication for William Perkins, A Commentarie
or Exposition Vpon the Fiue First Chapters of the Epistle to the Galatians, in The Workes of
that Famous and Worthy Minister William Perkins, vol. 2 (London: Legate, 16161618); John
Mayer, A Commentarie upon the New Testament, 3 vols. (London: Haviland, 1631); Matthew
Poole, A Commentary on the Holy Bible, 3 vols. (1685; repr. London: BTT, 1979).
10Edward Leigh, A Treatise of Divinity consisting of Three Bookes (London: Griffin, 1646);
William Whitaker, A Disputation, trans. Fitzgerald (Cambridge: CUP, 1849).
11Robert Boyle, Some Considerations Touching the Style of the H. Scriptures (London:
Hen. Hall, 1663); Francis Osborne, The Private Christians non vltra (Oxford: Robinson, 1656);
Nicholas Byfield, Directions for the Private Reading of the Scriptures (London: M.F., 1648);
T[homas] W[ilson], Theologicall Rules, to Guide Vs in the Vnderstanding and Practice of
Holy Scriptures (London: Griffin, 1615); Thomas Hall, Vindiciae Literarum (London:
W.H., 1655).
12John Wilson, The Scriptures Genuine Interpreter Asserted (London: T.N., 1678); John
Weemes, The Christian Synagogue, in The Workes of Mr. John Weemes (London: Cotes, 1636);
536 henry m. knapp
useful, however, are the explicit treatments of the exegetes overall

task, including William Perkins The Arte of Prophecying and Henry
Lukins An Introduction to the Holy Scripture.13 Though not as explicit
in detailing technical aspects of interpretation, John Owens Causes,
Ways, and Means clearly outlines the steps necessary in arriving at the
Spirits intendment for a text, and seeking to understand the mind of
God.14
Precritical Hermeneutical Principles and Presuppositions
When the Puritans discuss the means of understanding Scripture, they

are describing in general the exegetical techniques, both of humanistic
and scholastic influence, which they employ in their treatment of the
text. Of course, in terms of the seventeenth-century biblical interpretive
enterprise, the distinction between the influence of scholasticism and
that of humanism is somewhat artificial, anachronistic, and far from
clear cut. Most of the techniques used by orthodox biblical commentators
which show great continuity with the medieval age have, nevertheless,
been altered to some degree in light of the changing academic environ-
ment of the intervening centuries. Similarly, humanistic exegetical
techniques frequently have roots in the scholasticism of previous centu-
ries. It is possible, nonetheless, to identify a more dominant influence
of most exegetical methodstracing a primary trajectory to either the
academic approach of the medieval scholastics, or to that of Renaissance
humanism.
These individual techniques, however, all operate within the bounds of
seventeenth-century precritical hermeneutic principles. These principles
largely insist on the coherent and consistent message of Scripture (the
analogia fidei and the analogia Scripturae) and the application of the
Bibles message to the beliefs, practices, and expectations of the church
familyall guided and directed by the Spirit of God himself.
John Weemes, Exercitations Divine (London: Cotes, 1632). Cf. Jai-Sung Shim, Biblical
Hermeneutics and Hebraism in the Early Seventeenth Century as Reflected in the Work of
John Weemse (Ph.D. diss., Calvin Theological Seminary, 1998).
13William Perkins, The Arte of Prophecying, in Workes, vol. 2; Henry Lukin, An
Introduction to the Holy Scripture (London: S.G., 1669).
14John Owen, The Causes, Ways, and Means of Understanding the Mind of God, in The
Works of John Owen, vol. 4 (Carlisle: BTT, 1991), 119.
The Spiritual State of the Interpreter

Post-Reformation theologians uniformly affirmed that the true sense of
the Bible could only be discovered by the believer who sought Gods assis-
tance throughout the exegetical process: God must earnestly be sued
vnto by prayer, that he would blesse these meanes, and that he would
open the meaning of the Scriptures to vs that are blind.15 The importance
of the Spirits work in proper interpretation was tied directly to the nature
of the text itselfas the one who inspired the Bible, the Spirit was the one
most competent to explain its intended meaning: the Scriptures are to be
understood by that Spirit that dictated them.16 The first priority in inter-
pretation, then, is fervent and earnest prayer for the assistance of the
Spirit of God revealing the mind of God, as in the whole Scripture, so in
particular books and passages of it.17
The reason for prayer prior to interpretation is for the inlightening of
their minds by the holy Ghost.18 This necessity is in no way to be under-
stood as a limitation of the Scriptureillumination is needed, not to sup-
ply some lack in the nature or character of the text, but due to the finite
state of man and, especially, his fallen condition: If our minds be not cor-
rupted or depraved, there is no need of the gospel or its grace; and if they
are, we cannot understand the mind of God therein without especial
illumination.19
The Analogy of Faith

It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of the analogy of faith
in the post-Reformation orthodoxs hermeneutical strategy. The Puritans
defined the analogy as the overall sum of Christian doctrine, those com-
mon principles, generally agreed upon amongst Christians.20 Perkins
identifies the analogy with the Apostles Creed, while Whitaker adds the
contents of the Lords Prayer, the Decalogue, and the whole Catechism.21
Regardless of its specific composition, the analogy of faith was understood
15Perkins, Arte of Prophecying, 2:737. Cf. Whitaker, Disputation, V.ix.467; James Durham,
Song of Solomon (1668; repr. Edinburgh: BTT, 1982), 25; Weemes, Christian Synagogue, 41.
16Leigh, Treatise, 180181. Cf. Whitaker, Disputation, V.viii.451; Wilson, Theologicall
Rules, 2, 125
17Owen, Causes, Ways, and Means, 4:201.
18Leigh, Treatise, 189. Cf. Wilson, Theologicall Rules, 78; Whitaker, Disputation,
V.iii.415; Durham, Song of Solomon, 25; Weemes, Exercitations, I.xv (p. 163).
20Lukin, Introduction, 33.
21Perkins, Arte of Prophecying, 2:737; Whitaker, Disputation, V.ix.472.
538 henry m. knapp
as being grounded in the constant and perpetual Sentence of Scripture

in those places that are undoubtedly plain and obvious to our Under
standing.22 Thus the exegetical influence of the analogy of faith depended
upon Scripture itself. The analogy of faith provided a clear boundary
between acceptable and non-acceptable biblical interpretations. All bibli-
cal exegesis was to be tested by this presupposition; whatever exposition
is repugnant to this analogy must be false.23
The Analogy of Scripture

According to the analogia Scripturae, the surest and truest guide for deter-
mining the meaning of a particular text is to seek its explanation within
the rest of Scripture: the supreame and absolute meane of interpretation
is the Scripture it selfe.24 Since the Bible teaches a unified truth, one pas-
sage cannot be logically contradictory to anotherfor Gods word must
alwayes bring perfect truth, it cannot fight against it selfe.25 John Wilson
defends this Scriptura sui interpes principle as the sole rule of interpreta-
tion against competing rules of rationalism which attempt to make use
of the same method in Theology that Des Cartes had done in Philosophy.26
Objecting to reason or philosophy as the only infallible rule of interpreta-
tion, Wilson insists that in expounding Scripture we must be regulated
and determined by the Scripture it self.27
In practice, the commentator, acting in accordance with the analogy of
Scripture, was to arrive at his exegetical analysis of a particular text by
comparing it with other scriptural passages; through this comparison, the
meaning of obscure texts could be deduced from parallel plainer ones:
whatsoever speaks darkly and uncertainly in any place, is to be explained
by it self in those other places, where it speaks more plainly, or, one place
must be compared and collated with another; the obscurer places with
the plainer or less obscure. For though in one place the words may be
22Wilson, Scriptures Genuine Interpreter, 169. Cf. Lukin, Introduction, 33, 36; Cudworth,
Epistle Dedication, 2:177.
23Whitaker, Disputation, V.ix.472. Cf. Leigh, Treatise, 183; Weemes, Christian Synagogue,
41; Wilson, Theologicall Rules, 32, 113114; Lukin, Introduction, 3336; Wilson, Scriptures
Genuine Interpreter, passim; Owen, Causes, Ways, and Means, 4:224.
24Perkins, Arte of Prophecying, 2:737.
25Leigh, Treatise, 192. Cf. Weemes, Christian Synagogue, 60; Whitaker, Disputation,
V.viii.459.
26Wilson, Scriptures Genuine Interpreter, 17. Wilson is reacting to Lodewijk Meijer,
Philosophia S. Scripturae Interpres (Eleutheropoli [Amsterdam], 1666).
27Wilson, Scriptures Genuine Interpreter, 169.
obscure, they will be plainer in another.28 Ignoring the analogy of

Scripture as an exegetical step is the root of almost all the errors and
heresies that are in the world.29 By its consistent application, the inter-
preter can be assured that he will not be led into error by misinterpreting
a single text.
Application to the Contemporary Church

According to seventeenth-century hermeneutical assumptions, the scrip-
tural text was intended ultimately for the continual benefit of the whole
Church; the great end of the Bible lies in its perpetual witness to modern
believers, the whole people of God, consisting of persons of all Ages,
Nations, Sexes, Complexions and Conditions, written, in such a way as
that none of all these might be quite excluded from the advantages
designed them in it.30 For the post-Reformation orthodox, the task of
biblical interpretation was not complete until the text was communicated
to the present Christian community; right exegesis opens Scripture to the
life of the church.31 Therefore, true exposition must include an hortatory
or uses section, to drawne out such doctrines as naturally arise from the
text, shewing withall how they ought to be applied for confutation, correc-
tion, instruction, consolation.32 Owen likewise notes the goal of interpre-
tation is not to learn the form of the doctrine of godliness, but to get the
power of it implanted in our souls.33
The Influence of Scholasticism in Puritan Exegesis
Within this overall precritical approach to the Bible, the influence of scho-
lasticism is readily evident in the Puritan exegetical methodology, and
reflects the depth of continuity which existed in exegetical practice
between the medieval, Reformation, and post-Reformation eras. Many of
28Wilson, Scriptures Genuine Interpreter, 169; Whitaker, Disputation, V.ix.471. Cf.

Durham, Song of Solomon, 4748; Perkins, Arte of Prophecying, 2:738; Poole, Commentary,
1:vii.
29Owen, Exposition of Hebrews, 19:188.
30Boyle, Some Considerations, 2122. Cf. Wilson, Theologicall Rules, 57; Osborne, Private
Christians; Byfield, Directions.
31Richard Muller, William Perkins and the Protestant Exegetical Tradition:
Interpretation, Style, and Method, in William Perkins, A Cloud of Faithful Witnesses:
Commentary on Hebrews 11, ed. Augustine (Cleveland: Pilgrim, 1991), 87.
32Cudworth, Epistle Dedication, 2:179. Cf. Perkins, Arte of Prophecying, 2:737, 750.
540 henry m. knapp
the techniques used to discover the true design of the biblical text, and
then to express it meaningfully, were developed and utilized in the previ-
ous centuries. These techniques often had a very scholastic flair and
history, and include a frequent use of distinctions and definitions to clar-
ify theologically ambiguous scriptural texts; the consistent reference to
previous church authorities and theologians; the application of pedagogi-
cal forms such as the locus style and the quaestio approach; and, most
importantly, the use of reason and demonstrative arguments in explain-
ing a text.
Distinctions and Definitions

One of the more prominent tools employed by the Puritans in expounding
upon a texts meaning, is the use of finely construed distinctions and defi-
nitions, particularly when confronted by an exegetically difficult pericope.
For example, in identifying the proper referent for the title in
Hebrews 1:1, Owen distinguishes between two different ways of predicat-
ing names to God, either essentially (essentialiter) where the entirety of
the Godhead or divine essence is intended, or personally (personaliter)
when the referent is to one of the persons in the Trinity in relationship to
the other persons. It is this very distinction which is denied by the
Socinians, and Owen is careful not to appear to be introducing extra-
biblical ideas simply to make a theological point. He defends his decision
to distinguish between essential and personal predication on exegetical
grounds because the opening verse speaks of God, , while later in the
sentence, the Son, , is specifically identified, evidently distinguished
from him whom he intends to denote by the name God in this place.34
Such examples abound in Puritan writings and testify to their scholastic
heritage.
Style and Teaching Methodology

It is worth noting that, in general, the structure of many Puritan com
mentaries roughly follows the scholastic (i.e., academic/pedagogical)
modelor at least has identifiable scholastic elements. According to the
characteristics outlined by Richard Muller, a work is scholastic
when it concentrates on 1) identifying the order and pattern of argument
suitable to technical academic discourse, 2) presenting an issue in the form
34Owen, Exposition of Hebrews, 19:7.

of a thesis or question, 3) ordering the thesis or question suitably for discus-

sion or debate, often identifying the state of the question, 4) noting a series
of objections to the assumed correct answer, and then 5) offering a formula-
tion of an answer or an elaboration of the thesis with due respect to all know
sources of information and to the rules of rational discourse, followed by a
full response to all objections.35
To take a representative case: while Owens Exposition of the Epistle to the
Hebrews hardly matches Mullers definition when compared with a classi-
cal piece of scholasticism such as Thomas Aquinas Summa theologiae, the
structure is still readily evident. Owens prolegomena-like Exercitations
serve to set the stage and frame the argument for his exposition, and the
point behind the state of the question is arguably similar to what Owen
pursues in the early part of his handling of each pericopefixing the text,
clarifying linguistic issues, identifying lexical concerns, and so forth. In
nearly every verse Owen introduces and dialogues with alternative under-
standings of the text, much like the formal scholastic model of objections
and answers. Finally, Owens interpretation of a passage is summarized in
a series of practical doctrines or uses. The point here is not that Owen
consciously employed a formal scholastic structure when interpreting the
book of Hebrews; rather, the similarities are more likely a function of his
life-long association with the academic community at Oxford (including
extensive scholastic training) and his desire for pedagogical clarity.36
Connection with Church Tradition

The way in which the Protestant orthodox referenced previous church
fathers and theologians further illustrates both their separation from, and
connection with, the medieval scholastic method. Like the Reformers of
the previous century, the seventeenth-century Puritans derided the medi-
eval scholastic tradition of commenting upon previous church authori-
ties work: the schoolmen are chiefly to be censured, who setting aside
the scriptures, haue vanished away in vaine speculations in their Questions
vpon Lombard the Master of the Sentences, & vpon Thomas their new
Master.37 The Reformed orthodox did, however, recognize the value of
35Richard Muller, Ad fontes argumentorum: The Sources of Reformed Theology in the

17th Century, Utrechtse Theologische Teeks 40 (1999): 4.
36For an assessment of Owens scholastic training and academic environment, see
Sebastian Rehnman, John Owen: A Reformed Scholastic at Oxford, in R&S, 181203;
Rehnman, Divine Discourse (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002).
37Cudworth, Epistle Dedication, 2:177.
542 henry m. knapp
the communio sanctorum in gaining an understanding of the mind of God:

out of a orthodoxall writings, we must get aid not onely from the latter,
but also from the more ancient Church.38 Thus the orthodox encouraged
the study of the theological work of other Christian thinkers, yet warned
against granting to them the authority and force of the Scripture itself.
Leigh, Whitaker, Weemes, and others all recognized the value of ortho-
dox, as well as Catholic and Jewish interpretersas long as they were all
read with discernment.39 In light of their cautious support of reading the
work of previous scholars, the orthodox produced lists of approved
expositors.40 Perhaps the most useful guide in this area is the published
bibliographic reference, Gisbertus Voetius, Exercitia et Bibliotheca. In this
spectacular collection, Voetius gathers a vast list of resources for the entire
academic curriculum, with the whole second half of the work dedicated to
theological materialbooks on textual studies, interpretation manuals,
lexical and grammatical resources, and commentaries on every biblical
book.41
The Role of Reason

When the orthodox wrote of the role of reason and philosophy in their
exegetical method, they stressed both its usefulness and its limitations.
Rational argumentation was to be used to draw conclusions from the bib-
lical material, but reason itself was consistently denied the status of being
the standard; rather, it functioned in a supportive role, subservient to
Scripture. Wilsons The Scriptures Genuine Interpreter Asserted is an excel-
lent example of the detail and clarity with which the orthodox sought to
stress this point in the face of opposition from Socinian rationalism and
Cartesian philosophy. Wilsons thesis is that Scripture itself is the only
rule of faith and was not subject to the dictates of reason or philosophy.
He readily acknowledges a role for reason in the exegetical process, for,
it is undeniable, that for the Interpreting of Scripture, there is a necessary

39Leigh, Treatise, 183; Whitaker, Disputation, V.ix.473; vi.434; Weemes, Christian
Synagogue, 273; Hall, Vindiciae, 89; Poole, Commentary, 1:vii; Boyle, Some Considerations,
38. See also David Sytsma, As a Dwarfe set upon a Gyants shoulders: John Weemes
(ca. 15791636) on the Place of Philosophy and Scholasticism in Reformed Theology,
in Die Philosophie der Reformierten, ed. Frank and Selderhuis (Stuttgart: Frommann-
Holzboog, 2012), 299321.
40Mayer, Commentarie upon the New Testament, 3:A3v-A3r; Leigh, Treatise, 184188.
41Gisbertus Voetius, Exercitia, Studiosi Theologiae (Utrecht: Wilhelmus Strick, 1644).
See also, Thomas Barlow, Autoschediasmata, De Studio Theologiae (Oxford: Lichfield, 1699).
use of the Faculty of Reason, and the several actings of it, but reasons role
is instrumentally subservient to Scripture.42
Consequently, orthodox theoreticians taught the importance of learn-
ing and applying reason, philosophy, and logic for the exegetical process;
all ministers should be expert in logic and philosophy, for Logicke
teacheth the Preacher to Analize and divide his Text, collect true and
proper Doctrines from it, assisteth him in confuting of Heresies, solving all
questions.43 Scripture itself employs rational argumentation, thus sanc-
tifying its use: neither is Logick a profane thing, (as some profane ones
imagine) for the Scripture itselfe useth many Logicall Arguments, from
the cause, the effect, the consequent, from mercies, judgements, and from
the Old Testament.44
In light of the importance of the faculty of reason to the orthodox, it is
not surprising that deductive reasoning and demonstrative arguments are
liberally scattered throughout Puritan exposition. Expositors rarely resort
to explicitly framed syllogisms; nevertheless, the major premise, minor
premise, conclusion form of argumentation frequently undergirds their
presentation of the material.
The Influence of Humanism in Puritan Exegesis
Most of the techniques mentioned above demonstrate the great continu-

ity of the Reformed exegetical practice with the interpretative methods
employed throughout the medieval era. However, granting again the
somewhat artificial nature of this distinction, even a cursory analysis of
the actual exegesis of the era reveals an equal indebtedness to the style
and principles of Renaissance humanism which had developed in the
previous two centuries. The extensive attention given to the knowledge
and use of the original languages is a good example of an exegetical tech-
nique which clearly flows from the Renaissance desire to return to the
sources. Other examples include the advances in philology and attention
to grammatical and syntactical issues, the study of cognate languages, the
developing interest in Judaism and other Hebraic studies, the concern
for the history of the text (giving rise to textual criticism), and the use of
42Wilson, Scriptures Genuine Interpreter, 24.

43Leigh, Treatise, 181. Cf. William Ames, The Marrow of Theology (1629; repr. Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1997), I.xxxiv.26; Lukin, Introduction, 33.
44Hall, Vindiciae, 7. Cf. Boyle, Some Considerations, 6264, 6870.
544 henry m. knapp
rhetorical and persuasive argumentation. Each of these in some minor

way is connected to an earlier scholastic tradition, but they largely grow
out of humanistic concerns and were adapted into the exegetical method-
ology of the Reformed orthodox as a result of the commentators exposure
to these new academic developments.45
The Original Languages

The most obvious effect of humanism on the practice of biblical interpre-
tation was a renewed appreciation and use of the Greek and Hebrew lan-
guages; prospective divinity students must labour for a competent
knowledge in the originall tongues the Hebrew and Greek, so that they
may see with their owne, not anothers eyes.46 Biblical study in the origi-
nal languages allows one to arrive at the precise meaning of a text: Some
knowledge, at least, of these languages is necessary for a precise under-
standing of the Scriptures, for they are to be understood by the same
means required for other human writings, i.e., skill and experience in
logic, rhetoric, grammar, and the languages.47 Translations are not bad,
since they provide access to the Word for many, yet, the emphasis and
force of the word is more clearly seen in the Originall Text, then in a
translation.48
Knowledge of Greek and Hebrew also helps expose inadequate inter-
pretations: such faults and blemishes in versions the heretics, and above
all the papists, abuse to the confirmation of their errors; which, however,
are most easily removed by an inspection of the originals and a know
ledge of the languages.49 A working knowledge of the languages serves as
a guard against misinterpretations and even heresy.50 This Renaissance-
inspired concern for the original languages is uniformly shared by
45See, Richard Muller, Biblical Interpretation in the Era of Reformation: The View of
the Middle Ages, in Biblical Interpretation in the Era of the Reformation, 1316; Muller,
PRRD, 2:5962.
46Leigh, Treatise, 181.
47Ames, Marrow, I.xxxiv.26.
48Hall, Vindiciae, 3. Whitaker, Disputation, V.ix.468, notes that error results from the
use of the Vulgate instead of the original languages.
49Whitaker, Disputation, V.ix.469470.
50John Owen, Vindiciae Evangelicae: or The Mystery of the Gospel Vindicated, in The
Works of John Owen, vol. 12 (Carlisle: BTT, 1991), 50. See also, John Owen, : or,
A Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit, in The Works of John Owen, vol. 3 (Carlisle: BTT,
1991), 4951, where he cites various examples of where reliance on the Vulgate and corrupt
texts led to erroneous interpretations.
Reformed exegetes and theologians, as is reflected in the depth and

breadth of the biblical language section in Voetius bibliography.51
Linguistic, Lexical, and Grammatical Concerns

The importance of a mastery of linguistic and grammatical issues was
universally acknowledged by Reformed authors; exegetes must Consider
the Text exactly in it selfe, the Grammer of it must be sifted, the nature
of every word by itself and the alteration it admits in diversity of construc-
tion.52 The true exegete brings no other meaning to the Scripture but
what the grammar of the text, understood in its proper context, allows:
we impose no sense upon them, we strain not any word in them, from,
beside, or beyond its native, genuine signification, its constant applica
tion in the Scripture, and common use amongst men.53 A vast bulk
of material also testifies to the Puritan awareness of different literary
forms and language in the Scripture, and the need to handle them
appropriately.54
The advances in philology brought about by the Renaissance studies
also enabled (and compelled) the exegete to be more exacting in their
lexical studies. The production of biblical lexicons in English like William
Robertsons The Second Gate and Andrew Symsons Lexicon Anglo-Graeco-
Latinum Novi Testamenti, as well as various lexicons available in Latin,
allowed the Puritan expositors to explore in depth the nuances of mean-
ing in particular words.55 Leigh provides a list of approved lexicons of the
Hebrew (including those by Buxtorf, Avenarius, Forster, Schindler) and
Greek (Stephanus, Budeus, Scapula) and concordances (Buxtorf for the
OT, Stephanus for NT Greek, Kirchers LXX Greek, Cotton/Newman in
English), as does Voetius in his bibliography.56
51See Wilson, Scriptures Genuine Interpreter, 10; Osborne, Private Christians, 19; Boyle,
Some Considerations, 79; Wilson, Theologicall Rules, 1920, 59; Weemes, Christian
Synagogue, passim; Perkins, Arte of Prophecying, 2:744749; Voetius, Exercitia, 287306.
52Leigh, Treatise, 182. Cf. Lukin, Introduction, 139171; Hall, Vindiciae, 6.
53Owen, Vindication of the Trinity, 2:394.
54Benjamin Keach, Tropologia; A Key to Open Scripture Metaphors (1682; repr. London:
William Hill Collingridge, 1856); Weemes, Christian Synagogue; Weemes, Exercitations;
Perkins, Arte of Prophecying, 2:744749; Lukin, Introduction, 45110.
55William Robertson, The Second Gate, or, The Inner Door to the Holy Tongue: Being
a Compendious Hebrew Lexicon or Dictionary (London: Robinson & Sawbridge, 1654);
Andrew Symson, Lexicon Anglo-Graeco-Latinum Novi Testamenti, or, A Complete Alpha
betical Concordance of All the Words Contained in the New Testament (London: W.Godbid,
1658).
56Leigh, Treatise, 182; Voetius, Exercitia, 287302.
546 henry m. knapp
Cognate Languages and Judaism

In addition to advances in the study of biblical languages, the Renaissance
also brought about a vibrant interest in the cognate languages (Syriac,
Chaldean, Aramaic, and others), and a deeper appreciation for non-
biblical Jewish writings. Recognizing their value in the exegetical process,
the orthodox urged the use of Paraphrases and versions among which the
Chaldee and the Septuagint for the Old Testament, the Syriacke and the
Arabicke for the New excell.57 Use of a translation or version, however, is
not without limitationsthey are reliable only in so far as they faithfully
express the divine originals: no versions are fully authentic except as
they express the sources, by which they are also to be weighed, and,
a Translation is authenticke, in so farre as it agrees with the originall.58
The divine status accorded the Scripture by the Reformed did not extend
to the versions: Weemes points to the LXX as a good example, demon-
strating its interpretive value, while denying it inspired status on the
grounds that it was intentionally altered to avoid political retribution by
the Ptolomites.59
In the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the theologians and
exegetes in England were becoming increasingly aware of the potential
benefits of an in-depth knowledge of the post-biblical Jewish tradition.
Leigh provides a list of the best Jewish commentators, the pure Masters of
the Hebrewes, including Maimonides, Kimchi, Ezra, and Jarchi. He does,
however, also issue this warning: men in a burning fever cannot dreame
of things more ridiculous, then some of the Rabbines have seriously
written and taught.60 Other Puritans echoed Leighs encouragement
and concerns, notably the excellent Hebraists John Weemes and John
Lightfoot, and Voetius bibliography included a large section on Hebrew,
Rabbinic, and other cognate language materials.61
Textual Study
The Renaissance heritage is also apparent in the post-Reformation ortho-
doxs examination of the biblical manuscripts. Notwithstanding the

58Ames, Marrow, I.xxxiv.29; Weemes, Christian Synagogue, 68.
59Weemes, Christian Synagogue, 6970. Boyle, Some Considerations, 79.
61Boyle, Some Considerations, 14, 2122, 3136; Weemes, Christian Synagogue; Weemes,
Exercitations; Voetius, Exercitia, 295307.
seventeenth-century debate about the origin of the Hebrew vowel

points,62 the Puritans were aware and receptive to a limited examination
of the history of the text as a part of the exegetical method. In preparing to
proclaim the biblical message, an examination of diverse textual variants
is necessaryand when different textual traditions are found, various
steps are to be taken to identify the correct wording. The most appropri-
ate reading is the one which is found through a collation of existing texts,
an analysis in light of the analogy of faith, the grammatical construction of
the immediate context, and the occasion and scope of the passage.63
Perkins quickly and decisively heads off the appearance that he is doubt-
ful of the Scriptures reliability: I lay downe this rule, not because I thinke
that the Hebrew and Greeke text is in all copies corrupted but that the
diuers readings, which in some places haue crept in, either by reason of
the vnskilfulnes, or negligence and ouersight of the Notaries, might be
skanned and determined.64
John Weemes is another respected Reformed scholar who acknowl-
edged the necessity and value of text work in the interpretive process.
Weemes first help in the interpretation of Old Testament passages was
to note the marginalia of the Masorah Bible. He recognized three possible
outcomes from a comparison of the margin reading and the line reading:
either (1) the Scripture itself alludes to both and therefore both are to be
a part of ones interpretation, (2) the marginalia is not contrary to the
text, in which case it can serve as a good illustration, or (3) the Masorite
reading is contrary to the text. One assesses if the line reading or the mar-
ginal reading is correct by examining the drift of the place (i.e., the scope
and occasion), the context, the analogy of Scripture, grammatical helps,
and the evidence of other versions.65 Once again, Voetius bibliography
shows that he expected text critical work to be an important part of ones
academic training.66
62For an overview and analysis of the consequences of this debate see Theodore Letis,
John Owen Versus Brian Walton: A Reformed Response to the Birth of Text Criticism, in
The Majority Text, ed. Letis (Grand Rapids: Institute for Biblical Textual Studies, 1987), 145
190; Richard Muller, The Debate over the Vowel Points and the Crisis in Orthodox
Hermeneutics, Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 10 (1980): 5372; John Bowman,
A Forgotten Controversy, Evangelical Quarterly 20 (1948): 4668.
65Weemes, Christian Synagogue, 4548.
66Voetius, Exercitia, 504523.
548 henry m. knapp
Rhetorical Argumentation
Finally, the influence of humanism on the seventeenth-century exegetical
method is evident in the manner in which exegetes of the time present
their material. One of the major advances gained through the Renaissance
was a renewed concern and appreciation for rhetorical skills and persua-
sive, as opposed to demonstrative, argumentationsee, for instance,
Voetius full bibliography on Rhetorico, Oratorio, Epistolico, and Poetico.67
Protestant authors incorporated these developments into their works
in varying amounts and in various ways. Calvins commentaries are
well known for their discursive, verse by verse analysis presented breviter
et faciliter. Yet, other commentators adopted any number of differing
stylesa combination of exposition and extended dogmatic discussion,
the three-, four- or more- fold methods addressing textual, theological,
and practical issues, paraphrases with brief or extended annotations,
purely textual and linguistic studies, or little exegetical comment with an
extensive theological treatment.68 Some Puritan commentaries, like
Owens Exposition of Hebrews, hardly classifies as brevitas et facilitas, but
neither does it intend to be a theological presentation. Like most other
exegetical work done by the post-Reformation orthodox, his is an eclectic
mixture of different expository styles. In general, many expositors fol-
lowed Perkins preaching techniquea reading of the text, exposition to
give the sense and understanding of the text as illuminated by Scripture
itself and other commentators, the gathering of doctrinal concerns,
answering objections, and the application of the meaning to the belief and
practice of the church.69
Conclusion
This examination of the exegetical methodology promoted by English

post-Reformation orthodox interpreters calls into question the validity
of the traditional critique of the biblical work produced during this
time. True, precritical assumptions about the nature and role of the
67Voetius, Exercitia, 308325.

68See Gerald Sheppard, Interpretation of the Old Testament between Reformation
and Modernity, in Perkins, A Cloud, 46; Muller, William Perkins and the Protestant
Exegetical Tradition, 7476.
69Perkins, Arte of Prophecying, 2:673. Owen explains his style in the various Prefaces
of his work, Exposition of Hebrews, 17:9, 1415, 1819, 22.
Bible continued to influence the exegetical task, but the fruit of the Renais
sance is hardly absent. In Puritan theological writings, and throughout
their examination of the scriptural text, the picture emerges of a biblical
commentator thoroughly absorbed in, and shaped by, (1) precritical exe-
getical assumptions about the biblical text, (2) scholastic techniques
which stretch back to the centuries prior to the Reformation, and (3)
methods reflecting the humanistic advances of the Reformation and post-
Reformation era.
REASON RUN AMOK? THE PROTESTANT ORTHODOX
CHARGE OF RATIONALISM AGAINST FAUSTUS SOCINUS
(WITH SPECIAL CONSIDERATION OF A SMOKING GUN
PASSAGE FROM DE JESU CHRISTO SERVATORE)
Alan W. Gomes
In their polemical writings the Protestant orthodox (PO) theologians

commonly attempt to isolate the proton pseudos, or first lie of an adver-
sarys theological system. The proton pseudos is the fundamental error
from which all of the other errors in the system are thought to radiate. As
we would expect, the PO take great care to scrutinize the proton pseudos
of the worst [heretics] of all, the Socinians. These are worse by far than
even the Papists, who at least hold to much of the foundations of religion
even as the Socinians destroy everything.1 The consistent answer from
the PO, whether Lutheran or Reformed, is that the foundational error in
Socinianism is an overweening use of reason in theology.
The question of the proton pseudos relates immediately and organically
to the issue of theological principia, or the fundamental starting point(s)
for ones theological system. As Richard A. Muller has well documented, in
their elaborate prolegomena the PO set forth Scripture alone as the princi-
pium cognoscendi or cognitive foundation for theological knowledge and
for the construction of theological system.2 In contrast, the PO charge that
the Socinians substitute reason as the source that furnishes the material
for theology. As the famed Lutheran polemicist Abraham Calovius put it,
the Socinian dogmatic proceeds from two faulty principia (de principiis),
which are corrupt reason and a perversion of Holy Scripture (quae sunt
corrupta ratio & Scripturae S. depravatio). However, as Calovius makes
clear in the ensuing discussion, these principia are not coordinate or of
equal weight, for Scripture, even defectively interpreted, takes a backseat
to reason. Indeed, reason is the ultimate Socinian norm, since it deter-
mines ahead of time what Scripture can and cannot teach.3 The Reformed
1Johannes Hoornbeek, Summa controversiarum religionis (Utrecht, 1653), VII: De

Socinianismo, 448.
2Muller, PRRD, vol. 2.
3Abraham Calovius, Socinianismus profligatus (Wittenberg, 1652), De natura religionis
Sociniana, 25. He made this same point earlier in the strongest termsnamely that the
552 alan w. gomes
characterize the matter similarly. Francis Turretin charges the Socinians

with a use of reason in excessu,4 positioning it as the sole judge and
norm of faith (ut ratio sola iudex & norma fidei hc sedeat).5 The Lutherans
and the Papists, on the other hand, err in defectu, advancing such plainly
irrational dogmas as, e.g., the ubiquity of Christs body.6 As Turretin
would have it, the Reformed, like Goldilocks porridge, achieve the ideal
via media, neither too hot nor too cold but just right where reason is
concerned.7
The PO do not hurl the charge of rationalism merely against Socinianism
in general, but they sometimes excoriate Faustus Socinus (FS) in particu-
lar. The PO aver that Faustus epigones simply follow the lead of their
master when they, too, employ this approach to theology.
In attempting to fasten this indictment against FS, the PO frequently
draw upon a small number of carefully selected texts in FSs corpus. To
their mind, these appear to establish programmatically the priority of
reason over faithsometimes, they say, in exactly those words.8 In par-
ticular, Socinus magnum opus and frontal assault against the doctrine of
Christs satisfaction, his famous De Jesu Christo Servatore (DS), contains
one of the most commonly cited texts.9 The specific passage in question
appears in DS part 3, chapter 6.10 The gist of the passage, as understood by
the PO, is that FS rejects the doctrine of satisfaction as contrary to reason.
Accordingly, he would not accept it even if the Bible taught it repeatedly
and explicitly. Thus it appears to them that they have their smoking gun:
an unequivocal passage in which FSin an unusual and perhaps even
Socinians exalt reason above faith (rationem ita elevant supra Scripturam)in his Scripta
philosophica (Lbeck, 1651), prefatio lectori, 122123.
4Turretin, Institutio, I.viii.2.
5Francis Turretin, De satisfactione Christi disputationes (Geneva, 1666), disp. 10.7.
6Turretin, Institutio, I.viii.2. See also Institutio, I.viii.24. John Owen makes this same
point exactly. See Sebastian Rehnman, Divine Discourse: The Theological Methodology of
John Owen (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), 114115.
7Rehnman, 115. For further examples of Protestant polemic in this connection see
Klaus Scholder, The Relationship between Reason, Scripture and Dogma among the
Socinians, in The Birth of Modern Critical Theology, trans. Bowden (London: SCM, 1990),
2645, esp. 2627, 153n56.
8For example, the following passages are commonly cited to this end: Andrae Dudithio
S.P. (vol. 1 of Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum quos Unitarios vocant [BFP]; Amsterdam,
1668) 1:502; Tractatus de ecclesia, 1:344; Ep.2 ad Balcerovecium, 1:425. (Note that the first two
volumes of the BFP comprise the Opera omnia of Socinus. All of my citations to the works
of Socinus are to the volume and page number in the BFP.)
9Faustus Socinus, De Jesu Christo Servatore, 2:115246.
10DS, 2:204.
reason run amok? 553
unguarded moment of candor11overtly puts himself on record as exalt-

ing reason over the Bible as the final rule of faith. (We shall hereafter refer
to this text as the SGT, or smoking gun text.)
But is this, in fact, what FS advocates in this oft-cited passage? Has
he truly shifted the entire ground for doing theology from Scripture to
reason?
The Smoking Gun Text (SGT) from DS 3.6
I have given below the entire SGT and its surrounding context, both in
Latin and in my translation. Note that different PO writers cite differing
portions and amounts of it.
Ex iis, quae hactenus dicta sunt, From what we have discussed thus
tandem apparet, nullo modo far, it is finally evident that Christ
potuisse Christum pro peccatis could not in any way make
nostris divinae iustitiae satisfacere: satisfaction for our sins to divine
non modo quia rei ipsius natura id justice. First of all, such satisfaction
nulla prorsus ratione ferre potest, is utterly impossible by the very
ita ut inter ea, quae plan nature of the case. We should
impossibilia sunt, numerari debeat: classify Christs satisfaction with
verum etiam, quia etiamsi id alioqui all other impossible occurrences.
per se fieri aliquo pacto posset, ea But even if satisfaction were
tamen, quae ad id peragendum inherently possible in general, Christ
necessari requirerentur, eiusmodi could not meet the conditions
sunt ut ne in ipso quidem Christo requisite for accomplishing this
reperiri potuerint, omnia lict in eo satisfaction, even granting that he
fuerint, quae esse potuerunt. could meet any requirement that is
Praeterqum qud nonnulla in ipso possible to meet. (This does not
reperta sunt, quae eiusmodi even take into account the fact that
satisfactionem penitus excludant. some of the characteristics that we
do find in Christ thoroughly exclude
satisfaction of this sort.)
11E.g., Heidanus says that although they try to mask it, nevertheless sometimes their
true expressions erupt from their unwilling hearts (vera voces etiam quandoque ab invitis
pectoribus erumpant). Abraham Heidanus, Diatriba de Socinianismo (Amsterdam, 1678),
II.ii.2 (in De origine erroris, 504).
554 alan w. gomes
Quare nequeo satis mirari, quid iis I cannot fathom how those who
in mentem venerit, qui nobis primi first concocted that doctrine of
istam satisfactionem fabricarunt; satisfaction for us could have ever
cum ea, quae fieri non posse apert come up with it. After all: since it
constat, divinis etiam oraculis, ea postulates occurrences that clearly
facta fuisse, in speciem disert could never happen, these are not
attestantibus, nequaquam at all to be admitted, even with the
admittantur (& idcirco sacra biblical text, on the face of it,
verba, in alium sensum, qum ipsa directly affirming them. (And for
sonant, per inusitatos etiam tropos, that reason the sacred words of
quandoque explicantur) nedum Scripture are sometimes explained
tunc pro compertis & plane veris in another sense than they sound,
affirmentur, atque aliis through unusual figures of speech.)
obtrudantur, cum ne verbum How much less, then, should these
quidem in universis sacris litteris occurrences be affirmed as certain
de ipsis extet. and plainly true and foisted upon
others, since indeed the word is not
found anywhere in holy Scripture.
Nam si vel unus saltem locus If one could adduce even a single
inveniretur, in quo satisfactionis pro passage that mentions satisfaction,
peccatis nostris Deo per Christum set forth for our sins, that Christ
exhibitae mentio fieret: excusandi offered to God, then perhaps they
fortasse viderentur. Ego quidem, could be excused for holding the
etiamsi non semel, sed saepe id in view. But as far as I am concerned,
sacris monimentis scriptum even if I found it written in the Bible
extaret: non idcirco tamen ita rem not once but often, I would still not
prorsus se habere crederem, ut vos believe the doctrine altogether as12
opinamini. Cum enim id omnino you do. Since satisfaction could in
fieri non possit, non secus atque in no way occur, I would do what
multis aliis scripturae testimoniis everyone else does in the case of
un cum caeteris omnibus facio, many other passages of Scripture:
aliqua, quae mins incommoda I would put forth an interpretation
videretur, interpretatione adhibita, that appears less disagreeable, and
eum sensum ex eiusmodi verbis thereby elicit the sense from words
elicerem qui & sibi ipsi constaret, of this sort that is both internally
& perpetuo eiusdem scripturae consistent and not opposed to the
tenori non adversaretur. entire tenor of Scripture.
12Or, in the way that.

The Orthodox Use of the SGT
Though there is some variation in how the PO handle the SGT, in general
they attempt to use it to the same effect, viz., to demonstrate that in the
Socinian theology, whatever offends reason cannot be true, despite what
Scripture may say. Some PO writers interpret Socinus to mean that if the
doctrine of satisfaction were taught in the Bible, he would just reject the
Bible simpliciter. Others conclude FS to be saying, in effect, that he would
believe in the Bible but would force it to fit with his preconceived ideas.
But in either case, it is reason and not Scripture that determines the
doctrine.
Abraham Calovius, whom we mentioned earlier, cites the SGT to show
that the Socinians first establish what can and cannot be believed by
reasons own judgment and then afterwards twist the Holy Scriptures to
fit this. The SGT, Calovius believes, shows clearly that FS is unwilling to
submit to what Scripture contains merely because it contains it, but when
it seems to him that what Scripture teaches cannot be so, he twists the text
to have some other meaning.13
Francis Turretin references the SGT in his De satisfactione Christi
disputationes (1666). Here he presents this text to showcase not only the
rationalistic but also the hypocritical character of the Socinian method.
On the one hand, the Socinians impugn the doctrine of satisfaction
because one does not find words like satisfaction or Christs merit
verbatim in the Scriptures. But on the other hand, the SGT makes it clear
that FS would not accept the doctrine even if he did find it verbatim in
holy writ, thus unmasking the sham and a fraud (fucum & fraudem) of
the Socinian method. Turretin concludes that the final goal in all of this is
to position reason as the sole judge and norm of faith (ut ratio sola iudex
& norma fidei hc sedeat).14
Herman Witsius offers the SGT in his 1677 De oeconomia foederum Dei
as a cautionary tale of what attitude one ought not to have when approach-
ing the task of theology. Surely, Witsius warns, we arrogate to ourselves
too much if we dare to assume that we should weigh the conformity of
divine right against the little measure of our reason. Witsius cites the
SGT as illustrative of a horrendous monster of abominable heresy and of
profane arrogance. In contrast, the proper attitude of modesty would
13Calovius, Socinianismus proflilgatus, 25.

14Turretin, Disputationes, disp. 10.7.
556 alan w. gomes
dare not revoke in doubt whatever one should find written even once in
the Bible. Nor ought we import into the words of Scripture another sense
more agreeable to reason, which we know to be blind and foolish and
clamoring against God.15
John Wallis, in Letter 3 of his Explication and Vindication of the
Athanasian Creed (1691), draws significantly upon the SGT in his attempt
to demonstrate the rationalistic bent of the Socinians and their perversion
of scriptural teaching. The Socinians, Wallis remarks, claim that Scripture
contains nothing that is repugnant to manifest Reason.16 But in the prac-
tical outworking of this principle, they reject as Scriptures true meaning
whatever they think not agreeable to Reason, and so they must put
such a Force upon the Words, how great soever, as to make them comply
with their sence.17 He further cites a passage from FS, which he claims
showcases his arrogance in explicitly holding all other interpreters in
utter disdain. He quotes him as saying, though all the World be against it,
he would nonetheless obstinately cling to his own idiosyncratic interpre-
tations of Scripture.18 Nor, Wallis charges, does FS limit his scorn merely
to uninspired ecclesial writers, but as the SGT shows, he extends his
censure to the biblical authors as well:
As for me (saith he) though it were to be found written in the Sacred
Moniments, not once, but many times, I would not yet for all that believe it
so to be. And a little before, in the same Chapter, (having before told us,
that he thought the thing Impossible,) he adds When it doth plainly
appear, (or when he thinks so, whatever all the World think beside) that the
thing cannot be; then, though the Divine Oracles do seem expressly to attest
it, it must not be admitted: and therefore the Sacred Words are, even by
unusual Tropes, to be interpreted to another sence than what they speak.
Which Sayings are, I think, full as much as I had charged him with.19
Finally, consider John Edwards of Cambridge, who takes aim at the
Socinian theological method in his Socinian Creed (1697). As with the
other writers we have examined, Edwards charges the Socinians with
distorting and twisting the Bible to fit their own preconceived opinions
15Herman Witsius, De oeconomia foederum Dei (1677), II.v.8.

16John Wallis, An Explication and Vindication of the Athanasian Creed, Letter 3 (London,
1691), 44.
17Wallis, An Explication, 4445. (Emphasis original.)
18Wallis, An Explication, 46, quotes Socinus from his third letter to Dudith: Unusquisque
sacrae Scripturae ex suo ipsius sensu Interpres: eaque quae sibi sic Arrident pro veris
admittere debet ac tenere, licet universus terrarum Orbis in alia omnia iret.
19Wallis, An Explication, 47.
rather than allowing the Bible to form their views. But when even dis
torting Scriptures meaning will not yield their desired result, they will
abandon it rather than they will quit their own Conceptions.20 In proof,
Edwards cites the portion of the SGT that reads, For my part, saith he,
though it were extant in the Sacred Monuments of the Scripture, and
there written not only once, but many times, I would not for all that
believe it.21 From this Edward concludes that the Socinian handling of
holy writ evinces the plain marks of irreligion and atheism.22
Evaluating the Orthodox Use of the SGT
Have the PO rightly grasped Socinus intent in this particular text? And
does their conclusion of a rationalistic methodology follow from the evi-
dence? To answer this, our approach must be twofold. First, our under-
standing of this text needs to be set within the overall context of FSs
thought. To do otherwise is to run the risk of cherry picking certain
phrases outside of and apart from the overall shape of his thought. Then,
having fairly set forth his views on such matters as the role of reason,
Scripture, and traditional exegetical practice in theology, a close reading
of this text with careful attention to some of its key features will yield fruit.
Faustus Socinus and the Question of Rationalism23

Considering the FS corpus as a whole, apart from this particular text, is FS
properly classified as a rationalist? For if the shape of FSs thought is
non- or even anti-rationalist, then it should give one pause before taking
the SGT in a rationalistic sense, particularly if other interpretations of it
suggest themselves that might be more congenial to the overall tenor of
his thought.
At the outset it is important to clarify that in speaking of rationalism
and reason we do not have in view merely the rational exercise of the
mind which is the basic work of the understanding that belongs to all
intellectual disciplines, including theology.24 Rather, the issue here is
20John Edwards, The Socinian Creed (London, 1697), 21.

21Edwards, Socinian Creed, 2122, quoting the SGT (translation his).
22Edwards, Socinian Creed, 22.
23For this section on FS and the question of rationalism I have adapted some material
from my earlier article, Some Observations on the Theological Method of Faustus Socinus
(15391604), WTJ 70 (2008): 4971.
558 alan w. gomes
whether reason furnishes the material for dogmatics, not whether this
data must be rationally apprehended or whether the rational faculty must
be involved in drawing out the implications of and interconnections
between revealed data.
As I have noted elsewhere,25 it certainly is true that Socinus believed
the doctrines of the Christian faith consonant with recta ratio. But this
would hardly make Socinus a rationalist. For him, as for the Christian
tradition generally, faith and reason cohere and do not contradict. Now, it
is certainly true that Socinus regarded the doctrines of his opponents to be
unreasonable at many points and he leveled logical proofs against them.
The orthodox, for their part, were more than happy to return the favor.
But neither Socinus nor the orthodox ever pitted reason against Scripture;
they both believed that a right hermeneutic would always produce an
interpretation amenable with recta ratio, and certainly not one that would
contradict it.26
It is also significant that one finds explicit denials by FS of the compe-
tency of reason in things divine. Consider his De auctoritate sacrae
scripturae of 1570, his famous apologetic treatise on the authenticity and
reliability of the Bible. FS raises the question of the possibility of using
reasons (rationes) to overturn some doctrine of the New Testament. This
Socinus rejects as an utter impossibility, given the fallibility of reason
in matters of faith. Socinus states, Moreover, concerning [the use of]
reasons [for overthrowing a New Testament doctrine]: This way is much
too fallible in a matter which depends upon Divine revelation, such as the
Christian faith.27
In terms of actual practice, we are struck by the fact that he almost
always supports his conclusions by exegesis first with little room given to
arguments derived from reason. Consider, for instance, the summary of
his teaching at a pastors conference held at Rakow in 1601, just three years
before his death. This colloquium is significant because it evinces Socinus
mature thought, speaking en famille, as it were, to his most faithful disci-
ples at the close of his life. In this colloquium Socinus canvasses a wide
swath of doctrinal truth, both theoretical and practical. What is striking
here is the almost complete lack of arguments offered from reason,
whether in support of the doctrines he affirms or against those he decries.
Instead, one is confronted with chapter and verse at almost every turn.
25Gomes, Theological Method of Socinus, 5661.

26So Turretin (Institutio, I.viii.19).
27Socinus, De auctoritate sacrae scripturae, 1:267.
Consequently, FSs own claims that he is committed to sola scriptura do

not ring hollow.28
FS and the Analogia Fidei or Analogia Scripturae

We must also consider the use that FS makes of the analogia fidei or ana-
logia Scripturae. Socinus clearly enunciates his understanding of this prin-
ciple and heartily endorses its application. In his commentary on the first
chapter of John, he states, Nearly all theologians everywhere testify that
no better or more secure method of interpretation can be found than that
to expound Scripture by Scripture.29 FS invokes this principle repeatedly.
To cite but a few such cases, FS argues for Christs likeness to us in all
thingsnot only from the specific testimony of Heb. 4:5, but from the
entire analogy of Holy Scripture (ex universa Scripturae Sacrae analo-
gia).30 He questions the necessity of continuing to practice water baptism
in the church age, suggesting that it is the clear profession of Christ that
agrees with the analogy of faith (fideique analogia consentiat) and not
some particular expression of it in the form of an external rite, which may
not be relevant in the present era.31 And he warmly rejects chiliasm as an
error pernicious and contrary to the analogy of our faith (analogiaeque
fidei nostrae repugnantem, & perniciosam).32
As noted in the citation from his John commentary above, FS believes
that in adhering to and judiciously applying the principle of the analogia
Scripturae, he is doing nothing novel but is situating himself firmly in
classic exegetical practice. This is important in light of the charge leveled
by some of his opponents who, as noted earlier, have suggested that
FS sees himself as cutting his own swath, methodologically untethered
from and even hostile to the sensibilities and traditional practices of other
exegetes.
The unorthodoxy of the conclusions that he reaches through his appli-
cation of the analogy of Scripture is an altogether different question from
28Note, for instance, FSs complaint that the cause of so many dissentions is that most
do not truly hold to the Word of God alone (soli Dei verbo plaerique revera non adhaerent)
and all their Christian doctrine is not derived from the divine oracles alone (ab illis
[i.e., Scripture] solis universa Christiana doctrina non petitur). (Ad Matthaeum Radecium
Epistola III, 1:381).
29Socinus, Explicationis primae partis primi capitis Iohannis, 1:78.
30Socinus, Christianae religionis brevissima institutio, 1:657.
31Socinus, De baptismo aquae disputatio, 1:720, 722.
32Socinus, Contra chiliastas, de regno Christi terreno per annos mille, 2:457. See also
2:460.
560 alan w. gomes
whether any such deviations arise from a methodologically alien approach

to the text and/or from the substitution of a new principiumbe that
new principium reason or anything else. Instead, such differences may be
attributable to FSs particular execution of the method rather than to an
altered theological method per se. Even if one were to grant that FSs inter-
pretations of certain texts are implausible, erroneous, strained, heretical,
etc.and at not a few points such a conclusion appears inescapableit
would not necessarily follow from this that they are so because of a use of
reason in excessu. Instead, one could just as well conclude that the devia-
tions arise from a misapplication of the analogy of faith.
Now, if FS has a different sense of the Christian faiths center of gravity,
it would occasion little wonder when, in his attempts to line up certain
texts in analogy to it, he derives conclusions at variance with his orthodox
opponents. But if this different theological center does not emerge
from reason but is itself derived from Scriptureas FS understands it, of
coursethen his deviations would flow not from a use of reason in excessu
but from a different sense of Scriptures overall center. Although space
does not allow for a detailed consideration of the essence of Christianity
as FS conceives it, it is easy enough to summarize it succinctly.33 According
to Socinus, The Christian religion is the heavenly doctrine, teaching the
true way of attaining eternal life. Moreover this way is nothing other than
to obey God, according to those things which he commands us through
our Lord Jesus Christ (Heb. 5:9).34 The precepts (praecepta) and promises
(promissa) of the Christian religion form its core. The promises pertain to
immortal life and the precepts outline the way of attaining it. These two
elements are, as he puts it, beyond any doubt the summa of the Christian
religion, about which, whatever their other disagreements, all who
profess that religion are seen to agree.35
From where, in turn, does this conception of the Christian faith appear?
I see no evidence that reason furnishes this somewhat moralistic center.
Rather, it appears to me that Socinus begins with the Bible and finds in it
the teaching that those who obey the commandments of Christ will attain
immortal life. About this, Socinus argues, all Christians agree and always
have.36 And in the most general sense he is certainly correct, mutatis
33I have argued this at length in The Theological Method of Faustus Socinus,
6263.
34Summa Religionis Christianae, 1:281.
35De auctoritate, 1:272; emphasis original.
36De auctoritate, 1:272.
mutandis in order to comport with the variegated Christian perspectives

on the relationship between faith and works.
Some Specific Observations on the SGT
I believe that when we give due weight to certain features of the SGT, it
becomes apparent that FS is not putting reason above faith but is simply
endorsing the use of and enunciating his understanding of the analogy of
Scripture.
FS begins the SGT by observing that he has already established the
impossibility of satisfaction. In the earlier chapters of part 3 he has argued
against the possibility of satisfaction on logical, theological, moral, and
exegetical grounds.37 In chapter 5, the section immediately preceding the
SGT, he has focused specifically on the question of whether Christ could
gain literal merit for us through his obedience. Here, too, he concludes
this to be impossible, involving inherent (logical) contradictions, moral
incongruities, and especially exegetical problems. For good measure,
he even employs (or hijacks, as some might say) an argument from Calvin
in which Calvin appears to acknowledge that Christ could not gain
true and proper merit for us, as the orthodox theory requires.38 So, to this
point in part 3, and particularly in the immediately preceding context of
chapter 5, FS has not attempted to establish his case through anything
that one could reasonably characterize as rationalisticthough he does
not ignore altogether what he sees as the inherent logical problems with
the doctrine.
Now, granting (from his point of view) that the orthodox doctrine of
satisfaction entails logical, theological, moral, and exegetical impossibili-
ties, Socinus marvels that anyone would advocate that theory of satisfac-
tion (istam satisfactionem). For one thing, FS says that one finds neither
the word satisfaction anywhere in holy Scripture (ne verbum quidem in
universis sacris litteris) nor the thing itself, i.e., satisfaction, set forth for
our sins, that Christ offered to God (in quo satisfactionis pro peccatis
nostris Deo per Christum exhibitae mentio fieret). But even if one were to
find repeated references in the Bible to satisfaction, these should not be
37See my De Jesu Christo Servatore: Faustus Socinus on the Satisfaction of Christ, WTJ
55 (1993): 20931.
38See my Faustus Socinus and John Calvin on the Merits of Christ, RRR 12.23 (2010):
189205.
562 alan w. gomes
taken at face value. Were he to encounter such apparent (in speciem)

references to it, he would follow the same procedure that any reputable
exegete would do when faced with obviously impossible phenomena: he,
like they, would not admit such things (nequaquam admittantur). Rather
than interpret the words literally or at face value (how they sound, qum
ipsa sonant), he would instead explain them figuratively (per tropos),
even if the proposed rendering might produce an uncommon or unusual
(inusitatos) way of expressing the matter. In so doing, he would produce
an interpretation that is at once internally consistent and agreeable to the
entire tenor of Scripture (sibi ipsi constaret, & perpetuo eiusdem scripturae
tenori non adversaretur). This approach should hardly occasion surprise,
granting that FS would merely be doing what all exegetes do in the case of
many other passages of Scripture (in multis aliis scripturae testimoniis un
cum caeteris omnibus facio).39 And, we should note, FS himself has already
done exactly this in his insistence that the references to redemption,
which one does find repeatedly throughout holy writ, should and must be
understood simply as a metaphor for our liberation from sin.40
Now, if FS were to find satisfaction for our sins mentioned in Scripture,
he makes it plain that he would not deny the true teaching of Scripture.
Here we must pay close attention to his wording, where he states, Even if
I found it written in the Bible not once but often, I would still not alto-
gether believe the doctrine as you do (etiamsi non semel, sed saepe id in
sacris monimentis scriptum extaret: non idcirco tamen ita rem prorsus se
habere crederem, ut vos opinamini).41 In this phrase of the SGT one must
not pass over too quickly the important qualifiers altogether (prorsus)
and as (ut)much less omit them completely, as John Edwards does in
his severely truncated citation of the SGT. Prorsus carries the sense of
exactly, just, precisely, absolutely.42 Here Socinus does not intend to say
that he would deny satisfaction categoricallyas if he had used the
adverb nequaquambut rather that he would believe it, just not exactly
39That FS has in mind the procedure followed by all exegetes is consistent with the
verbs admittantur and explicantur. Impossible meanings are not admitted, i.e., by
sound exegetes, and the words are explained by these same exegetes through figures of
speech.
40Space does not permit a discussion of why FS thinks literal redemption an impossi-
bility. But see Gomes, Faustus Socinus on the Satisfaction of Christ, 220222. To cite but
one of many references one could produce in FS that makes this point, see DS, 2:143, in
which he unpacks the redemption metaphor.
41Emphasis added.
42Lewis and Short, A Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984), s.v. prorsus.
or precisely in the same way as his opponents. Then, the Latin word ut,
rendered by as in English, has in this instance a similar semantic range to
its English translation, together with the same attendant ambiguities.
Considered in isolation, one could theoretically understand FS to be say-
ing, in effect, You believe in satisfaction but I do not; therefore I would
not do as you do by believing in such a thing. But it is far more probable,
given the context both of the sentence and of the argument in which it is
set, to take ut as an adverb of manner, equal in force to quomodo or eo
modo quo (in the way that). On those terms, his meaning would be,
You believe in satisfaction. I do as well, but not in the same way that
you believe it. This is further reinforced by his professed incredulity at
those who first concocted that (istam) [doctrine of] satisfaction.43 The
pronoun iste can carry a sense similar to tantus or talis, i.e., such, of such
a kind. It also can be employed with contemptuous forcehere some-
thing along the lines of, that satisfaction of yours. I believe both aspects
of iste apply here.
In what way might FS allow for a satisfaction of sorts? He hints at this
briefly in DS 3.2, in which he contrasts true or literal satisfaction (vera
satisfactione) with what God requires in order to grant pardon for sin:
To prove my case clearly, it is worth pointing out that God was accustomed
to forgive transgressors their sins graciously, apart from any literal satisfac-
tion, even before Christ came to provide the salvation that I am discussing.
I said literal satisfaction because God no doubt has always demanded
something from people whom he has forgiven. Perhaps we could even
go so far as to say that this something takes the place of satisfaction. This
is especially so because it is certain that this is partly the way that the
person who has been forgiven of his sins has fully satisfied the divine will.
God has always demanded purity and innocence of life from those he
has forgiven. When a person makes mistakes, God demands that this
purity already typify his life (even though at that particular moment the
person falls short) or, if purity is not already characteristic of his life, that it
become so.44
Again, as FS makes clear in the SGT, he does not believe that the Bible
anywhere makes reference to satisfaction for our sins, and hence he need
not expend the effort to come up with a version of the doctrine of satisfac-
tion that is consonant with the analogy of Scripture. However if, for the
sake of argument, he were to find references to it in Scripture, he has
43Lewis and Short, Dictionary, s.v. iste.

44Socinus, DS 3.2 in BFP, 2:188.
564 alan w. gomes
stated forthrightly the procedure he would follow, namely, to affirm it but

in such a way that is not disagreeable (quae mins incommoda) to the
entire tenor of Scripture (perpetuo eiusdem scripturae tenori).
Concluding Thoughts
From what we have seen, the PO have not been entirely accurate in
their interpretation of FSs theological method in general and in their
handling of the SGT in particular. One possible reason for this may be
an unwarranted assumption that widely divergent theological conclu-
sions demonstrate, ipso facto, a widely divergent theological method.
Abraham Heidanus states this as axiomatic in his anti-Socinian De origine
erroris of 1678:
So great an alteration of doctrine in the Christian religion, in which its
entire shape is turned upside down, could not be brought about without a
substructure of new principia. For because a new way of salvation, which
thus far has escaped the notice of mortals, is shown, it was also necessary
to prescribe a new way and method of investigating it.45
In my view, Heidanus is incorrect, and I believe later Unitarian writers,
such as Joshua Toulmin and Stephen Nye, had little difficulty in repelling
this charge against Socinus.46 Toulmin correctly observes that Socinus
statements on how to interpret Scripture, even in the SGT, could hardly
be said more truly or more like a Protestant. Even if one were to grant
that FS fell into material errors, even errors fatal to salvation, one could
not fault him for his approach, and so in that case he would be entitled to
our generous pity as opposed to the anathemas and hatred he would
deserve had his errors arisen from truly perverse method of doing
theology.47
45Heidanus, De origine erroris 503504 (de Socinianismo, II.ii.1). Wilbur concurs,

remarking that in this assessment Heidanus discerned that the root of the matter
lay in giving human reason precedence over Scripture in any disputed question of
religious belief. Earl Morse Wilbur, A History of Unitarianism, 2 vols. (Boston: Beacon,
1945), 1:558.
46Joshua Toulmin, Memoirs of the Life, Character, and Sentiments, and Writings of
Faustus Socinus (London: Brown, 1777), 154172; Stephen Nye, Observations on the Four
Letters of Dr. John Wallis in Unitarian Tracts (London: 1691), 1220.
47Toulmin, 171. Stephen Nye likewise defends FS against the charge of rationalism,
offering a bevy of citations from FS and concluding, I know not what could be said more
truly, or more like a Protestant (Nye, 14).
In short, I see little to distinguish the method of FS as such from that

of his PO contemporaries. In my view, we must abandon the notion that
FS is a rationalist,48 or a subconscious rationalist,49 or a forerunner of
modern rationalism,50 or a hybrid of rationalism and supernaturalism51
so commonplace in the literature on Socinusif we are to form a proper
estimate of the great heresiarch and his work.
48So, Maurice A. Cauney, Socinians, in An Encyclopedia of Religions (New York:

Dutton, 1921), 330; Martin I. Klauber and Glenn S. Sunshine, Jean-Alphonse Turrettini on
Biblical Accommodation: Calvinist or Socinian? CTJ 25 (1990): 13; Bengt Hgglund, History
of Theology, trans. Lund (St. Louis: Concordia, 1968), 322.
49E.g., Antal Pirnt, Introduction to De falsa et vera unius Dei patris, filii et spiritus
sancti cognitione libri duo, Bibliotheca Unitariorum 2 (Utrecht: Foundation Bibliotheca
Unitariorum, 1988), xlixlii.
50E.g., Johann Herzog, Socinus (Faustus) and the Socinians, in A Religious Encyclopedia
or Dictionary of Biblical, Historical, Doctrinal, and Practical Theology, ed. Schaff and Herzog,
4 vols. (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1891), 4:2210; Wilbur, 1:264.
51Herbert J. McLachlan, Socinianism in Seventeenth-Century England (Oxford: OUP,
1951), 12; Herzog, Socinus, 4:2210.
JOHANNES COCCEIUS AS FEDERAL POLEMICIST: THE USEFULNESS
OF THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE TESTAMENTS
Brian J. Lee
Introduction
Great scholars are generative; they challenge orthodoxies not only for
the purpose of establishing their own, but in order to liberate others to see
the truth more accurately and with new eyes. The scores of essays in
this volume manifest the generative power of Richard A. Mullers work.
In redefining the relationship between church and school in early-modern
Protestantism, Muller has generated both a scholarly reappraisal and a
churchly retrieval of an entire era of profound theological reflection. As a
pastor and scholar, I can say with confidence that historian and layman
alike owe him a debt of gratitude.
In Johannes Cocceius (16031669), we find a generative scholar in
his own right, and an ideal candidate for the Muller Method, whereby
figures ripe for reappraisal are liberated from the simplistic categorization
of prior generations of scholars, and allowed to once again speak for
themselves and in their own context.1 Cocceius is a relatively obscure
theologian neatly categorized by accepted historiography as biblical
and covenantaland therefore anti-scholasticin his method.2 Yet
this anti-scholastic wrote not one, but two Summae, and his career
was overwhelmingly concerned, as we shall see, with polemics. Even here,
however, Muller puts us on guard against our ages anti-polemical bias.
Cocceius deepest concern was that his ideological opponentsJews,
Papists, and Sociniansmight come to know the full grace of God
revealed in Jesus Christ. In other words, his labors in the schools were
driven by a deep commitment to the churchs evangelistic calling.
1Muller, PRRD, 4:387391. Mullers method involves inquiry into continuities and dis-
continuities within a range of similar theological questions, which usually transcend or
overlap humanist-scholastic-biblical antinomies propounded by earlier scholars.
2The scholarship of Charles S. McCoy is indicative of these older dichotomies, The
Covenant Theology of Johannes Cocceius (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1956); cf. Albertus
van der Flier, Specimen historico-theologicum de Johanne Coccejo, anti-scholastico (Utrecht:
Kemink et Filius, 1859).
568 brian j. lee
Much contemporary scholarship on Johannes Cocceius has puzzled

over his teaching of a five-fold abrogation of the covenant of works, by the
covenant of grace, a prominent structural feature of his best known work,
the Summa doctrinae de foedere et testamento dei. However, the abroga-
tions are not prominent in the rest of his work, and have been overempha-
sized as a result of over-reliance on this single work. Indeed, the most
hotly contested aspects of the Cocceian system during his own lifetime
were all related to the much more pedestrian question of the nature of the
distinction between the Old and New Testaments. This question had been
central since the early days of the Reformation, when the widespread
abandonment of a unified Latin text and a resurgent Gnostic impulse had
raised numerous issues of discontinuity to the fore. This, to use Cocceius
terminology, was a question of the testamentary distinction between the
ante- and post-Christum dispensations.
The three major debates between Cocceius and the followers of Gisbert
Voetius illustrate this. They concerned the nature of the Christian Sabbath,
the distinction between and as diverse modes of justifica-
tion, and whether the nature of Christs sponsorship was closer to a fide-
jussio or expromissio.3 Each of these debates focused on the relation
between the Old and New Testaments, but one in particular, that over
/ , suggests to us Cocceius motivation for his particular
salvation-historical approachnamely, its polemical utility.4
It is my aim in this essay to demonstrate that Cocceius developed a
complex, even scholastic, federal system for the most practical of churchly
purposesthe conversion of Jews and other errant faithsby reexamin-
ing his distinction between / with a particular eye to its
usefulness for polemics. First, we will examine the evidence for Cocceius
as a polemical theologian from the Dedication of his Hebrews commen-
tary. Then we will look at his motivation for the distinction in Moreh
3The best survey of Cocceius career is found in W.J. van Asselt, Johannes Coccejus:
Portret van een zeventiende-eeuws theoloog op oude en nieuwe wegen (Heerenveen:
J.J. Groen en Zoon, 1997), 3570. Also consult van Asselt, Voetius en Coccejus over de
rechtvaardiging, in De Onbekende Voetius, ed. Johannes van Oort (Kampen: Kok, 1989):
3247; and van Asselt, Christus Sponsor: een bijdrage tot de geschiedenis van het
coccejanisme, Kerk en Theologie 53.2 (2002): 108124.
4This is indicated most explicitly in the full title of Cocceius work defending the
distinction: Moreh Nebochim. Utilitas Distinctionis duorum vocabulorum scripturae,
et . Demonstratio utilitas distinguendae & . Ad illus-
trationem Doctrinae de Justificatione & reducendos ab errore Judaeos, socinianos, Pontificios
[henceforth, MN] (1666), in Opera omnia, 3rd ed., 10 vols. (Amsterdam: Janssonius-
Waesberge et al., 1701), 9:121134.
johannes cocceius as federal polemicist 569
nebochim (1666). Further evidence for the polemical orientation of the

entire Cocceian corpus, and how it relates to his view of the testaments,
will be drawn from his commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews.
Johannes Cocceius as Polemical Theologian
We are accustomed to thinking of Cocceius as a biblical or federal

theologian, descriptors which we presume to be somewhat inconsistent
with polemical theology. Yet Cocceius early writings were exegetical writ-
ings oriented over and against the errors of Grotius, the Socinians, and
Roman Catholics.5 Cocceius also shared, along with most other Christian
Hebraists, a strong hope and concern for the conversion of the Jews. This
was clearly stated in his inaugural lecture at Leiden in 1650, repeatedly
indicated in his writings, and also reflected in a commission from the
Leiden curators to write against the Jews.6 When we consider also that
his / distinction was defended on the grounds of its polemi-
cal usefulness very late in his career, we are given an impression that
Cocceius was concerned in a consistent and enduring manner with the
defense of the faith against contemporary opponents.
In this connection we must mention Cocceius Hebrews commentary
of 1659, as a defense and illustration of his exegetical method of doing
polemics.7 A compilation of disputations on Hebrews held from 16551659,
this work is Cocceius first published commentary on a complete New
Testament book. In a letter to Johannes Buxtorf Jr., Cocceius indicates
5These works often took the form of exegetical monographs or occasional pieces, and
therefore their titles obscure their polemical function. Van Asselt provides context:
Johannes Coccejus, 2347. Polemical works include the following, against Grotius: Illustrium
locorum de anti-christo agentium repetitio (Franeker, 1641); Paraphrasis nova principii epis-
tolae ad Ephesios usque ad vers. XV. Cap. I (Leeuwarden, 1642). Against the Socinians:
Consideratio principii evangelii S. Johannis: cap. I. ad vers. 19. Cum examine
Fausti Socini, Georgii Enjedini, Valentini Smalcii, Jonae Schlichtingii (1654), Examen apolo-
giae equitis polonis (1656). Against Roman Catholics: Sanctae Scripturae potentia (Leiden,
1655); Admonitio de principio Ecclesiae Reformatae (Leiden, 1657); Disquisitio de Ecclesia et
Babylone (Leiden, 1658).
6The lecture is entitled De causis incredulitatis Judaeorum, and is found among the ora-
tiones in the Opera, 8:1221. The commission to write against the Jews is indicated in the
disbursement of funds in the Resoluties van Curatoren, 1650, in Molhuysen, Bronnen, 3:43
(1 Dec. 1650); see also the approval of the request for a raise in salary in 1651, Bronnen 3:54
(9 Feb. 1651).
7Johannes Cocceius, Epistolae ad Hebraeos explicatio et eius veritatis demonstratio
(Leiden, 1659), in Opera, vol. 6. Henceforth cited AdHeb by chapter and section numbers,
except in the Dedication, where these are lacking.
570 brian j. lee
that this commentary was in fulfillment of a curatorial commission, and

would be most helpful in opposing Jews, Socinians, and Papiststhe
same opponents identified in Moreh nebochim.8 While he does not specify
which commission he had in view, we know that at the time he began
the Hebrews disputations the curators of Leiden had charged him with
writing against both Jews and Socinians on various occasions.9 Upon cur-
sory examination, one finds that over two-thirds of references in the work
are to Socinian opponents, and the vast majority of these are extensive
quotations and refutations of Jonas Schlichtingius.10 We may conclude
that this first New Testament commentary published by Cocceius was
conceived as a polemical work, albeit of a very different form than that
which the genre typically took, and from those published in the same
period by the great Leiden polemicist, Johannes Hoornbeek.11
The dedication of this Hebrews commentary, addressed to his good
friend and Leiden colleague Abraham Heidanus, yields further method-
ological details regarding the apologetic and polemic orientation of the
work. Here Cocceius notes the desire he shares with Heidanus for the con-
version of the Jews. He stresses their agreement about the necessary
method by which the Jews are to be converted and the importance of the
Epistle to the Hebrews to that method, pointedly noting that he doesnt
consider anyone fit for this struggle who is not instructed in these apos-
tolic weapons. Cocceius believes that the Jews will be aroused to jealousy
by what Christians have attained and finally provoked to emulate them.
He connects this theme explicitly with the present work on Hebrews,
because it preeminently holds forth Christ alone as perfection and con-
summation, demonstrating the fulfillment of Old Testament shadows
with New Testament realities.12
8Cocceius to Buxtorf, 10 August 1656, Epist. 41 in Opera, 8:93a: Which work also the
learned men charged to me, and I think it has great moment with regard to controversies
with Jews, Socinians, and Papists.
9For the commission to write against the Jews, see footnote 5, above. Van Asselt notes
that Cocceius wrote Examen apologiae equitis polonis, responding to the Socinian Apologia
equitis poloni, at the request of the Leiden Curators, see Johannes Coccejus, 43.
10References to both Socinians in general and individuals such as Socinus, Enjedinus,
Smalcius, and Schlichtingius make up over half of all references. If one includes Hugo
Grotius, whom Cocceius often mentions in the same breath with the Socinians as their
follower or disciple, the number of occurrences to this group is two-thirds of the
total.
11See J.W. Hofmeyr, Johannes Hoornbeek as polemikus (Kampen: Kok, 1975).
12AdHeb, *3v. The Dedicatio in the 1659 edition is paginated 2r-**v, with some pages
lacking notation altogether; reference will be made to the notional page number whether
it appears in print or not.
The argument with Jewish opponents must therefore emphasize at the

same time both discontinuity, i.e., the exceeding benefits of the consum-
mation of Gods promises in Christ, and continuity, Christ is the fulfillment
of nothing other than the promises made to the Jews in the Old Testament.
The chief work of the Christian apologist is therefore to demonstrate how
the prophets spoke about all the elements of the Christian faith, and how
it agrees with Christian doctrine. Here Cocceius sets forth a lengthy laun-
dry list of dogmatic topics which the prophets spoke about, beginning
with de Deo and ending with de resurrectione mortuorum.13 Cocceius
seems to be suggesting the superiority of his own, exegetical method of
apologetics, which expounded loci contextually vis--vis salvation history.
Though not made explicit, a contrast with the approach of Hoornbeek is
implied, whose polemical works, though not lacking exegetical argumen-
tation, were organized systematically via the dogmatic loci.14 Cocceius
sees his own method clearly supported in Pauls comment to the
Corinthians, For we do not write to you anything you cannot read (2 Cor.
1:13), i.e., in the Old Testament.
In other words, the relation between the testaments was crucial to an
apologetic to the Jews, and the central apologetic task was the demonstra-
tion of discontinuity in the midst of continuity in order to show the sur-
passing excellence of the New Testament. The key question was how do
the two testaments agree with one another? We must be wary of speaking
too negatively about the Old Testament, and we must repudiate our
prejudices and ratiocinations, which the Apostle calls carnal wisdom
apparently referring to Sociniansin order to successfully take up this
task.15
In this connection Cocceius mentions Hoornbeeks recent labors, his
many anti-Socinian works which predated his own. The explicit mention
of Hoornbeek in the Dedication places the Hebrews commentary squarely
in the context of the Leiden Sabbath debates which had been raging
for the previous four years. Hoornbeek had been the leading opponent
of Cocceius and Heidanus, and Cocceius appears to be ridiculing the
13AdHeb, *4r-*4v.
14In the case of the polemic against Socinianism, it has been noted that one of the
contributions of Cocceius and his followers was a particularly exegetical approach to the
debate focusing on the Christology and typology of the Old Testament. See W.J. Khler, Het
Socinianisme in Nederland (Leeuwarden: De Tille BV, 1980), 224227. Johannes Hoornbeeks
polemical writings include Disputationes theologicae anti-Socinianae de Christo (Leiden,
1656), and the magisterial Summa controversiarum religionis cum infidelibus, haereticis,
schismaticis, 2nd ed. (Utrecht, 1658), cf. Hofmeyr.
15AdHeb, *4v.
572 brian j. lee
inefficiency of his polemical laborsor at best faintly praising them

when he says he sweated greatly, if studiously and brilliantly, in their
production.16
More importantly, this sideways glance at Hoornbeek is immediately
followed by a thorough recitation of his own efforts in the same labor,
which he describes as showing the agreement of the Old and New
Testaments. Here he provides a bibliography of sorts, listing three major
works along with their dates of publication, Ultima Moses of 1650, a
commentary on the twelve minor prophets of 1652, and his forthcoming
commentary on the Psalms (1660).17 The Hebrews commentary is added
to this list of works which take up this central apologetic task. Cocceius
concludes the dedication by saying that he didnt take up this work on the
Hebrews from any sort of deception or ill will, so as to attempt to remove
the labors of great men from the hands of the studious.18 Clearly, the
Hebrews disputations had been perceived as being in competition with
the work of others, and the context leaves little doubt that Hoornbeek is
the great man in view. While Cocceius denies that he had been moti-
vated by any ill will in this regard, he goes to great lengths to demonstrate
the distinctiveness, and superiority, of his own approach.
To conclude, in the Dedication to his Hebrews commentary, Cocceius
clearly identifies the conversion of the Jews as a central concern of his
published works up to 1659. Furthermore, his only nod to the currently
raging Sabbath debates appears to be the suggestion that his opponents
have failed to grasp the divinely appointed method by which this conver-
sion will take placenamely, the demonstration of a particular kind of
agreement between the Old Testament and New. Theological loci had to
be presented in a manner which illustrated the contrastive relation
between redemption before and after Christ, or else Jews would not be
compelled to faith.
Socinians were not unrelated to this undertaking, as they overstated
this contrast and undermined the Gospel altogether. It is not unimportant
that during the Sabbath debate Cocceius was labeled a Socinian by
opponentsa charge that would continue to haunt his peculiar under-
standing of the Old and New Testaments throughout his career.19 Given
16AdHeb, **r.
17AdHeb, **r.
18AdHeb, **r-**v.
19Van Asselt cites a letter in which Cocceius complained about the attack, Johannes
Coccejus, 55, citing Epist. 63 (4 July 1659, Cocceius to Martinus), in Opera, 8:101b.
this criticism, it is not surprising that the Hebrews commentary, purport-

edly an apologetic work to convert the Jews, is primarily a rearguard
action, clarifying Cocceius orthodoxy for the sake of his Reformed breth-
ren by distancing his understanding of the two testaments from that of the
Socinians.
The Guide to the Perplexed: The Polemical Usefulness

of Cocceius View of the Testaments
Cocceius dedication to his Hebrews commentary suggests polemical

method as an underlying cause of the Leiden Sabbath debates. Hoornbeek
and other opponents did not share the Cocceian view of the two testa-
ments, which Cocceius believed held unique promise for Jewish conver-
sion, and their portrayal of him as a Socinian demonstrated that they did
not even fully understand it. Likewise, the next major debate with the
Voetians over the Cocceian distinction between and
revolved around the salvation historical relation between the Old and
New Testaments.20 Demonstrating once again a sharp wit, Cocceius titled
his defense Moreh nebochimGuide to the Perplexedtransliterating
the famous title used by Maimonides in his address to the Torahs philo-
sophical despisers.21 In this work Cocceius explicitly seeks to demonstrate
that the primary value of distinguishing between and is
polemical, that is, the illustration of the doctrine of justification and the
leading back from error Jews, Socinians, and Papists.22 In this section we
will take a closer look at Moreh nebochim and how Cocceius articulated
his view of the testaments therein.
Before turning to this plan, a brief word is in order regarding the
Cocceian understanding of and . Cocceius held that the
Scriptures spoke distinctly and intentionally with these two New
Testament words to illustrate a difference in the mode of justification
before and after the coming of Christ. , translated transmissio or
praetermissio, or passing over, indicated the non-punishment of sins
which remained outstanding; , or remission, was forgiveness in
the fullest sense, and indicated the complete removal of sins from ones
20Van Asselt, Voetius en Coccejus over de rechtvaardiging, 33.

21A copy of the work is found in the catalogue from the sale of Cocceius library,
Catalogus instructissimae bibliothecae D. Johannis Coccei (Leiden: Felicem Lopez de Haro,
1671), 24, item no. 21 under Libri Orientales, in Folio.
22See fn.4.
574 brian j. lee
account. brought about a liberty and assurance which could only

be experienced by justified saints when they beheld the object of their
faith, the very righteousness of God made manifest in the atoning sacrifice
of a fitting substitute. Cocceius distinction suggested to his contempo-
raries that he saw two different grounds upon which Old and New
Testament saints experienced fellowship with God, or worse, implied that
the fathers in the Old Testament were not saved by faith in Christ. Either
way, he was thus suspected of having Socinian sympathies.23
After some introductory comments, Cocceius divides Moreh Nebochim
into two main parts, the first showing the utility of the distinction, primar-
ily by discussing the two loci of Romans 3:25 and Hebrews 10:18, and the
second given over to correcting the Hallucinations of the Brethren that
have led to disputes in the church. He begins this first part by proposing
theses which summarize justification according to Jewish, Socinian,
Roman Catholic, and the Reformed orthodox.24 The theses indicate that
only the Reformed locate the cause of justification in the imputed perfect
obedience and suffering of their Savior, and further that only in this way
can God absolve sinners and pronounce them righteous without denying
himself and his law. In each case, the opponents fail to attribute the cause
of justification to the satisfaction of the law of God. Socinians and Jews
believe that God has proposed conditions pleasing (placito) to him,
which provide the sufficient condition for justification and eternal life
when they are met by man.25 Papists base justification upon good works,
either ex condigno or ex pacto, and make superfluous the sufferings of
Christ by adding to it the merit of the saints. Further, by excepting the
Virgin Mary from the imputation of Adams sin, Rome demonstrated that
God does not judge man on the basis of strict justice and the vigor of the
law, but rather upon his arbitrary good pleasure.26
Against his Jewish and Socinian opponents, Cocceius wishes to empha-
size the necessity of Christs obedience and suffering for mans justifica-
tion. This necessity flows from Gods just nature, and is contrary to views
which suggest that God established arbitrary criteria. Such views hold that
God can remit sins by any condition he desires, and thus dont understand
the righteousness which is in Christ by faith, the righteousness which pro-
claims sinners to be just on the very basis of the law, he who does these
23MN 38.
24MN 712.
25MN 7.III, cf. 9.III.
26MN 10.I, cf. 10.VII, XI.
things will live in them [Lev. 18:5; Rom. 10:5; Gal. 3:12].27 The change from
Old Testament to New Testament wrought by the mani-
festation of Gods righteousness in Christis a fundamental biblical
argument for the invariability of this law. While his orthodox brethren
obviously confess the same necessity of Christs atoning sacrifice, Cocceius
believes that Romans 3:25 bolsters this necessity by indicating that
the full, legal justification for sinsis only possible after God has
made manifest his righteousness in Christ. While God can delay punish-
ment or tolerate sins for a time prior to the manifestation of Christ, he
cannot grant full remission without denying himself and the full vigor of
his law.28
The making manifest of the righteousness of God in the propitiation
of sins is the key of his Romans text. While God decreed from eternity to
provide such an , it was promised and foreshadowed as a pro-
pitiation not yet exposed. Here Cocceius draws heavily upon the Epistle
to the Hebrews for his interpretation of the Old Testament sacrifices,
which are nothing but testimonies to the fact that under the Old Testament
the true way into the sanctuary had not yet been disclosed (Heb. 9:8). Yes,
Christ was foreshadowed, but he was foreshadowed behind curtains. The
Aaronic priesthood is considered an imposition and the law establishing
it is a statute not good (Ez. 20:25), which restricted Israel from Gods altar
as impure. In this key sense, then, the Old Testament sacrifices are not
direct parallels of the New Testament sacraments, but rather testify to the
exact opposite reality. Whereas the old proclaims the lack of righteous-
ness of the participant, the new announces righteousness in their midst,
the consummate blessing of Christ now possessed by all the faithful.29
In what sense, if any, does Cocceius allow that the Old Testament saints
were granted forgiveness by participation in the sacrificial system? What
is the purity of the flesh found in Hebrews 9:13? The forgiveness granted
by the old law was nothing other than a chirographum, a testimony to
debts still outstanding and sins yet to be forgiven. By publicly declaring
their sinfulness, and their hope in the true payment for that sin yet to
come, the Old Testament worshipper gained a certain temporary purity
which enabled him to stand in the holy places. But this chirographum was
only immunity from another chirographum being raised against the sin
which remained, and should not to be equated with the full removal of
27MN 35.
28MN 38.
29MN 4749, 82.
576 brian j. lee
sin. The debt itself remained outstanding, and only at the cross of Christ
was the chirographum fully cancelled and annulled (Col. 2:14).30
It is worth quoting Cocceius at length from his Hebrews commentary,
where he formulates this view most clearly:
It is chiefly to be observed that before this day there was not the remission of
sin, but its imputation. Indeed, Before the law there was sin in the world (that
is, all the world was under sin, and thus was expecting this time when sin
would be removed, Is. 53:7) but it was not imputed (Rom. 5:13). There was
nothing in the world but sin and the word of the Testamentum, by which
God declared that the head of the Serpent would be crushed by the seed. Sin
was not therefore imputed to those who believed the promise, even if there
did not yet exist a sacrifice for sinand thus sin could [hypothetically] still
be imputed even to believers. The law working wrath came, requiring indeed
from sinners the handwriting (chirographum), by which they admitted they
were debtors and lacking expiation. Therefore, as long as that first covenant
stood, the grace of justification differed. There was not remission (condona-
tio), (Heb. 10:18, Eph. 1:7, Col. 1:14), but only , disregard (dis-
simulatio) (Rom. 3:25), with the commemoration of sin and the exacting of
its satisfactionwhich nevertheless was not a true satisfaction, but only a
holding forth of future satisfaction.31
Other Reformed writers attempted to maintain the full justification
() of Old Testament saints by claiming that the debt of these sins
was transferred to Christ as the sponsio already in the Old Testament, and
that thus only the sponsio, properly speaking, had to await his resurrection
from the dead to experience the fullness of . But Cocceius responds
that this view is an implicit acknowledgment of his claim that
must exist until the full manifestation of Gods righteousness, though it
attempts to minimize the difficulty by shifting the to the sponsor
alone. Furthermore, because the members have nothing unless it is in the
head, it is impossible that the experience of Christ and the saints should
differ. The importance and concrete reality of our union with Christ domi-
nates his thought. Looking to Hebrews 2:10 and 11:3940 for support,
Cocceius insisted that just as Christ was only made perfect through his
sufferings, so those who are members of him by faith only attained to their
own perfection with the consummation of his sufferings.32
30MN 82.
31AdHeb 8127.
32MN 74, 78. This anticipates the debate over the nature of Christs sponsorship,
whether he be a fidejussor or expromissio, which took place mostly after the death of
Cocceius. See van Asselt, Christus Sponsor.
Indeed, Cocceius saw the theme of consummation developed most

clearly in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and he reads Hebrews as the clearest
sustained biblical argument for reserving for New Testament saints
alone. Even Romans 3:25, which is often seen as Cocceius primary proof
text for the distinction, is read in the light of Hebrews:
Those who by the oblation of Christ are consummated (),
before he was truly exhibited had not been consummated (that is, they did
not have the consciousness of their sins having been purged). Rather, they
were under the law which continually reminded them of sin and exhibited
the chirographum against them, which produced in them the consciousness
of sin. In this respect, they had , or transmissio With one oblation
they have been consummated forever, who were being sanctified, or are
being sanctified. Heb. 10:1, The Law could in no way consummate those
approaching. Heb. 10:2, Otherwise would they not have ceased being
offered, since there would have been no further consciousness of sin for the
worshippers? Heb. 10:3: But in them was the annual reminder of sin. Col.
2:14, Having removed the handwriting (chirographum) which was written
against us.33
Finally, Cocceius sees this argument of the Apostle in Hebrews reaching
its goal in 11:3940: Yet all these, though they were commended for their
faith, did not receive what was promised. Since God had provided some-
thing better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect. Old
Testament saints had faith, by which their sins were passed over, but they
had to wait until the coming of Christ to be perfected. This perfection or
consummation is nothing other than those blessings associated with
.
Applied to polemics, then, the Old Testament shows what the forgive-
ness of sins looks like in the Socinian, Roman Catholic, and Jewish modes,
i.e., without a full experience of justification sola fide. Bondage, the fear of
death, and lack of liberty are hallmarks when sin is forgiven by ,
without a fully substitutionary atonement. Those who deny justification
sola fide are thus stuck in the Old Testament, with the concomitant lack of
assurance and confidence, because their understanding of forgiveness
lacks the legal basis of the Reformed view.
Two Testaments or One?
A key difference between Cocceius and his orthodox brethren was the
question of how many testaments ought to be enumerated. If we simply
33MN 76.
578 brian j. lee
assert that the fathers under the Old Testament had an equal measure of
remission, peace, joy, and liberty, without clearly identifying the difference
between the testaments, we are at a loss to account for the genuine con-
trast between the experience of Old and New Testament saints, the real
already and not yet character of salvation history.34 Should we mini-
mize the difference between living in fear and being without fear, thirst-
ing and being satisfied, being in bondage and being free? Cocceius writes,
I ask, what should we say to the Socinians when they urge the difference
between the testaments? Should we persuade them that two equals
one?35 Therefore, while asserting that there is one covenant of grace, and
one law of this covenant, namely the law of faith, it does not follow that
the two testaments are one.
Sebastian Rehnman has written on the problem federal theology faced
in deciding whether to describe redemptive history as dichotomous or tri-
chotomous, i.e., whether post-fall redemptive history was fundamentally
unified, or divided in two.36 Rehnman notes that the trichotomous view
was frequently adopted to emphasize the supreme revelation of grace in
Christ, that is, by way of contrast with the Mosaic dispensation. Cocceius
holds the trichotomous position, asserting that there are two testaments
of the Israelites, in addition to the foedus operum. Cocceius would clearly
agree with John Owen that the dichotomous way of expressing continuity
and discontinuity within redemptive history is insufficient.37 In Moreh
nebochim we see him enumerating one particular failing of the dichoto-
mous view: it was an unsuitable response to the Socinian contention that
the Old Testament was carnal and imperfect. The view that there was only
one testament stretching from the beginning to the end of the Scriptures,
simply failed to capture the magnitude of what was new in the New
Testament.
Rehnman notes that trichotomist views of Cameron or Owen tended
to identify the old covenant as limited to Israel and primarily obliging
to external and ceremonial obedience, preparatory to faith. The Mosaic
covenant was in some sense thus identified as a re-publication of the
covenant of works, or a revival of the form of the covenant of works. To
this end, Wilhelm Momma is cited to the effect that the Old Testament
34MN 119.
35MN 108.
36Sebastian Rehnman, Is the Narrative of Redemptive History Trichotomous or
Dichotomous? A Problem for Federal Theology, NAKG 80.3 (2000): 296308.
37Rehnman, A Problem for Federal Theology, 298, 305.
properly so called and in itself does not distribute grace, but the inheri-
tance of the land of Canaan. For it is made obsolete and is abolished,
which cannot be said concerning grace.38
Cocceius, however, must be distinguished from the trichotomists
described by Rehnman, whose nomenclature doesnt quite capture the
complexity of his view. Relative to Cocceius, other trichotomists over-
stated the discontinuity between Old Testament and New. He launches
into a lengthy excursus in his comment upon Hebrews 8:13 to identify pre-
cisely what has been abrogated by the ratification of the New Testament.
This section of his commentary begins by denying that the foedus operum
is in view at Hebrews 8:13, and goes even further in saying that the Mosaic
administration at Sinai had no admixture of works, as though works and
grace could thus be mixed.39
The heart of his view is rather that there are Two Testaments of the
Israelites which have their roots and rudiments in the promise made to
Abraham in Genesis 17. Christ alone is the substance of both of these testa-
ments, and faith alone is the requirement for salvation. Furthermore, both
of these testaments reflect a unified, eternal testamentum that is equated
with Gods eternal decree to save, flowing from the pactum salutis. This
places a stronger emphasis on continuity than either Owen or Momma
indicate, with a particular eye toward apologetics with the JewsChrist
and the Apostles say nothing different than Moses and the Prophets. The
testaments are not therefore distinguished by a difference in the demand
for works or an interest in external rites. Rather, the contrast is entirely in
anticipation and consummation. In terms of justification, this discontinu-
ity can be summarized in terms of and . The fullness of the
benefits to be gained in Christ were revealed in this prior testament, yet
they were held forth as future goods. Cocceius turns repeatedly to the pro-
phetical promise of a New Testament (Jer. 31:3134) to bolster this claim.40
Cocceius attempts to localize those elements in the prior testament
which are carnal, weak, and impotent, in the words of Hebrews 7 and
8, drawing a distinction between federal weakness and testamentary con-
tinuity. He does so through a remarkably complex, even baroque, distinc-
tion between federal and testamentary divine legislation, relying upon a
technical terminology of the covenants that would make any scholastic
38Rehnman, A Problem for Federal Theology, 299305; cf. Momma, De varia conditi-
one II.viii.32.
39AdHeb 836.
40AdHeb 836, 42, 5253, 74.
580 brian j. lee
proud.41 In drawing these precise distinctions, Cocceius is able to counter

the claim of the Socinians that the Old Testament is per se carnal and
external, for they have failed to precisely distinguish the carnal elements
from the rest.42 In this way, Cocceius can account for the most negative
New Testament language about the Old Testament, by restricting it to the
ceremonial laws, and indeed he sees Hebrews 710 primarily as an argu-
ment for the abrogation of the ceremonies.43
Yet the ceremonial laws are not the only thing that is abrogated. The prior
testament itself, as a testament of anticipation and dissimulation, is
removed by the New Testament of Christ. Against Jewish opponents,
Cocceius maintains that the Old Testament was fully aware of its tempo-
rary, anticipatory nature, and it is in this agreement that he sees a consen-
sus between the Old Testament and the New. The Jews need not read the
New Testament to learn that the first testament of God with the Israelite
people will not be the last, there is another, and better, testament to come,
which will deliver greater blessings.44
Conclusion
Cocceius recognized that covenantal unity, deployed in defense of the

unity of the Scriptures against neo-Gnostic Anabaptists and Socinians,
could be taken too far, flattening redemptive history. His major contribu-
tion to covenant thought, in response to this potential flaw of Reformed
theology, is to make eschatology central to his covenantal schema. The
contrast between Old and New Testaments was localized quite specifi-
cally in their eschatological aspect, their orientation vis--vis the removal
of sins accomplished in history by the manifestation of Gods righteous-
ness in Christ.
41See Brian J. Lee, The Covenant Terminology of Johannes Cocceius: The Use of
Foedus, Pactum, and Testamentum in a Mature Federal Theologian, MAJT 14 (2003):
1136; and Brian J. Lee, Johannes Cocceius and the Exegetical Roots of Federal Theology:
Reformation Developments in the Interpretation of Hebrews 710 (Gttingen: V&R, 2009),
137139.
42AdHeb 796.
43This is a considerable elaboration of the traditional Reformed view expressing
continuity of substance and discontinuity of accidents. Cocceius formulation of
two testaments offended his Reformed brethren because it sounded like a difference of
substantia.
44AdHeb 88283.
The Old Testament therefore testified to the importance of Christs

coming in history. it was a testament of anticipation and lack, announcing
as it were the absence of faiths object. The New Testament celebrated
faiths consummation in the light of Christs completed work. Or put dif-
ferently, the Old administered the justification of faith in the mode of
, the New by . By taking the radical step of locating the dis-
continuity between Old and New in the mode of justification itself,
Cocceius was able to emphasize continuity elsewhere in his appeal to the
Jews, insisting that both testaments belong to the Jews, that both are
rooted in the same eternal testament, and that both reflect a single foedus
gratiae. Jews in particular were urged to consider the eschatological, for-
ward-looking orientation of their own Scriptures, and see in Christ the
fulfillment of all their manifold promises. Papists and Socinians should
see the inferior, Old Testament weakness of their faith.
As a Christian Hebraist, it is not surprising that Cocceius labored for the
conversion of the Jews, from whom he had learned so much. Furthermore,
he saw in Reformed covenant thought the resources for a renewed Jewish
apologetic, and committed a great deal of his scholarly labors to this
polemical goal. While the doctrine of the covenant had been developed in
part to defend hermeneutical continuity against the Anabaptists in the
sixteenth century, he saw its usefulness in articulating discontinuity in the
seventeenth century. This polemical value of Cocceius federal theology
suggests a likely raison detre for what is arguably his most important con-
tribution to Reformed thought, a thoroughly salvation-historical approach
to the task of theology.
A SMATTERING OF THE NEW PHILOSOPHY: TIENNE GAUSSEN
(ca. 16381675) AND THE CARTESIAN QUESTION AT SAUMUR
Albert Gootjes
For the Protestant academy at Saumur, the year 1664 began with the death
of Mose Amyraut, professor of theology, an event that was no doubt met
with mixed emotions. On the one hand, Amyrauts passing on 13 January
brought a definitive end to the great era of Saumurs triumvirate, with his
renowned colleagues Josu de la Place and Louis Cappel having met their
end before him in 1655 and 1658, respectively. On the other hand, this
event must have been experienced as a relief as well, as a major internal
conflict that pitted him and his followers against a faction led by the
Saumur pastor Isaac dHuisseau had effectively blocked the appointment
of a successor to either one of Amyrauts erstwhile colleagues, to the detri-
ment of the academys well-being. Thus, while Amyrauts death may have
ended an era, it also opened the way to a period of much-needed renewal.
Indeed, the Huguenot world held high expectations of a renaissance at
Saumur, especially in tienne Gaussen (ca. 16381675), who was appointed
in April 1664 to succeed Amyraut.1
The choice for Gaussen had important ramifications for the history of
philosophy at the Saumur academy. Gaussen in fact moved over to the
theological faculty from the faculty of philosophy, where he had been
teaching since 1661, and the vacancy he left would be filled by no one less
than Jean-Robert Chouet (16421731). It hardly needs reminding that
Chouet was a major figure in the reception of Cartesianism within the
Reformed theological world, and especially the Academy of Geneva,
which would be the next and definitive stop in his academic journey. Yet
his five-year tenure (16641669) at Saumur, too, is universally recognized
as a decisive moment in that institutions history. For, as Michael Heyd
stated in his magisterial study on Chouet, he was apparently the first to
introduce Cartesianism into a Huguenot Academyalthough Heyd did
1For details on the impasse and efforts for renewal for Saumur, see my Claude Pajon
(16261685) and the Academy of Saumur (Ph.D. diss., Calvin Theological Seminary, 2012),
chapter 5; a revised version, retaining the chapter numbering of the original dissertation,
is forthcoming in Brills Series in Church History. I wish to thank my friend David Sytsma
for his invaluable suggestions.
584 albert gootjes
note against the assumptions of older scholarship that his Cartesianism

did not as such play a role in his election to Saumur, and was at that time
not even explicit yet.2
In light of historiographys unwavering identification of Chouet as the
first to introduce Cartesianism into the Saumur curriculum, it came as a
great surprise during my dissertation research to come upon a manuscript
in which Chouet himself seems to bestow that honor upon his predeces-
sor, Gaussen! Currently held in the (private) archives of the Fondation
Turrettini in Geneva, this document was unearthed during one of my
many digs, in which I was encouraged by the genuine enthusiasm with
which Richard Muller greeted the reports of my findings from his base in
Grand Rapids. This manuscript of two loose leaves bears no title except for
the date of composition (18 May 1721), and presents brief biographical
sketches of Gaussen and of Claude Pajon (16261685), who likewise was
appointed to the theological faculty in 1665. While this manuscript also
bears no author name, that Chouet composed it is evident from the inside
knowledge about Saumur it betrays and from the somewhat awkward,
anonymous, third-person reference to Gaussens successori.e. Chouet
himselfas a certain young man of about 22 years of age,3 and further
supported by Chouets rather distinctive hand and by the manuscripts
location among the papers of the Turrettini family.4 The passage on
Gaussen and Cartesianism comes near the beginning. Noting that Gaussen
was chosen as professor of philosophy at the age of 22, Chouet remarks,
As his colleague in this faculty he had Mr. Druet, some fifty or sixty years
of age, a Peripatetic in every way; but this did not prevent Mr. Gaussen
from beginning to give to his students a smattering of the new philoso-
phy. He then adds that his predecessor did this even though it was
against the regulations of the academy, which required that the views of
Aristotle alone be taught. But he always did so with such prudence that
2See Michael Heyd, Between Orthodoxy and the Enlightenment: Jean-Robert Chouet
and the Introduction of Cartesian Science in the Academy of Geneva (The Hague: Nijhoff,
1982), 4.
3[Jean-Robert Chouet], Untitled account concerning tienne Gaussen and Claude
Pajon, Geneva, private archives of the Fondation Turrettini, 3rd ms under the shelfmark
1/Gb.1.32.XIII, [p. 2]: certain jeune homme aag denviron 22. ans.
4Chouet had been living in the Turrettini home since ca. 1710; see J.-A. Turrettini to
Jean Le Clerc, Geneva, 22 June 1728, in Jean Le Clerc: Epistolario, ed. Sina and Sina, 4 vols.,
Le corrispondenze litterarie, scientifiche ed erudite dal rinascimento allet moderna, no. 12,
56 (Firenze: Leo S. Olschki, 19871997), 4:391. He appears also to have died there, since his
death notice records that he passed away la Grandrue; see E. de Bud, La vie de Jean-
Robert Chouet, professeur et magistrat genevois (Geneva: Reymond, 1899), 293.
a smattering of the new philosophy 585
neither his colleague, nor the other professors ever made an issue of it
against him.5
This article will pursue Chouets claims regarding his predecessors
alleged flirtation with Cartesianism in the classroom by examining other
contemporary sources for further evidence. Such supporting evidence is
in fact necessary for locating Gaussens place in the history of Cartesianism
at the academy of Saumur on at least two accounts. First, Chouet recorded
these biographical notices in 1721, when he was almost 80 years old and
removed from the events by a distance of well over 50 years. Not surpris-
ingly, there are points in the manuscript where Chouets memory clearly
fails himalthough, to be fair, the errors identified seem to concern sim-
ple errors of fact.6 A second reason is more important; for, while Chouets
emphasis on the surreptitious nature of Gaussens teaching of the new
philosophy does allow us to understand why it seems to have passed
entirely under the radar of scholarship, it is still so cryptic that it leaves
several crucial questions unanswered. After sketching out the background
against which Gaussens professorate must be examined, I will therefore
attempt to illustrate how and why Gaussen introduced Cartesianism in
his classroom, and finish by drawing several conclusions regarding his
place in the history of its reception at the academy of Saumur.
Of the little that has been written on Gaussen, the three years he spent
teaching philosophy have been all but ignored, no doubt because histori-
cal data from the period preceding his transfer to the faculty of theology
are so hard to find. Accordingly, even Joseph Prosts seminal study on phi-
losophy at Saumur devotes no attention to Gaussens tenure there,7 while
Franois Laplanche, in what remains the lengthiest examination of his
thought, focused entirely on what could be called his second career at
Saumur.8 Gaussen, as we learn from the Chouet manuscript, was born at
5[Chouet], Untitled account, [p. 1]: Il avoit pour collgue dans cette facult Monsieur
Druet, aag de 50. ou 60. ans, Pripatticien toute outrance; ce qui nempcha point
Monsieur Gaussen de commencer donner ses coliers quelque teinture de la nouvelle
philosophie, quoyque cela fut contre les reiglemens de lAcadmie, qui exigeoient quon
nenseignt que les sentimens dAristote. Mais, il le fit toujours avec tant de prudence, que
ni son collgue ni les autres professeurs ne lui en firent jamais aucune affaire.
6For example, Chouet, Untitled account, [pp. 45], identifies Pajon as the pastor of
Mer, instead of Marchenoir and Lorges; similarly, he writes that Pajon left Saumur for
Orlans in 1668, instead of 1667, and that he passed away soon after arriving in Orlans.
7Joseph Prost, La philosophie lacadmie protestante de Saumur (16061685) (Paris:
Paulin, 1907).
8Franois Laplanche, Lcriture, le sacr et lhistoire: rudits et politiques protestants
devant la Bible en France au XVIIe sicle (Amsterdam: APAHolland University, 1986),
532545. The same is true for Jean-Paul Pittion, Intellectual Life in the Acadmie of
586 albert gootjes
Sainte-Foy in the Guyenne region of France.9 At a young age his father

sent him to the Protestant collge and academy in Saumur, where he
immediately showed great promise as a scholar and grew in particular due
to the efforts of the collges regent Tanneguy le Fvre.10 At the end of the
16581659 school year, he defended a disputation on the concord of nature
and grace, presided over by Amyraut, who likewise appears to have taken
a special liking to him.11 The length of this disputation, together with the
fact that, as the title indicates, Gaussen rather than the presiding professor
composed this set of theses, suggests that this disputation marked the end
of his studies at Saumur. Since the normal course of study consisted of two
propaedeutic years in the faculty of philosophy, upon which the title of
master of arts was conferred, followed by another three years of theology,
Gaussen would have entered the academy in or around 1654 at the age of
fifteen or sixteen.
Gaussens years as a student at the Saumur academy fell in a period
when discontentment came to the fore regarding the instruction in phi-
losophy there. At the time, the teaching responsibilities were shared
between Jehan Druet (d. 1683) and Isaac Hugues (d. 1660), two long-
standing members of the faculty since 1628 and 1634, respectively.12 As we
saw, Chouet described Druet, whose colleague Gaussen would become
in 1661 when he succeeded Hugues upon his death, as a convinced
Saumur, 16331685. A Study of the Bouhreau Collection in Marshs Library Dublin (Ph.D.
diss., Trinity College Dublin, 1969), 153175.
9[Chouet], Untitled account, [p. 1]: [] de Sainte-Foy, en Guine, dhoneste famille et
o il y avoit du bien. Nous avons veu en cette ville [= Geneva, AJG], il y a 50. ou 60. ans, un
de ses parens, capitaine dune compagnie de notre garnison. The Guyenne origin is sup-
ported by John Quick, The life of Monsieur Stephen Gaussens, Paris, Socit de lhistoire
du Protestantisme franais, BPF 294/3 (copy; the original is held in London, Dr. Williams
Library), p. 2, which records that he was a native of (what was then) the Prigord province,
and by the qualifier Aquitanus ascribed to Gaussen in the title to his 1659 theses (see
below). The dispersion of members of the Gaussen family between Sainte-Foy and Geneva
finds further support in Haag, France Protestante (Paris: Cherbuliez, 18461858), 5:236. Also
Nmes and Geneva have been named as place of birth or origin (Laplanche, Lcriture,
532533), but I have not found any evidence in support of these claims.
10[Chouet], Untitled account, [p. 1]: tant fort jeune, il fut envoi par son pre
Saumur, pour y faire ses tudes de philosophie et de thologie. Son inclination tant
particulirement tourne du ct des belles lettres, il y fit dabord des progrs trs-consi-
drables; tant aid en cela par les soins du fameux Monsieur Lefvre ....; cf. similar state-
ments in Quick, The life of Monsieur Stephen Gaussens, BPF 294/3, pp. 12.
11tienne Gaussen, Theses theologicae de consensu gratiae cum natura. Quas composuit
et, favente Deo, sub praesidio D. Mosis Amyraldi tueri conabitur Stephanus Gaussenus
Aquitanus. In Templo, die [ ] julii ab hora prima pomeridiana in vesperam (Saumur:
Desbordes, 1659).
12Prost, La philosophie, appendix 1; and Bourchenin, 463.
Aristotelian, and this testimony finds confirmation in Prosts study which

demonstrates that both he and Hugues gave their students a firmly peri-
patetic foundation.13 During their propaedeutic years, Gaussen and his
fellow students would thus have been given an Aristotelian conceptual
and terminological paradigm, a common language that was to prepare
them for the study of theology in the three following years.14 After all,
thecommon Reformed understanding of philosophy was that of ancilla
theologiae, that is, the maidservant of theology. Whatever novelties
may have come from the faculty of theology in the mid-seventeenth
century through the efforts of Amyraut, de la Place, and Cappel, the
philosophical training that prepared the students for instruction in this
progressive theology remained entirely Aristotelian.
A challenge to the status quo was issued in the summer of 1656, how-
ever, only months before Gaussen presumably moved from the prepara-
tory study of philosophy to theology itself. The acts of the 1656 assembly of
Saumurs provincial synod of Anjou, Touraine, and Maine, held at Baug,
record that the church of Preuilly made a petition to consider whether it
would be expedient to change the method (mthode) of teaching philoso-
phy.15 The acts contain no further information, as the synod decided to
leave this matter to the academys council to judge, supported by a com-
mittee composed of several pastors from the regiona decision most
comprehensible in light of the synods preoccupation with the much more
serious threat posed by the fierce battle between the Amyraut and
dHuisseau parties. The records of that later meeting held on 25 September
1656 do fill in some of the gaps, however. As it turns out, Ren Colas sieur
de la Treille and Pierre Fleury, the pastors of Preuilly, had been lobbying
for two specific changes:16 First, that the professors of philosophy no lon-
ger be restricted to following or teaching Aristotle, or that at least in their
dictation lectures they no longer be bound to commenting texts from
Aristotle; and, second, that more attention be given to metaphysics and
13Prost, La philosophie, 5566.

14See Jean-Paul Pittion, Notre matre tous: Aristote et la pense rforme franaise
au XVIIe sicle, in De lHumanisme aux Lumires, Bayle et le protestantisme, ed. Michelle
Magdelaine, et al. (Paris: Universitas/Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1996), 429443.
15Didier Boisson, ed., Actes des synodes provinciaux: Anjou-Touraine-Maine (15941683)
(Geneva: Droz, 2012), 370 (13 June 1656; art. 32).
16At the end, instructions were given to inform them of the decision; see Saumur,
Archives Municipales de Saumur I A 1, Registre de dlibrations du Conseil acadmique
ordinaire et extraordinaire de lAcadmie protestante de Saumur, 16131673, fols. 165v-
166r (25 September 1656). The registers can be consulted at http://archives.ville-saumur
.fr/am_saumur/app/03_archives_en_ligne/01_academie_protestante/.
588 albert gootjes
ethics, an end that could be achieved by devoting less hours to the dic-
tated courses on logic and physics where, so it was charged, several super-
fluous and non-necessary questions were being treated at present.17
What the Saumur registers do not supply, however, are further details
regarding the motivation for this challenge from de la Treille and Fleury.
What is more, neither appears to have been an intellectual figure of note
in France, as one can deduce also from their meager literary output, which
is in fact so scant that it is impossible to discern a potential motive from
it.18 The complaint regarding the time wasted on non-necessary issues
does, however, suggest knowledge of the philosophical curriculum. It is
possible that this relates to the fact that de la Treille, in contrast to Fleury
who had attended the academy of Sedan,19 had studied at Saumur in the
mid- to late-1640s.20 The council and pastors granted a small concession
to Preuillys misgivings by appointing a committee that was to examine
the professors courses for any superfluous material. For the rest, after a
variety of proposals for change were considered, it was decreed that the
relative weight of logic and physics compared to metaphysics and ethics
was to remain the same.21 Metaphysics and ethics were, not insignifi-
cantly, relative newcomers to the philosophical curriculum, having been
prescribed by the French national synods of 1631 and 1644, respectively.22
When we find the council remarking defensively that the current com-
pendia of metaphysics and ethics are already much more extensive than
those given by the academys professors in the past, it is difficult to read
the denial of the request from Preuilly as anything but a reservation
toward these disciplines.23 After all, logic and physics were the basis for
the study of theology.24
17Registres, fol. 165v (25 September 1656).

18From de la Treille I have found only his Dialogues ou les fables les plus curieuses de
lantiquit sont expliques dune maniere fort agreable (Paris: de Luyne, 1670); from Fleury,
Discours ou il est trait de Dieu, consider comme createur tout puissant (London:
Redmayne, 1697).
19Haag1, 5:117, referring to the disputation defended by Petrus Floridus on 26 March
1635 in Louis le Blanc de Beaulieu, ed., Theses theologicae, variis temporibus in Academia
Sedanensi editae et ad disputandum propositae, 2 vols. (London: Pitt, 16751683), 1:558.
20Louis Desgraves, Les thses soutenues lAcadmie protestante de Saumur au XVIIe
sicle, Bulletin de la Socit de lhistoire du Protestantisme franais 125 (1979): 7679, there
84 (#25), notes the existence of the disputation pamphlet De quinque falso dictis sacramen-
tis (Saumur: Desbordes, 1647), defended by de la Treille under the presidency of Amyraut.
21Registres, fols. 165v-166r (25 September 1656).
22See Prost, La philosophie, 55n3.
24Note the emphasis on logic and physics evident in Druets manuscript courses as
remarked on by Prost, La philosophie, 5556. The underlying thought has been captured
Given the subject of this article, it may be tempting to read in the other
request to open the door to philosophies other than that of Aristotle
an early and disguised attempt to introduce Cartesianism into Saumur.
One does well to exercise some caution, however. It is true that by the
mid-1650s Saumur and surroundings were beginning to show some incli-
nation towards Cartesianism. The Oratorian collge and seminary at
Notre-Dame-des-Ardilliers, which entertained surprisingly close connec-
tions with the Protestant academy,25 favored Plato over Aristotle, eventu-
ally using him as a shield to cover their predilection for Descartes.26
Moreover, it is known of Jacques Gousset (16351704) that, as a student at
the academy, he discussed the philosophy of Descartes with the Saumur
physician, Louis de la Forge (16321666), an important player in the diffu-
sion of the new philosophy in the province of Anjou. In a 1716 work on
causality, Gousset records that he first heard an occasionalism inspired by
Cartesian principles from de la Forge in 1658.27 Of course, this particular
conversation took place two years after the 1656 disturbance, but as
Gousset entered the Saumur academy ca. 1653,28 the very year in which de
la Forge moved to Saumur after having been introduced to Descartes phi-
losophy in or around 1650,29 it is entirely possible that de la Forge was at
an earlier time already holding discussions with him.30 In spite of these
well by J.-P. Dray, The Protestant Academy of Saumur and its Relations With the
Oratorians of Les Ardilliers, History of European Ideas 9.4 (1988): 465478, there 472: since
logic was the method of theology and physics dealt with the basic conceptions of nature
that are given in Scripture, philosophy could form a valid functional preparation for the
study of Gods Word.
25See Prost, La philosophie, passim; and Jacques Maillard, LOratoire de Saumur et les
protestants au XVIIe sicle, in Saumur, capitale europenne du Protestantisme au XVIIe
sicle (Fontevraud: Centre culturel de louest, 1991), 125135.
26See Prost, La philosophie, 7576; Joseph Dumont, LOratoire et le Cartsianisme en
Anjou, Mmoires de la Socit acadmique de Maine et Loire 15 (Angers: Cosnier et Lachse,
1864): 1206, there 196; and Francisque Bouillier, Histoire de la philosophie cartsienne
(Paris: C. de la Grave, 1868; reprint Geneva: Slatkine, 1970), 2:114.
27Jacques Gousset, Causarum primae et secundarum realis operatio rationibus confir-
matur, et ab obiectionibus defenditur. De his apologia fit pro Renato des Cartes, adversus
discipulos eius pseudonymos (Leeuwarden: Franciscus Halma, 1716), 5; and discussion in
Pierre Clair, introduction to Louis de la Forge: Oeuvres philosophiques, avec une tude bio-
bibliographique (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1974).
28For this date, note Jacques Gousset, Theses theologic de officio pastoris evangelici
quascomposuit, & sub prsidio M. Amyraldi, tuebitur I. Gousset (Saumur: Desbordes,
1658); and see similarly F.R.J. Knetsch, Gousset (Gussetius), Jacques (Jacobus), in BLNP,
5:21113, there 211.
29See Clair, introduction to Louis de la Forge, 2627, 3233.
30Gousset, Causarum, 4, does make it clear that there were multiple conversations, but
there is no indication as to when they began: Ille [= de la Forge] ita animatus frequenti me
in aedibus suis ac libero interpellatore gaudebat. Ipseque meum quamvis puerile cubicu-
lum saepe nec opinato subibat.
590 albert gootjes
tempting leads, one does well not to insist on Cartesian impulses via de la
Forge or the Oratorians as the background to the 1656 complaints, particu-
larly since they had been raised by two pastors whose intellectual prefer-
ence and networks remain entirely in the dark. The academy for its part
did understand this request as an attempt to open the doors to Descartes,
but then not to him exclusively. It refused to grant the freedom to teach
philosophies other than that of Aristotle, noting that this would only lead
to divisions between students and professors, or even between different
professors, which would bring much trouble to the academy, as is evi
dent from the example of the academies abroad in Germany and the
Netherlands where some follow the philosophy and tradition of Epicurus
and Gassendi, others that of Descartes, and yet others whatever seems
best to them.31 The request to explain texts other than Aristotle in the
dictation lectures was denied as well, not only because the text of Aristotle
is the foundation of what is taught here, but also for the practical reason
that it would cause great confusion for the master-of-arts examinations
which were then based on Aristotle, even if, so the council did add, where
[the students] find him to depart from the truth, they can and must aban-
don him.32 The academys response to both requests shows that the train-
ing in philosophy was not to take on a life of its own, nor to be a place
where competing philosophical systems were proposed. Philosophy had a
preparatory and serving function to the study of theology, and to this end
the conceptual apparatus supplied by the tried-and-true peripatetic phi-
losophy was deemed to be most suitable.33
Gaussen thus sat in the student benches at a time when the professors
of philosophy refused to make Descartes, or Gassendis brand of Epicu
reanism, a part of the curriculum.34 In 1661, however, he refused the pulpit
of Poitiers in favor of the philosophical chair at Saumur,35 and suddenly

33Similar considerations had been given by Utrecht in its 1642 condemnation of the
new philosophy; see Theo Verbeek, Descartes and the Dutch: Early Reactions to Cartesian
Philosophy, 16371650 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1992), 19. At Oxford, the Laudian
Code requiring lectures on Aristotles philosophy was still in place at the Restoration,
although in practice professors took great latitude in introducing alternative philosophy;
see Hansruedi Isler, Thomas Willis, 16211675: Doctor and Scientist (New York: Hafner, 1968),
2930; and also Mordechai Feingold, The Mathematical Sciences and New Philosophies,
in The History of the University of Oxford, vol. 4, Seventeenth-Century Oxford, ed. Tyacke
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1997), 359448.
34According to Prost, in the manuscript of Druets physics course from 1652 aucune
allusion nest faite ni Gassendi, ni Descartes (La philosophie, 58).
35See Registres, fols. 180v-181r (26 July 1661).
found himself on the other side of the lectern. By then both the Oratorians
and Louis de la Forge were active in the diffusion of Cartesianism in and
around Saumur, so that the 1656 council decision will have made the new
philosophy nothing less than an elephant in the room. We are given a
peek into the way Gaussen dealt with this invisible presence in his class-
room through a letter he sent to lie Bouhreau (16431719), which is cur-
rently held at Marshs Library in Dublin and forms a fortuitous exception
to the paucity of extant documentation pertaining to Gaussens tenure as
professor of philosophy. Gaussen begins this letter by stating that he is
accompanying it with his theses, although, so he warns somewhat self-
deprecatingly, he attaches very little importance to the writing of such
theses.36 There are in fact only two reasons that might make the pam-
phlet of some interest to Bouhreau: There is only the novelty [in it],
which will perhaps not displease you, and the way in which I undertook
to harmonize Epicurus and Descartes with our Aristotle in a number of
things.37
Gaussens reference to our Aristotle is, of course, suggestive of a par-
tiality towards the peripatetic system. At the same time, his letter does
indicate that heentirely in line with Chouets claims!in his classroom
introduced his students to non-Aristotelian philosophy, including that of
Descartes; for, disputation theses were customarily based on the presiding
professors lectures.38 The sole surviving copy of the Theses philosophicae
ex Aristotele transcriptae, scheduled for defense by six students on 10
September 1663, is preserved, not surprisingly, in the same library that
holds Gaussens letter.39 The points of convergence between the letter
and the dedicatory epistle prefixed to the 1663 disputation confirm that
this is indeed the pamphlet in question. After his intriguing comment
about harmonizing Epicurus and Descartes with Aristotle, Gaussen goes
on to complain:
36. Gaussen to . Bouhreau, [Saumur], September 1663, Dublin, Marshs Library,

Z.2.2.17(13)/38, [fol. 1r]. The date at the top of the manuscript is most likely the date of
reception rather than writing, since it appears to be from the hand of Bouhreau
rather than that of Gaussen. Anothermuch clearer!example of the same phenome-
non can be found in . Gaussen to . Bouhreau, [Saumur], [17?] February 1665,
Z.2.2.17(13)/19.
37. Gaussen . to Bouhreau, [Saumur], September 1663, Z.2.2.17(13)/38, [fol. 1r]: il
ny a que la nouveaut qui peut-estre ne vous dplaira pas, et la manire dont je me suis
advis daccorder en plusieurs choses picure et Descartes avec nostre Aristote.
38See Prost, La philosophie, 58.
39Saumur: Isaac Desbordes, 1663.
592 albert gootjes
For the rest, you can hardly imagine how rare a thing in the world this
good philosophy [of Aristotle] is, but the good thing is that people are begin-
ning to rid themselves of their foolishness throughout, and are no longer
relyingexcept in a good wayon these ancient commentators with
whom our fathers were infatuated. For, as regards Aristotle, he will always
be our master and our hearts dearest friend.40
The supremacy of Aristotle, the ambiguity caused by his commentators,
and the reference to the alternative views of Epicurus and the Cartesians
all reappear in the 1663 pamphlet, while absent from Gaussens earlier dis-
putation theses.41 In the dedication to Isaac du Soul (d. 1676), once his
professor and now his colleague, Gaussen explains that his goal with the
theses is to present Aristotles teaching in the philosophers own terms,
free from later sophistries.42 The reason for this modus operandi is the
troubling confusion he observes within the Aristotelian camp. Themestius,
Simplicius, Alexander, and current day Aristotle commentators depart all
over the place in such varied directions that you could not guess with even
the smallest of suspicions that they who teach such discordant things
have come from the same family, were it not for the fact that the title to
their commentaries tells us so.43 The confusion poses a great obstacle to
genuine philosophy (Germanae Philosophiae impedimentum), namely:
learned and elegant men, disgusted with the controversies and quarrels of
Our Men, some [of whom] held that they would rather join Epicurus than to
have to do with us, and disputed contemptuously against Aristotles view;
[while] others, whom it is not important to name at this point, in a more
daring move came to a new method, from which hangs the threat of a most
40. Gaussen to . Bouhreau, [Saumur], September 1663, Z.2.2.17(13)/38, [fol. 1r-2r]:

Au reste vous ne sauris presque vous imaginer, mon cher Monsieur, combien ceste
bonne philosophie est une chose rare dans le monde, mais le bon est que lon commance
se dniaiser par tout, et que lon ne se fie plus que de la bonne sorte ces vieux commen-
tateurs dont nos pres estoyent coiffs, car pour Aristote il sera toujours nostre maistre,
etle cher amy du coeur.
41The placards of the Theses philosophicae (Saumur: Desbordes, 1661) and Theses logi-
cae (Saumur: Desbordes, 1662) are likewise held at Marshs Library in Dublin.
42Gaussen, Theses philosophicae (1663), preface v: Ego itaque qui, si quis alius, doctri-
nam Aristotelis, quantum in me est, colo; recte atque ordine me facturum existimavi, si
quae loca in eo clariora sunt, & Sophistarum technis & exceptionibus minus exposita &
obnoxia videbantur, hic illic sparsa colligerem, & ita collecta in Solem & Pulverem darem:
speravi enim fore ut totius Peripateticae Philosophiae ingenium Magistri nostri simplex &
nuda oratio multo melius adumbraret, quam quod mea ad eam rem potuisset conferre
industria.
43Gaussen, Theses philosophicae (1663), preface r-v: ipsi ita passim in diversa abeunt,
ut nisi id nos commentariorum titulus admoneret, qui tam discrepantia doceant, ex eadem
Familia prodiisse, ne minima quidem possis suspicione divinare.
certain end to the school of Aristotleunless we, with our powers united
and each according to his capacity, finally give serious thought to the vindi-
cation of our Masters excellence.44
In line with Gaussens stated objective, not only are the margins filled with
references to Aristotles works, but some theses also end with a section in
italic type highlighting the Stagirites supremacy, defending him against
suspicion of error, or challenging the reader to find a better solution than
his.45
What, then, of Epicurus and Descartes (or: the new method), whom
Gaussen had identified in his dedication to du Soul as the alternatives to
which those disgruntled with Aristotle had turned, while writing to
Bouhreau that he had harmonized them with him? To read these two
passages as a prim and proper statement of Saumurs party line in favor of
Aristotle in a public dedicatory epistle, over against Gaussens true view
on the usefulness of neo-Epicurean and Cartesian philosophy in a per-
sonal letter, is in my opinion not satisfactory. Aside from the fact that
Gaussen explicitly calls Aristotle our master and our hearts dearest
friend also in his letter to Bouhreau, he for the rest appears not yet to
have felt comfortable divulging to him any suspect views he may have har-
bored.46 His publicly expressed concern regarding the abandonment of
the peripatetic system in favor of an Epicurean or Cartesian alternative,
and his private avowal that he has harmonized them on some points
with Aristotle, when put together with his avowed preference for the lat-
ter, instead suggest that Gaussen attempted at certain points in his theses
to present Aristotelian tenets in a way that might make them more attrac-
tive to those who were inclined to the alternatives. This means that one
should not expect to find him defending an explicit atomism or empiri-
cism, nor methodological doubt or a mind-body dualism. In light of the
1656 regulation, Gaussen will have had to be much more subtle, as is
indeed the case in his theses on logic where he shows himself ready to
44Gaussen, Theses philosophicae (1663), preface v: Viri docti & elegantespertaesi

Nostrorum Hominum concertationes & lites, alii sese ad Epicurum adiungere potius
habuerunt, quam nobiscum facere, & de Aristotelis Sententia ieiune rixari: alii quos appel-
lare, hic quidem, nihil attinet, audaciori facinore, novam invenere rationem a qua
Aristotelis sectae certissimum impendeat exitium, ni collatis viribus de vindicanda
Magistri nostri maiestate, quisque pro suo captu, tandem tandem serio cogitemus.
45For the humanist reception of Aristotle in general, see Charles B. Schmitt, Aristotle
and the Renaissance (Cambridge: HUP, 1983), 1033.
46See . Gaussen to . Bouhreau, [Saumur], September 1663, Z.2.2.17(13)/38, [fol. 2r]:
Je vous criray dornavant plus souvent et avec plus dexactitude, mais obligs-moy de ne
faire voir mes lettres qui que ce soit, afin que je vous parle avec plus de libert.
594 albert gootjes
adopt the language of the Cartesians. Gaussen states that all teaching rests
upon syllogism and induction, and briefly defines the two. In an italicized
portion he emphasizes how important it is to remember that Aristotles
entire treatment of the syllogism is based on the two principles of identity
and difference, adding that they are clearer than any mathematical
demonstration; indeed, these [principles] are so.47 Gaussen thus did not
choose to speak of these principles as immediate,48 or as innate, or to
identify them as common notions,49 as he very well might have. In
describing the principles underlying Aristotles syllogisms in terms of
clarity, and in measuring this clarity against the ideal of mathematical
demonstrations, Gaussen instead uses language entirely amenable to
Cartesian notions of certainty.50 A similar phenomenon can be observed
with respect to the seventeenth-century Epicureans in thesis five on phys-
ics or natural philosophy, where he writes (with a reference to Aristotle,
Physics 8.10): Although there are three kinds of motion, we consider that
which has to do with place to be the first of all of them.51 Gaussen does
not go so far as to discard the distinction between natural and violent
motion, as many of his Epicurean contemporaries did, but his insistence
on the priority of local motion can in this context indeed be understood as
a tip of the hat to them.52 In fact, the italicized portion at the end of thesis
five explicitly notes that Epicurus and Democritus were of almost the
same view, although Gaussen also admits that there were differences.53
47Gaussen, Theses philosophicae (1663), 3 (logic thesis 5): Dixi alias saepe, iterumque
iterumque dico, nec enim ea de re moneri nimium unquam potes: totam illam Magistri nostri
de Syllogismo duobus niti principiis, quae sint omni mathematicorum Demon
stratione clariora: illa vero sic sunt. Quae sunt eadem uni terio, illa sunt eadem inter se, hoc
primum, deinde, quorum unum est idem uni tertia, alterum non est idem, illa non sunt eadem
inter se.
48See, for example, Franco Burgersdijck, Institutionum logicarum synopsis [], 2 vols.
(Amsterdam: Valckenier, 1659), 2:6667.
49For an illuminating discussion of innate or common notions in Gaussens contem-
porary Voetius, see Andreas J. Beck, Gisbertus Voetius (15891676): Sein Theologieverstndnis
und seine Gotteslehre (Gttingen: V&R, 2007), 160173.
50On the role of clarity (and distinction) in Descartes philosophy, see Sarah Patterson,
Clear and Distinct Perception, in A Companion to Descartes, ed. Broughton and Carriero
(Malden: Blackwell, 2008), 216234; and Alan Gewirth, Clearness and Distinctness in
Descartes, in Descartes, ed. Cottingham (Oxford: OUP, 1998), 79100. On the connec
tion between clear and distinction perception and levels of certainty, see E.M. Curley,
Certainty: Psychological, Moral, and Metaphysical, in Essays on the Philosophy and
Science of Ren Descartes, ed. Voss (New York: OUP, 1993), 1130.
51Gaussen, Theses philosophicae (1663), 6 (physics thesis 5): Cum tres sint specie
Motus, illam quae habet rationem ad Locum, putamus esse omnium primam.
52See Gaussen, Theses philosophicae (1663), 6 (physics thesis 6).
53Gaussen, Theses philosophicae (1663), 6 (physics thesis 5): In eandem fere sententiam
Democritus & Epicurus, sed non is est Aristoteles, qui Democriti & Epicuri authoritate opus
What Gaussen does in these two instances is hardly an earth shaking

move; yet it is their very subtlety that brings the 1663 theses in line with
Chouets remark that Gaussens colleagues failed to notice the way he
introduced the new philosophy to his students.
From Gaussens 1663 theses, and what they imply about his classroom
teaching, at least two conclusions follow. The first pertains to Gaussens
place in the reception of Cartesianism in general. In Descartes and the
Dutch, Theo Verbeek has noted that Aristotelianism proved a very flexi-
ble philosophy that also suited Cartesians, a circumstance they used to
their advantage, as their concern to prove that their concepts and catego-
ries were already used by Aristotle testifies to their need to confirm that
they were not breaking with tradition.54 Gaussens motive for introduc-
ing smatterings of Cartesianism into his classroom would appear to run
in the other direction. Having observed how his contemporaries were
abandoning Aristotle for the Epicurean or Cartesian traditions, he pre-
sented peripatetic philosophy in terms somewhat adapted to his neo-
Epicurean contemporaries and to Descartes in the hope that his students
might indeed recognize that Aristotle is our hearts dearest friend, and
that there is less reason to abandon him in favor of the recentiores than
they might have thought on the basis of what they heard or read else-
where. A second conclusion can be drawn about the history of Descartes
reception at the academy of Saumur, which, against the assumptions of
a long line of scholarship, must now be traced beyond Chouet to his
predecessor Gaussen. Descartes underwent a wild ride at Saumur follow-
ing the 1656 regulation against his and other non-Aristotelian philoso-
phies, beginning with Gaussen, who, as we have seen, despite his own
convictions regarding the superiority of Aristotle, surreptitiously intro-
duced his students to Cartesian notions in the early 1660s; to Chouet,
who openly taught the philosophy of Descartes in the late 1660s; to
Chouets successor, Pierre de Villemandy (ca. 16361703), who in the 1670s
proposed an Aristotelian-Epicurean-Cartesian eclecticismand that,
after having been thoroughly trounced as a convinced Aristotelian by
Chouet in the concours for the philosophical chair in 1665!55 A third
habere videatur. For the importance of local motion in the philosophy of the recentiores,
and the difference with respect to the peripatetic doctrine, see Alan Gabbey, New
Doctrines of Motion, in The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, 2 vols.,
ed. Garber et al. (Cambridge: CUP, 1998), 1:649679, there 649650.
54Verbeek, Descartes and the Dutch, 8.
55On de Villemandy, see Prost, La philosophie, 102129. On the larger theme, see
Marjorie Grene, Aristotelico-Cartesian Themes in Natural Philosophy: Some Seventeenth-
Century Cases, Perspectives on Science 1.1 (1993): 6687.
596 albert gootjes
c onclusion regarding Gaussens view on Cartesianism above and beyond

his preference for Aristotle must, however, be left for another time,
because it needs to be placed within the broader framework of the use of
philosophy for theology on which he wrote significantly.56 That Gaussen
was one of the few to have taught both philosophy and theology at Saumur
makes this topic all the more worthwhile, especially because his loci com-
munes course, of which a manuscript was recently discovered, will allow
us to see concretely how he put his theory into practice.
56See Laplanche, Lcriture, 532545.

NONCONFORMIST SCHOOLS, THE SCHISM ACT, AND THE LIMITS
OF TOLERATION IN ENGLANDS CONFESSIONAL STATE
James E. Bradley
Following the Restoration and the Act of Uniformity (1662), the Anglican
Church widely assumed that any form of religious dissent was schismatic
and enforced religious uniformity with legal sanctions that oblige us to
think of England at the time as a unitary, confessional state.1 Noncon
formists or Protestant Dissenters (principally Presbyterians, Indepen
dents, Baptists, and Quakers) began an extended if intermittent defense
of their legitimate, non-schismatic status in the early 1680s that arguably
witnessed some success in the religious compromise at the Revolution of
1689. Under the Toleration Act and throughout the reign of William and
Mary, the Nonconformists enjoyed the limited freedom of legal toleration,
though the Act merely suspended the legal penalties against Protestant
DissentersCatholics and those who denied the Trinity were specifically
excluded. During this period Nonconformist academies multiplied, even
though their teachers endured numerous cases of prosecution. Under
Queen Anne (17011714) this limited toleration was radically restricted,
particularly through the Schism Act of 1714 that was designed to stop reli
gious instruction in the Dissenting schools and academies and thereby
contain, if not end, the growth of schism. This essay explores one aspect
of the longer quest of Nonconformity for a legitimate, separate status of
individual congregations and how that new status bore on a national, con
fessing church and state.
The repeal of the Occasional Conformity and Schism Acts in 1719 has
been quite thoroughly studied, but surprisingly little attention has been
given to the controversy leading up to the Schism Act and how it related
to the Toleration Act. While the broader political and religious contexts of
the Act itself have also been examined in detail, the pamphlet literature
has not been sufficiently explored.2 Here we will examine the public
1I am very grateful Dr. David L. Wykes, Director of Dr. Williams Library, London, for his
generous advice regarding the Schism Act, the many resources he made available to me,
and for his helpful suggestions on an earlier draft of the essay.
2David L. Wykes, Religious Dissent, the Church, and the Repeal of the Occasional
Conformity and Schism Acts, 171419, in Religion, Politics and Dissent, 16601832, ed.
Cornwall and Gibson (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010), 165183; G.M. Townend, Religious
598 james e. bradley
debate over Nonconformist schools and look in passing at the debates in

Parliament and Convocation in an effort to estimate the perceived threat
to the toleration of the Dissenters.3 The attack on the Dissenters schools
was part of a much broader controversy over the legitimacy of Dissent and
the meaning and durability of the Toleration Act. During Annes reign, at
every conceivable point the Dissenters religious identity was threatened,
including the validity of Dissenting ordinations, the validity of baptisms,
and the right to hold public office and vote. But it was the debate over the
right to educate their own children that revealed most clearly the limits of
the Toleration Act and the lengths to which the confessional state might
have been carried under the leadership of a Tory administration and high-
Church divines. It would be no exaggeration to say that in 1714 toleration
was nearly terminated, even if by 1719 the limits of the confessional state
itself had been clearly drawn and placed on a new, legal foundation.
With the accession of Anne and the newly acquired authority of the
Tories, the Nonconformists encountered a significant reversal of fortunes,
and one of the first hints of trouble emerged from the Lower House of
Convocation in 1702. In an appeal to enforce the law against the formation
of seminaries by ignorant and disaffected persons, the lower clergy rec
ommended to the House of Lords that the bishops strictly enforce the Act
of Uniformity. Since the numbers of non-licenced schools and seminaries
are multiplied, and the danger arising from their daily increase offers
no security to church or state, but rather tends to the subversion of
both, the bishops were admonished to use their utmost authority for
suppressing such seminaries in order to prevent the growth of schism
and sedition. The academies, it was said, were not only prejudicial to the
two universities, but they tend to perpetuate the schism we now labor
under, and to subvert the established constitution.4 The last phrase omi
nously implied the conviction that the Toleration Act was a temporary
expedient.
Radicalism and Conservatism in the Whig Party under George I: The Repeal of the
Occasional Conformity and Schism Acts, Parliamentary History 7 (1988): 2444; Geoffrey
Holmes, British Politics in the Age of Anne, rev. ed. (London: Hambledon, 1987), 103104;
G.V. Bennett, The Tory Crisis in Church and State, 16881730: The Career of Francis Atterbury,
Bishop of Rochester (Oxford: OUP, 1975), 176179.
3The study of Nonconformist schools is the subject of a major research project under
the direction of Isabel Rivers and David Wykes. Here space does not permit the heretofore
neglected matter of prosecutions under the Act, which did occur, nor will it be possible to go
into any depth concerning the legal side of the Act, the actual formed opposition to it, and
the technical matters of the movement of the Bill and its amendments through Parliament.
4Edward Cardwell, Synodalia: A Collection of Articles of Religion, Canons, and Pro
ceedings of Convocation, 2 vols. (Oxford: OUP, 1842), 2:712713, 718.
the limits of toleration in englands confessional state 599
Two periods of intense debate ensued following this initial outcry, with
the first attack commencing almost immediately and the second flurry of
activity emerging on the eve of the Schism Bill in the concluding months
of Annes reign. Beginning in 1703, the sermons and pamphlets of high-
Churchmen Henry Sacheverell and Samuel Wesley (John Wesleys father)
attacked the academies because they believed that they were dangerous
to the English church and monarchy and because they implied the perma
nence of schism in the nation. These first, early stages of the debate thus
set the tone for the entire reign of Anne, and importantly, the intent of
high-Church Tories to curtail the indulgence granted Dissenters in the
Toleration Act was signaled from the very outset of her reign. Setting aside
the raillery, personal attacks, and all the expressions of fear and loathing
on both sides, the arguments fall very roughly into three categories,
relating to charges of the Dissenters politically disloyal and morally disor
dered behavior, the understanding of the Toleration Act in relation to
education, and the severe legal remedy proposed to address the threat of
a perpetual schism.
The first line of the high-Church offensive attack impugned the
Dissenters loyalty to the English government and monarchy. In the
thought of high-Churchmen, including Sacheverell and Wesley, epis
copacy was the foundation of monarchy and the two were inextricably
linked. True religion and sound government were necessarily connected;
in the words of Sacheverell, whatsoever strikes at the Church, must
secretly undermine the State.5 Because the Nonconformists rejected
episcopacy, they of necessity must reject monarchy, and they were
therefore not only schismatic in a religious sense, but factious, seditious,
and highly dangerous politically. Wesley, who was educated among the
Dissenters before he conformed, offered a first-hand account of their
unwarrantable practices. Young men at the academies talked disre
spectfully or disloyally of the government, and king-killing doctrines
were generally received and defended by the party. Dissenters are, in
their avowd principles for a Commonwealth.6 The bishops in particular
5Henry Sacheverell, The Nature and Mischief of Prejudice and Partiality Stated in a
Sermon Preachd at St. Marys in Oxford at the Assize held there, March 9th. 1703/04 (Oxford:
Lichfield, 1704), Dedicatory epistle, 3, 26, 31, 42, 56; Samuel Wesley, A Defence of a Letter
Concerning the Education of Dissenters in their Private Academies (London: Clavel and
Knaplock, 1704), 56; 1721.
6Samuel Wesley, A Letter from a Country Divine to his Friend in London Concerning the
Education of the Dissenters in their Private Academies in Several Parts of this Nation. Humbly
offerd to the Consideration of the Grand Committee of Parliament for Religion, now Sitting
(London: Clavel and Knaplock, 1704), 36; 67. Wesley, Defence, 1920.
were subject to censure as the Dissenters were advocates of root and

branch-work with Episcopacy.7
The argument for the Dissenters dangerous disloyalty was supported
by an appeal to the actual writings of the Dissenters against episcopacy
(with contempt for both the office and persons of bishops) and occasion
ally against monarchy itself.8 Charges of disloyalty were also supported
historically by rehearsing the religious causes of the civil war and the
Nonconformists involvement in the execution of Charles I. Wesley
expounded the same line of thought as Sacheverell with a long historical
section that placed all the blame for the civil war and the kings death on
the Presbyterians. The Presbyterians and Independents were united in
one common cause in the civil war, as they are now again united, and
then they were intent on the destruction of church and state, with the
implication that they still were. The whole body of Dissenters, according
to Wesley, is disposed to the infection of king killing.9
High Anglicans traced the root of disloyalty to the disordered psychol
ogy of the Dissenters and ultimately to the education of their youth in
the Dissenting academies. Since young people are particularly suscep
tibleto influence, Dissenting education promoted the early adoption of
prejudices that were against the established church and government.10
The leading cause of the disordered temper of the Dissenters thereby
arose from a false education that contributed to habitual behavior making
people impudent in defending the prejudices that they learned early in
life. Out of these schools and nurseries of rebellion have sprung books
and seditious libels which were against monarchy and established hierar
chy, and religion.11
The deepest worries of high-Churchmen, however, centered around
the public nature of the academies and the threat of their permanence;
the education of Presbyterian and Independent ministers, the very people
most to blame for these dangers, necessarily entailed the perpetration
and propagation of the schism. The academies were a public offence again
the universities, against royal authority, against the established church,
and against good government. It was the Dissenters public factious
7Wesley, Letter, 7, 12; Wesley, Defence, 6.

8Wesley, Defence, 7, 811, 1721, 2128.
9Wesley, Defence, 2140; Sacheverell, Mischief, 3157.
10Sacheverell, Mischief, 24, also 5; Wesley, Letter, 3; Wesley, Defence, 5859; immoral
behavior and political disloyalty are constantly linked in Wesley, Defence, 4347; 5152.
11Sacheverell, Mischief, 20, 56; Wesley, Letter, 7, 14; Wesley, Defence, 5.
opposition to the government that justly alarmd it, said Sacheverell.12

Judges and justices must take action, because if they did not, this growing
mischief will gradually gather strength, rise into corporations, and soci
eties of schismand perpetuate their dissension to posterity.13 Wesleys
concerns were expressed in nearly identical terms to those of Sacheverell.
The Dissenters are judged to be resolute to perpetrate a schism and
Anglicans must in turn be resolute and earnest to dissolve or heal it.14
Such high-Church arguments clearly implied a narrow interpretation of
the meaning of the Toleration Act and the need for rigorous legal action
against Dissenters. Wesley denied the broader view adopted by the
Dissenters that the Toleration Act had given them permission to form
themselves into churches on the same ground as the national church.15
For Sacheverell and Wesley, the Act only removed certain penalties, and it
was by no means intended to encourage the permanence and growth of
the schism. The Act extended to Dissenters the merest of legal protection
in their public worship. For these reasons, the law should be enforced
against the Nonconformists and the tutors who led the academies.
Sacheverells sermon appealed in impassioned tones to the grand jury and
the justices and judges of the Oxford circuit for a timely execution of the
law upon such enormous and unheard-of offences, exhorting them to
bear not the sword in vain and execute wrath upon those that do evil.
Because of the danger to both church and state, Wesley admonished
the government to have an eye upon em, to take speedy measures,
and he specifically recommended that the Lower House of Convocation
take action.16
The gauntlet thrown down by Sacheverell and Wesley was picked up by
the Presbyterian Samuel Palmer, who engaged both writers in detail on
behalf of the Presbyterians and Independents. Perhaps the most impor
tant aspect of Palmers treatise is the implied permanence of Dissent; reli
gious separation from the national church is judged to be an acceptable
and legitimate reality. Palmer began his defense with a plea that all restric
tions should be taken off the universities and the academies alike, but
naturally, given the charges that had been leveled against the Dissenters,
he was duty-bound to devote the longest discussion of the book to the
12Sacheverell, Mischief, 54; Wesley, Defence, 49.

13Sacheverell, Mischief, 5455.
14Wesley, Letter, 4; Wesley, Defence, 1416.
15Wesley, Defence, 89, 11.
16Sacheverell, Mischief, 57; also, 3234, 55; Wesley, Defence, 2, 48.
question of the Dissenters political loyalty.17 In the Nonconformists

public confessions of faith, which are the acts of Dissenters as a party,
they own the divine source of magistracy and contend that lawful author
ity is not to be resisted. Palmer defended the balanced constitution and
limited monarchy and denied the charge that the Dissenters espoused
republicanism.18 As to the blame leveled by Sacheverell and Wesley
for causing the civil war, Palmer declares the charges false since it was
not a war of religion, and the Dissenters as a body are free, in Palmers
estimate, from any taint of regicide.19
Two of Palmers more important arguments have to do with the theo
retical grounds of the right of educating ones own children and the inter
pretation of the Toleration Act. The first relates to a defense based on
natural rights, and here Palmer draws upon the recently articulated
thought of John Locke. Dissenters ought to be able to educate their own
youth according to the rational dictates of their own conscience, and this
is an original and inviolable right founded on the law of nature. This
right could only be forfeited when principles were taught and practices
pursued that were visibly and incontestably destructive of moral virtue
or just government. In brief, conscience and the right of private judgment
are the basis for private education.20 Palmers understanding of con
science also bears directly on his interpretation of the Toleration Act. In
direct opposition to Sacheverell, he argues that the liberty of conscience
granted by law includes within it whether one chooses public or private
education.21 On the grounds of reason and equity private schools fall
within the provisions found in the Toleration Act since education in
ones own principles is a part of our conscientious dissent, and the gen
eral end of the Act seems to be the securing of their right to educate their
own ministers. Since the Toleration Act intends to preserve Dissenters
from persecution for their conscientious separation from the Church of
17Samuel Palmer, A Vindication of the Learning, Loyalty, Morals, and most Christian
Behaviour of the Dissenters toward the Church of England. In answer to Mr. Wesleys
defence of his Letter Concerning the Dissenters Education in their Private Academies.
And to Mr. Sacheverels Injurious Reflections upon them (London: Lawrence, 1705), 4, 10;
Chap. 5: Loyalty of Principles: Behavior toward Authority, 3965. Palmers earlier
pamphlet of 1703 covers the same topics, but in much briefer compass; for example on
the Dissenters loyalty, see A Defence of the Dissenters Education in their Private Academies:
in answer to Mr. Wys Disingenuous and Unchristian Reflections upon em (London:
Baldwin, 1703), 1012.
18Palmer, Vindication, 40, 48, 5051.
19Palmer, Vindication, 9, 4246; 5557; 5961.
20Palmer, Vindication, 35, 7.
21Palmer, Vindication, 7, citing Sacheverells Assize Sermon, 55.
England, it must include the right to educate their own ministers. Besides,
to deprive one the use of private education without admitting one to
public education interferes with the liberty of conscience, with which we
are invested by law.22
In the midst of this pamphlet warfare, in December 1705 (and possibly
in response to the earlier concerns expressed in the lower house of
Convocation), both houses of Parliament gave an entire day to debate the
question of whether the church was in danger, and several of the speak
ers voiced fears similar to those of Sacheverell and Wesley. Although both
houses voted by large majorities that the church was not in danger (a view
that was effectively reversed in 1714), the matter of the Nonconformist
academies was introduced in both debates. The opinion of some was
clearly in favor of suppression. For example, the Archbishop of York, John
Sharp, said that he apprehended danger from the increase of dissenters,
and particularly from the many academies set up by them, and moved,
that the judges might be consulted what laws were in force against such
seminaries, and by what means they might be suppressed.23 The threat
such language posed to the Nonconformists was evident in the Bishop of
Salisburys summary of the debate; low-Churchman Gilbert Burnet argued
that the toleration had in fact softened the tempers of the Dissenters,
who to him seemed quiet and content with their toleration if they could
be but secure of enjoying it.24 In the years that ensued leading up to the
trial of Henry Sacheverell in 1710, it would become increasingly clear that
it was not the church but the Dissenters who were in danger.
The Dissenters witnessed a quickening pace of opposition in the form
of direct attacks in the last four years of Annes reign, beginning with the
backlash to the pyrrhic Whig victory of the impeachment of Henry
Sacheverell. The violence of the Sacheverell riots in March of 1710 signaled
a fortuitous shift in political fortunes for the Tories, and within a month
ofthe trial, the dismissal of Whig ministers commenced. The Dissenters,
however, suffered the most. The verdict against Sacheverell provoked
high-Church riots in London that Geoffrey Holmes ranked second in
destructive power only to the Gordon riots of 1780.25 On the night of
22Palmer, Vindication, 711.

23William Cobbett, Cobbetts Parliamentary History of England, vol. 6 (London:
Hansard, 1810), 492493; for the Lords debate, 6 Dec., 479508; for the Commons debate,
7 Dec., less fully reported, 508509.
24Cobbett, Parliamentary History, 506.
25Geoffrey Holmes, The Sacheverell Riots: The Crowd and the Church in Early
Eighteenth-Century London, PP 72 (1976): 56.
March 1, 1710, a well-orchestrated mob involving many thousands of

Londoners systematically dismantled six Dissenting chapels, two of which
were large structures with three galleries each, collected the debris in
the center of the streets to avoid burning adjacent houses, and burned
them in huge bonfires. These six chapels provided seating for thousands
of Dissenters, and the impact of the riots on the mentality of the victims
was undoubtedly profound. If it is true, as Holmes argues, that at least
four-fifths of the parish clergy in England and Wales were sympathetic to
the cause of Sacheverell, the fears that Dissenters entertained were not
without foundation.26
In the general election in late 1710 the Tories won a significant
electoral advantage, and by 1711 the Tory majorities in Parliament were
sufficiently great to enable them to pass the long discussed Occasional
Conformity Act that closed the loophole that had allowed Dissenters to
become sacramentally qualified to hold office. In the general election
of September 1713, another Tory electoral victory set the stage for even
more aggressive moves against the Dissenters, and in early 1714 plans were
laid in Tory and high-Church circles for a bill that would prevent the
further growth of schism and effectively limit the toleration to the gen
eration living at the time. In June 1714 the Schism Act finally passed both
houses of Parliament.
The provisions of the Act to Prevent the Growth of Schism were sim
ple and at the same time devastating to Dissent in that they re-established
the Act of Uniformity of 1662 with respect to Dissenting schools and
confined all religious instruction strictly to the Church of England.27 Any
schoolmaster who wished to teach religious subjects must either be an
Anglican, or conform by becoming sacramentally qualified (with a certifi
cate), obtain a license from his bishop, and then, importantly, use only the
Church catechism, thereby guaranteeing Anglican confessional unifor
mity in England and Ireland. The penalty for teaching without a license
was three months imprisonment, and if one attended a Nonconformist
meeting after being licensed, teachers were disqualified from teaching
again unless they conformed for a year. Dissenting schoolmasters were by
this law permitted to instruct youth in reading, writing, and mathemati
cal learning, but only insofar as these subjects bore on navigation and the
mechanical arts. Numerous Nonconformist academies suspended their
26Holmes, Sacheverell, 69.

2713 Anne, c. 7, The Statutes of the Realm (London: Ayre and Strahan, 18101825).
work as a result of the Act.28 However, both the Schism Act and the
Occasional Conformity Act were repealed in 1719 under radically changed
political circumstances and a Whig administration that was far more
friendly to Dissent.
In the period during which the Schism Bill was debated in Parliament,
numerous pamphlets and sermons appeared on both sides of the issue.
Earlier treatises on schism and separation were reissued, and many writ
ers engaged the issues for the first time. The arguments fall into roughly
the same categories as the earlier debate between Sacheverell and Wesley
against Palmer. In support of the Bill, writers reiterated longstanding
claims of the disloyalty of the Dissenters, who were judged to be in a
state of schism and dangerously inclined to sedition.29 As in the earlier
exchanges, Dissenters were blamed for the civil war and the death of
Charles I, with the direct implication drawn that they were an abiding
menace to church and state; these very persons not a century before
(or, in another authors phrase, not long ago), overthrew the constitu
tion, both civil and ecclesiastical. The ministers as leaders of Dissent were
particularly to blame, and if the academies which disturbed the public
peace were legitimized, then the schism would be permanent and would
possibly fly out into an actual rebellion30 Hence the Schism Bill was
viewed by its supporters as a chief means of bringing the indulgence of the
Dissenters under the Toleration Act to an end.
The debate over the Toleration Act thus bulked much larger in this
period than it had before. Statements that had earlier appeared as mere
assertions were now defended at length. The high-Church understanding
of the Toleration Act pointedly reveals the seriousness of the threat to the
very existence of Dissent. While not all high-Churchmen were willing to
admit that the Bill effectively revoked the Toleration Act, some writers
forcefully asserted as much. High-Churchman George Sewell wrote, The
Government which was pleased to grant that indulgence thinks fit to
retract it, and the government had sufficient power to do so. The reason
28David L. Wykes, Quaker Schoolmasters, Toleration and the Law, 16891714, JRH 21
(June 1997): 187.
29George Sewell, Schism, Destructive of the Government, Both in Church and State. Being
a Defence of the Bill, Intitled, An Act for Preventing the Growth of Schism, 2nd ed. (London:
Curll, 1714), 4, 2324; this pamphlet is mispaginated from p. 8 forward and again at
p. 25 and following.
30Sewell, Schism, 19, 2425; see also Anon., Reasons for the Law, now Depending
in Parliament, to Prevent the Further Growth of Schism. Shewing, that the Indulgence
granted to Dissenters is Dangerous both to Church and State (London: Roberts, 1714), 1112;
2223; 2930.
for the change was that the legislature believed that the Dissenters may
injure, or subvert the constitution by a longer indulgence of this tolera
tion. An anonymous pamphleteer argued that the Act of Indulgence
must not be extended to Dissenting seminaries and the public education
of youth.31 No one, in Sewells view, had ever understood the Toleration
Act to be any more than a temporary indulgence granted until the pas
sage of time and better information might bring those who were indulged
to conformity. It applied only to the generation of Dissenters that lived at
the time and was intended only for those adults whose views were already
well-formed. Since the Act itself included nothing about its permanence,
its duration was left entirely in the power of the legislature. In brief, the
posterity of those Dissenters who were once indulged never had a right
to the benefits of the Toleration Act.32
In the high-Church view, the Dissenters and the patrons of schism
had unduly enlarged and broadened the meaning of the Toleration Act.33
The permanence of the Toleration Act was never promised, but even if it
had been promised, promises by governors were, according to Sewell,
always conditional, and if the safety of the nation was in doubt, promises
might be revoked. So the force of the Toleration Act was in the extent
they [the Dissenters] mean by it, taken away by the Schism Act, and
properly so, since the legislature had determined that the security of the
church and the state required the Bill.34
A number of eminent Dissenters wrote against the Bill, including John
Shute (later Viscount Barrington), who was one of the most effective
lay-writers among the Dissenters, and Daniel Defoe, doubtless the most
well-known Dissenting author. They were joined in opposition to the Bill
by several well-known Anglicans, including Sir Richard Steele and John
Oldmixon. Again, many of the earlier arguments appeared here, but they
were put with even more urgency in 1714. Opponents of the Bill naturally
denied the Dissenters complicity as a unified body in the civil war and the
death of Charles I and defended their loyalty and good behavior.35 Defoe,
31Sewell, Schism, 8, 17; Reasons, 13.

32Sewell, Schism, 17, 2021; also Reasons, 1314, for the Toleration Act as a temporary,
revocable indulgence; and Reasons, 2nd ed. (1718), 3637, where, under pressure for repeal
in 1718, the author implies that without the Bill, England might even arrive at a general
Toleration that would result in great disturbance.
33Sewell, Schism, 20; also Reasons, 14.
34Sewell, Schism, 3, 2930.
35John Shute, A Letter from a Lay-man, in Communion with the Church of England, tho
Dissenting from Her in Some Points (London: Clark, 1714), 14, 1617, 26.
who was a careful observer and in a position to know such things, depicted
a happy, contented, and loyal Nonconformist nation under William and
Mary and the early years of Annes reign, but warned of the dire conse
quences, particularly the alienation of the Dissenters affection for the
government, should the Bill become law.36 Once the Bill was amended at
points and became law, Defoe was far more hopeful that the Act could be
connived at, even though the risks of prosecution remained real.37
The theoretical grounds for opposition to the Bill were, unsurprisingly,
the freedom of conscience based upon both the light of nature and
Protestant thought. Shute argued in much the same terms as Samuel
Palmer for a Lockean understanding of rights possessed by all persons
in a state of nature. Christian teaching as expressed in the Protestant
Reformation was the basis for claiming the right of private judgment.
In terms very similar to those of Shute, Steele and others argued that the
Bill would abridge natural, religious, and civil rights.38 In short, our right
as men and Christians is the right to judge for ourselves in matters of
religion, and hence truth will be followed where the fairest, freest inqui
ries are most countenancd.39 Dissenter and low-Churchman alike argued
that nothing is more dear to a parents conscience than the direction
of their childrens education. If people cannot educate their own chil
drenin their own way, they are not tolerated but persecuted. Parents are
given the use of reason and feelings of tenderness for their own children in
order to govern and guide them, and therefore it follows that to hinder the
education of children is to pervert the order of nature.40
Shute and Steele adopted a broad view of the Toleration Act and made
it the centerpiece of their opposition to the Bill. The Dissenters and their
low-Church Anglican allies were of one mind: the Schism Bill interpreted
the Toleration Act as a temporary expedient and it would, over time,
36Daniel Defoe, The Remedy Worse than the Disease; or, Reasons Against Passing the Bill
for Preventing the Growth of Schism. To which is Added, a Brief Discourse of Toleration and
Persecution (London: Baker, 1714), 4, 6, 57.
37Daniel Defoe, The Schism Act Explaind: Wherein Some Methods are laid down how the
Dissenters may Teach their Schools and Academies as usual, without incurring the Penalties
of the said Act (London: Bell, 1714), 1521.
38Shute, Letter, 6, 910; Richard Steele, A Letter to a Member of Parliament Concerning
the Bill for Preventing the Growth of Schism (Edinburgh, 1714), 1317; Defoe, Remedy, 12; John
Oldmixon, The Sense of the Church of England with Respect to the Schism of the Protestant
Dissenters. Wherein their Case is Fully Stated and the Bill now Depending Considerd (London:
Cliff, 1714), 20.
39Shute, Letter, 8, 10, 12; Defoe, Remedy, 1314.
40Oldmixon, Sense, 10, 13; Shute, Letter, 19, 22, 24.
reduce the Toleration to a dead letter. The Toleration Act, wrote Shute,
enshrined toleration as a fundamental principle and maxim of our
government, and even in the recent Occasional Conformity Act (1711),
the nation has received fresh assurances, that the Toleration shall be invi
olably maintaind41 The Bill, according to Steele, in a stealing and too
artful a manner, takes away the toleration of Dissenters; for the force of it
is directed to take place in confirmation of a law [the Act of Uniformity]
which they are expressly defended against by the said Act of Toleration.42
Steele argued as well that the Toleration Act exempted the Dissenters
religion, giving them a right to worship publically as a benefit, but with
that benefit, he continued, went the means of obtaining it, and education
is the necessary means which this law [the Schism Bill] intercepts.43
The terms of the Bill led Defoe to conclude that the churches of Dissenters
will be shut up as well as their schools.44
Finally, the inconsistency of the Bill with the recent Act of Union with
Scotland was a significant point of the debate. Defoe, who had been heav
ily invested in the negotiations and published a history of the Union in
1709, was particularly penetrating on this issue.45 As Shute (who was also
engaged in winning Presbyterian support in Scotland) put the matter,
with Presbyterian forms of worship on one side of the Tweed and Episcopal
on the other, how could Dissent be declared a good thing there, and intol
erable and unfit here?46 The Bill was, in Steeles words, a destructive and
pernicious Bill, terrible to scrupulous consciences in that it threatened
adult Dissenters with the loss of toleration and certainly denied it to
their Dissenting posterity.47 It confined education to a single party and
promoted persecution, which in its nature obstructs the free acquisition
of knowledge in all forms of learning and science.48 Defoe, always the
pragmatist (and with the French Huguenots in mind), worried about the
loss to trade and the national interest should the Dissenters become so
disaffected that they would immigrate to other countries.
41Shute, Letter, 16. A second edition of the letter includes a postscript that makes the
legal case that the Bill is inconsistent with the Toleration Act and other laws of the realm.
Shute, 2nd ed. (London: Baker, 1714), 31- 36; Steele, Letter, 512; Defoe, Remedy, 34, 67;
Oldmixon, Sense, 2829.
42Steele, Letter, 12.
43Steele, Letter, 16; Defoe, Remedy, 25; and Sewells response, Sewell, Schism, 20.
44Defoe, Remedy, 12, 17.
45Defoe, Remedy, 26.
46Shute, Letter, 24; Steele, Letter, 11.
47Steele, Letter, 25, 29, 30.
48Defoe, Remedy, 3538; Oldmixon, Sense, 14.
The fragmentary evidence we have of the debate in Parliament

(cast throughout by William Cobbett in favor of the Whigs) indicates that
the same arguments broached in the public arena appeared in the House
of Commons and in the House of Lords. We find the purported threat that
the Dissenters posed to the nation and open Tory concessions that the bill
did strike at the Toleration Act; its persecutory and divisive nature was
noted (just at the moment that Protestant unity was needed), as was its
inconsistency with the Act of Union. Overall, there was perhaps a greater
emphasis in Parliament on the possible negative economic repercussions
of the bill to English manufacturing than there was in the public debate.49
Importantly, during the debate in the House of Commons, the right of
the Dissenters to vote in parliamentary elections was threatened on two
separate occasions by the Tories, a tactic used to sidetrack the Whig oppo
sition and maintain the momentum in support of the Bill.50 The failure to
follow through on this threat would ultimately contribute to the Whig
electoral victory of 1715 and indirectly to the repeal of the Act itself.
At least two matters of note emerged from the controversy over
Nonconformist schools, one having to do with political and ecclesiastical
principles, and the other related to political interest and influence. First,
as to principle, if the Dissenters adopted a broad understanding of the Act
of Toleration, they strove to give a narrow interpretation to the term
schism and thereby limit its meaning. Early in the debate Steele observed
that the Bill itself offered no definition of schism and wondered whether it
was intended in a religious or a political sense. He concluded that it must
apply to those who do not conform to the established church and not as
they are persons who live in an erroneous way with regard to faith or
piety. In other words, it was political schism.51 Similarly, Oldmixon
wrote that schism in the church sense does not apply to the Protestant
Dissenters because there is no disagreement in essentials of religion and
points tending to salvation.52 The matter was put in positive terms as
well. Diversity of religions in a state is consistent with good government,
wrote Defoe; indeed, a variety of opinions is a certain sign of a free
49Cobbett, Parliamentary History, on the danger, 1351; on toleration, 1352, 1353, 1356,
1357; on persecution 1349, 1356, 1357 and division, 1352, 1357; on the Union, 1352, 1358; and
on trade, 1350, 1353, 1357.
50Cobbett, Parliamentary History, 1350, 1356. Of course the Occasional Conformity
Act aimed to control the Dissenting vote in corporation boroughs, but Dissenters were
especially numerous in some of the larger open freeman boroughs.
51Steel, Letter, 10.
52Oldmixon, Sense, 4, 37.
government. In Defoes words, diversity of religions is so far from being

dangerous, that it ought rather be counted beneficial, as it creates a noble
emulation in manners, learning, industry, and loyalty.53 The debate over
the Schism Bill was thus the occasion for the Dissenters to relaunch an old
campaign (traceable in its origins to the 1680s and the writings of Richard
Baxter and John Owen, among others) to deny the sin of schism and
defend themselves in terms of the more neutral concept of separation.
Dissenting churches were separate, legitimate Christian congregations
worthy of recognition by the national church.54 The term pluralism was
never used, but separation, diverse religious worship, and a medley of
churches were used, and religious pluralism, approximating the modern
sense, seems to have been implied. These arguments, at least to many of
the Anglican Whig friends of Dissent, were convincing.
But secondly, with respect to political interest, it may well have been
less the logic of the case and more a matter of political interest that helped
work such a dramatic change in the Dissenting fortunes of the first years
of George Is reign. It was neither the arguments of the Dissenters nor
those of their Anglican friends alone that led to repeal and restored
their limited toleration for the duration of the long-eighteenth century.
The new alliance forged with low-Church Anglicans was based on expedi
ence, and thus political interest seems to have been more influential than
principles and arguments, whether stated inside or outside the doors of
Parliament. Apart from the accession of George I, the resurgence of the
Whigs in the general election of 1715, and the reaction to the abortive
Jacobite rebellion in Scotland, a more positive appraisal of Nonconformity
might never have occurred and toleration might have come to an end.
These events, however, helped secure an alliance, already well along in
the process of formation, between the Dissenters and low-Church
Anglicans. The alliance was sealed, as it were, by the confirmation in 1718
of how critical the Dissenting vote was to Whig electoral victories in
theborough constituencies. In preparation for the repeal campaign, John
Shute, along with seventeen other Dissenting correspondents, collabo
rated on the first national survey of the political strength of the
Nonconformists in borough and county electorates by actually counting
53Defoe, Remedy, 31, 42.

54John Billingsley, A Brief Discourse of Schism. By a Protestant, 2nd ed. (London: Bell,
1714); Charles Owen, Plain-Dealing: or, Separation without Schism, and Schism without
Separation. Exemplifyd in the Case of Protestant-Dissenters and Church-Men (London:
Matthews, 1715).
the number of Dissenting voters.55 The substance of the survey pointed in

a single direction: Whig Members of Parliament needed the Nonconformist
vote in numerous constituencies if they were to secure their political
future against local Tory and high-Church parties.
Once it is conceded that political influence was important to the out
come of the debate over the Schism Act, it can also be argued that the
principles and arguments in favor of religious diversity would ultimately
gain widespread acceptance. Dissenters had begun, however tentatively,
to sever the thousand-year-old links between episcopacy, monarchy, and
political loyalty. We can conclude at a minimum that if the limits of
toleration were illumined by the controversy over education, so were the
limits of England as a unitary, confessional state. In the ensuing decades
Nonconformist schools and academies survived, developed, and in a few
cases became outstanding examples of educational excellence. The train
ing they offered ensured the survival of an educated ministry and ulti
mately contributed to a level of scholarship which could hold its own with
the graduates of the two universities and the leading Anglican writers.
55James E. Bradley, Nonconformity and the Electorate in Eighteenth-Century

England, Parliamentary History 6 (1987): 238.
PIETY, THEOLOGY, EXEGESIS, AND TRADITION: ANNA MARIA
VAN SCHURMANS ELABORATION OF GENESIS 13 AND ITS
RELATIONSHIP TO THE COMMENTARY TRADITION
John L. Thompson
Anyone of learning who lived in Europe in the mid-seventeenth century

and who had not heard of Anna Maria van Schurman was, to put it bluntly,
simply not paying attention. Accomplished in poetry, painting, languages,
and letters, van Schurmans literary reputation was established in many
ways, including by the Latin ode she penned for the opening of the
University of Utrecht in 1636 at the request of Gisbert Voetius, professor of
theology.1 More notable still was the treatise that has come to us in English
as Whether a Christian Woman Should Be Educated, which appeared in
Paris in 1638 and then in Leiden in 1641 as part of her epistolary exchange
with another professor of theology, Andr Rivet.2 She is also remembered
for auditing the lectures of Voetius while hidden from the other (male)
students by a screen. Her remembrance if not her reputation was later
secured by her scandalous break with Voetius and the Reformed church in
her sixties, in favor of her affiliation with the sectarian pietist Jean de
Labadie.
Nonetheless, not all her writings are equally well known today.3 One
such writing is arguably a work both of poetry and of biblical exegesisan
1Van Schurman made Voetius acquaintance in 1634 and began studies with him
shortly thereafter. Her poem was published with others delivered on the occasion in
Academiae Ultrajectinae inauguratio (Utrecht, 1636).
2The authoritative text is the 1641 Leiden edition, which contains added correspon-
dence: Dissertatio de ingenii muliebris ad doctrinam et meliores literas aptitudine: Accedunt
Quaedam epistolae eiusem argumenti. The first English edition of 1659 has at last been
upstaged by Joyce L. Irwin, ed., Anna Maria van Schurman: Whether a Christian Woman
Should Be Educated and Other Writings from Her Intellectual Circle (Chicago: UCP, 1998).
3The reception of van Schurmans person and works has been traced in considerable
detail by Mirjam de Baar and Brita Rang, Anna Maria van Schurman: A Historical Survey
of Her Reception since the Seventeenth Century, in Choosing the Better Part: Anna Maria
van Schurman (16071678), ed. Mirjam de Baar et al. (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1996), 122.
De Baar and Rang credit a 1977 article by Joyce Irwin as heralding the recent wave of
renewed international interest, and the collection of diverse essays edited by de Baar et al.
is itself a testimony to this surge of writing on van Schurman. Extensive if not exhaustive
bibliographies are found in de Baar et al. (Choosing the Better Part, 155171) as well as in
Pieta van Beeks recent biography, The First Female University Student: Anna Maria van
Schurman (1636) (Utrecht: Igitur, 2010), 262274.
614 john l. thompson
explanation or paraphrase of Genesis 13, written around 1660 but

published only posthumously, in 1732.4 This 944-line poem presents a
unique opportunity not only to consider van Schurmans exegesis but also
to look for signs of interaction with her contemporary Reformed teachers
as well as her extensive reading in earlier Christian sources, ranging from
the church fathers through classic Protestant writers and writings.5 This
essay will therefore examine her Uitbreiding of Genesis 13 in order to
sketch a partial account of the theological and exegetical heritage it
displays.
Poetry or Exegesis? Or Both?
The Uitbreiding is a curious document. It was probably written by 1660,

based on its association with some of van Schurmans other Dutch poems
for which private circulation can be dated with some approximation.6
By then, there can be no doubt that van Schurman was fluent in biblical
languages as well as Latin, and her skills in biblical exegesis had occasion-
ally been demonstrated in public.7 So can we properly regard this work as
exegetical? Yes and no.
The poems title identifies it as an uitbreidingan elaboration or
amplificationof the opening chapters of Genesis. As a work of exegesis,
the poem might have taken inspiration from a host of precedents
besides the huge corpus of biblical commentaries. Elaborating the Bible
had been made respectable a century earlier by the Paraphrases of
Erasmus, which van Schurman easily could have known. Likewise, we
know she read the church fathers, whose hexameral writings singled out
4Uitbreiding over de drie eerste capittels van Genesis. Beneffens een vertoog van het
geestelyk huwelyk van Christus met de gelovigen. Beide in Zinrijke Digtmaat t zamen gesteld,
door wylen Juffer Anna Maria van Schuurman. Nu eerst na het Originele handschrift gedrukt.
(Groningen: Sipkes, 1732).
5Studies of van Schurmans theology often focus more on her late work, Eukleria (1673),
and on her conversion to Labadism. The definitive account of her Dutch poetry is by Pieta
van Beek, Verbastert Christendom: Nederlandse Gedichten van Anna Maria van Schurman
(16071678) (Houten: Den Hertog, 1992); see also idem, O Utreght, Lieve Stad: Poems in
Dutch by Anna Maria van Schurman, in Choosing the Better Part, 6885. Aside from a few
passing comments about the Uitbreiding, the work has been studied in detail only by
Elisabeth Gssmann in her edited volume, Das wohlgelahrte Frauenzimmer, 2nd ed.
(Munich: Iudicium, 1998), 1:103112.
6See van Beek: Verbastert Christendom, 95, cf. 8081; First Female, 89, 215; O Utreght,
7781.
7See van Beek, First Female (8790, 119120), for anecdotes about van Schurmans skills
in biblical exegesis.
piety, theology, exegesis, and tradition 615
Genesis 1 for encyclopedic exposition. But there are also precedents for
poetry based on the creation narrativesindeed, poetry of epic propor-
tions, such as La premiere semaine ou la creation du monde (1578) by
theHuguenot poet Guillaume Du Bartas, which was widely printed and
translated.8 Though there is no reason to suppose that van Schurman
could not have known this work too, its length dwarfs her poem by roughly
sevenfold, and that alone suggests that her own work needs to be assessed
more inductively.
Accordingly, while there is no evidence that the Uitbreiding was
intended as anything like an exercise in Hebrew exegesis, van Schurmans
impressive reading in classical theology and her tutelage with Voetius and
others is very much on display. In a short summary of the poem, Joyce
Irwin has said that Reformed covenant theology is the framework
for her biblical interpretation, but that van Schurmans description of
redemption as loss of self and union with God reflects the Pietist approach
of her later phase of life.9 Without wishing to discount the trajectory that
would later lead van Schurman from what could be seen as the institu-
tionalized idealism of the Nadere Reformatie to the more sectarian ideal-
ism of her later association with Labadie, one may argue that the theme of
union with God and its obverse, a denial or loss of self, was itself already
innate to the Nadere Reformatie (as well as the broader Reformed tradi-
tion).10 But Irwin is correct to find many marks of what van Schurman
would have learned from Voetius and Rivet, as well as from her lengthy
association with other scholars and pastors of the Nadere Reformatie.
Still, it is reasonable to wonder if this didactic poem was influenced
byspecifically exegetical traditions. On the one hand, a poem might value
eloquence over precision of theological expression. On the other hand,
8The first French edition ran to just under 6500 lines (counting only the first week),
but the work was revised multiple times; see The Works of Guillaume De Salluste Sieur
Du Bartas: A Critical Edition with Introduction, Commentary, and Variants, ed. Holmes et al.,
3 vols. (Chapel Hill: UNCP, 1935).
9Joyce Irwin, Anna Maria van Schurman, in Handbook of Women Biblical Interpreters,
ed. Taylor (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012), 440441. Elisabeth Gssmanns essay offers many
running observations on the poems content and is especially adept at highlighting corre-
lations with the women writers who preceded her, but Gssmann does not consider
whether the poem shows any indebtedness to traditional exegesis; see Das wohlgelahrte
Frauenzimmer, 103, 105107, 110.
10See Richard A. Muller, Union with Christ and the Ordo Salutis: Reflections on
Developments in Early Modern Reformed Thought, in Calvin and the Reformed Tradition:
Studies on the Work of Christ and the Order of Salvation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012),
202243; and Arie de Reuver, Sweet Communion: Trajectories of Spirituality from the Middle
Ages through the Further Reformation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007).
would it be possible for a brilliant mind such as that of Anna Maria van
Schurman not to retain the impress of whatever she may have known of
the commentary tradition? The question can be addressed in two moves.
First, bearing in mind the general outlines of Genesis commentaries from
the late medieval and early modern period, we will survey some of the
topics, questions, and interests that van Schurmans poem shares with this
extensive body of literatureas well note some elements that she omits.
After that, we will ask if any specific exegetical sources might have exerted
a demonstrable influence on her work.11
The Uitbreiding as a Commentary on Genesis 13
It was no less true in the seventeenth century than it is today that the
commentary genre is often achingly predictable. Indeed, most commen-
tators are keen to interact with their predecessors, even where earlier
views and voices are not acknowledged, and there are long lists of tradi-
tional questions posed not so much by the Bible as by generations of
commentatorsand it is rare to come across an original answer. Despite
the unusual genre of the Uitbreiding, there is no reason to think van
Schurman was aiming at theological innovationnor is there reason to
suppose, given her extraordinary learning, that she would have been par-
ticularly ignorant of what contemporary commentators would have
discussed.
At its outset, the Uitbreiding demonstrates that van Schurman was
not writing a hexameron, for the first five and a half days of creation
are recounted in only 10 lines. But alongside the expected affirmation of
creation ex nihilo, one cannot miss her real interest in Genesis 1: the
human being as Gods own image.
41 We are thus, I say, rightly to be appraised
42 as an abstract of Gods wondrous works and ways:
43our souls bear the image of heavens very crown,
44 our bodies are an image of earths own renown.12
11Still the best overview is Arnold Williams, The Common Expositor: An Account of the
Commentaries on Genesis, 15271633 (Chapel Hill: UNCP, 1948). My own consideration of
van Schurmans Uitbreiding in the larger context of commentary literature derives from
extensive reading in Genesis commentaries as preparation for my volume on Genesis 111
for the Reformation Commentary on Scripture (Downers Grove: IVP, 2012).
12Line numbers are sequential for the entire poem from 1 to 944, and the translation
here is the one prepared by myself and Albert Gootjes for a forthcoming edition of this
poem. We rendered van Schurmans text as gender-inclusive wherever possible, based on
Humans are thus a microcosm of heaven and eartha lesson dear to

Platonists but also significant for Christians, for whom the notion enabled
them to speak of even the body as somehow involved in imaging Gods
creative work. The poem then devotes nearly fifty lines to a litany in praise
of all aspects of the human beingsoul, spirit, body; intellect, will, affec-
tions; reason and sensesas reflections of the divine wisdom and glory
(4592). This long list enables van Schurman to impart a variety of les-
sons,including that the soul or reason ought to rule over the body and
its sensesanother traditional observation, more often introduced in
Genesis 3, when orderliness is disrupted by sin. It is this passage that bears
the closest resemblance not only to the epic poetry of Du Bartas, who like-
wise describes humanity as a microcosm and extols the wonders of body
and soul, but also to the hexaemeral literature, which took delight in
inventories of the marvels of creation and human nature as expressions of
divine wisdom and as incitements to worship and praise.13
Perhaps the most interesting turn this section takes is toward its
end, when our poet allusively describes what can only be the marvel of
the human conscience. Though she does not name the conscience as
suchuntil later in the poem, it is assuredly intended here, as the evange-
listic function of this member makes clear (in phrases suggestive of
Romans 1 and 2):
87 As law and judge, it rules within to keep us on the path
88 and makes us know if we deserve Gods favor or His wrath.
89 In it the blind see something, in it the deaf can hear
90 the voice of nature sounding in every human ear,
91 calling out, There is a God, all-powerful, good, and wise,
92 who made us that His highest praise might evermore arise.
Before leaving Genesis 1, we should register that van Schurman interrupts
her account of the image of God in order to ask just who it was who made
this wondrous and glorious creature and image. The question is her
pretext for twenty dense lines informing the reader that the Creator is also
a variety of considerations, including selected instances where plural references in the

text clearly indicate that both Adam and Eve are in view, even when van Schurmans text
subsequently switches back to the generic masculine singular man. I regret that consid-
erations of space have necessitated omitting the Dutch text.
13The related passage in Du Bartas occurs in the sixth day, where the creation of man
and woman is described. For the original French, see lines 4011054 of Le Sixiesme Jour,
in Holmes et al., Works of Guillaume De Salluste Sieur Du Bartas, 2:391414; cf. Snyder, ed.,
The Divine Weeks and Works, 1:274293, lines 4191120. For a similar litany, see Ambrose,
Hexameron 6.9 (5474).
a Trinity of Persons, whose works on our behalf are undivided, whose

impassibility is utterly in contrast to the changeability of creatures, and
whose will is identical with his act. These are reasonably sophisticated
points of traditional Trinitarian orthodoxy, to which van Schurman adds
one more: that while conscience testifies to Gods existence, these Trini
tarian truths are not to be found within us (despite consciences witness)
but are revealed only by Gods wordan axiom found equally in Aquinas
and Calvin, and one that carefully draws a line between general and
special revelation.
Van Schurman reiterates the role of Scripture when she turns to Genesis
2. While we can learn much about Gods glory by looking at the wonders
of body and soul, we see Gods image more clearly from what the Bible
tells us about our first parents:
95 [H]ow good they were, and wise, how upright and holy;
96 heirs of life they were, and all else served them wholly
105 The Almighty wanted only that they should know and extol
106 Him as their Maker, to obey Him fully, with heart and soul.
107 All that they were or saw was given to propel their minds
108 into their Fathers good kingdom, their resting-place to find.
109 Like the sun, their virtue was to rise ever higher,
110 never ceasing in praising God, never growing tired.
Only Gods word tells us of our forgotten past: that we were once unflawed
and unblemished and that Gods provision for our welfare once sur-
rounded us; only Gods word tells us of Adams great wisdom, such that he
could see within the animals and comprehend their essence and their
nature (126) and name each accordinglya point often made by com-
mentators. But van Schurmans poem tacks in a distinctly Reformed direc-
tion when she says of Adam that
119 The head he was of this covenant, and trunk of the human race,
120whose branches life depended on whether he stood or met disgrace.
That covenant was the law God gave to Adam: to abstain from but a sin-
gle fruit. We know how that part of the story will end, of course, but van
Schurman adds that life in Eden was intended not for leisure but for the
pursuit of fidelity to God and growth in virtuetwo recurring themes in
the later parts of the poem.
Two other items in Genesis 2 should be noted. First, what about the
woman? In a particularly provocative line, van Schurman says
129 she neither was nor came until God willed a fitting wife to make him,
130 to adorn her with His image so that in marriage she could take him.
It is unusual to reiterate in Genesis 2 that the woman was specially

adorned with Gods image, given that the point is so explicit in Gen.
1:2627. But reconciling the details of creation in Genesis 2 with the story
of the sixth day in Genesis 1 was a traditional question, with no consensus
as to whether woman was created with the man or if she is mentioned
in Genesis 1 in anticipation onlya question that also determines whether
woman was with the man in Gen. 2:1617 when the tree was prohibited,
or whether she heard this command only later and thus indirectly,
from the man. Van Schurman mentions none of these details, yet she
implicitly denies (whether wittingly or not) a line of exegesis derived from
Ambrosiasters reading of 1 Cor. 11:7, to the effect that woman was not
made in Gods image. But van Schurman says that woman had to be in
Gods image, else no marriage or union with the man would have been
possibleeven though other pro-woman nuances identified in her poem
derive more from what she does not say. Thus, she says next to nothing
about woman as the mans helper in Gen. 2:18, where commentators
usually find detailed morals about a proper household. Of course, neither
does she say much about the equality or companionship of men and
women in light of Gen. 2:2324; the poem is a close paraphrase of the Bible
here, not really an elaboration, and the only ground for inferring even
mutuality lies in her use of the plural they in describing the status quo at
the end of Genesis 2.
A second item to note in Genesis 2 pertains to the opening verses,
which describe how God rested on the seventh day. According to van
Schurman, Gods rest has crucial implications for our own rest, which
signifies many things: the Sabbath-day observations in the Old Testament,
the equivalent observation in the New, the nature of the spiritual life as
delighting in God, and the heavenly rest to come. The Sabbath rest will be
taken up again at the poems far end, in tandem with van Schurmans
eschatological reflections, even as Sabbath considerations emerge else-
where in her writings, too, as one would expect in light of its importance
for the Nadere Reformatie, which saw a pitched battle between Voetius
and Cocceius over observance of the Sabbaththough, long before, it was
entirely common for Protestant commentators to offer an excursus on the
Sabbath here.14
14The controversy between Voetius and Johannes Cocceius that arose from contrast
ing approaches to covenant theology raged from 1654 until well into the next century;
see Willem J. van Asselt, The Federal Theology of Johannes Cocceius (16031669) (Leiden:
Brill, 2001), 2930. Not surprisingly, van Schurmans views (and practices) mirrored those
of Voetius, her mentor.
Van Schurmans account of Genesis 3 is presented in two segments

in which she recounts first the temptation and interrogation, then the
punishments and expulsion from Eden. These segments are separated by
an interlude in which she briefly ponders the horror of what Adam and
Eve have done to the human race and the need for divine justice, then
presents an apology on behalf of divine justice for having allowed this
temptation as well as on behalf of Gods role in the redemption to come.
We will briefly recap these three sections.
The account of the temptation is energetic and moving, but not neces-
sarily unusual. Ever since Augustine, the first sin had been identified
as prideuntil Luther suggested (with Calvin as a close second) that
unbelief was the greater, underlying sin.15 Van Schurmans account of faith
suggests that she is well-schooled in her Protestantism, though we will
later see that she is also adept at recognizing pride as another ingredient
in human sinning.
173 Look, now, are they faithful? Do they their Creator acclaim,
174 directing all honor to God? Is that their highest aim?
175 Is their light, their love, their highest good, in God alone?
176 Is He their life, their greatest joy, their hearts rest and home?
The themes of fidelity, duty, virtue, and holiness twine together through-
out this section, indicting our first parents but also making clear how van
Schurman will later describe the Christian life. But the section is also of
interest for the exegetical traditions that do not appear, particularly those
serving a patriarchal agenda.16 There is no mention of any special womanly
weakness, and the notorious moment in which the man blames the woman
and she then blames the serpent is not mined for any great lessons (much
less stereotypes) about gender. Instead, the interaction of Adam and Eve is
given cursory treatment, more paraphrase than elaboration; it is difficult to
conclude that gender issues were much on van Schurmans mind here.
The curses and punishments in the second half of Genesis 3 are treated
evocatively yet efficiently, with eleven verses elaborated in 50 lines. Eves
punishment appears in a single couplet describing the curse to follow
marriage with but two words: misfortune and pain (407408). A hus-
bands rule over his wife is not mentioned, nor her desire for him decreed
15For these views of the first sin, see Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram 11.30.39; Luther,
Enarrationes in Genesin 3:1 (WA 42:110112; LW 1:146148); and Calvin, Comm. Genesis 3:1
(CO 23:6061; CTS 1:152153).
16See van Beek, First Female, 219; Irwin, Anna Maria van Schurman, 440441; and
Gssmann, Das wohlgelahrte Frauenzimmer, 104106.
in v. 16. Van Schurman takes a rather grim view of some aspects of Adams
punishment (409416), though other traditional readings were available.
Adams bestowal of the name Eve on his wife is often seen as a sign of the
hope that Adam and Eve recovered when they learned that God would
still be their advocate, and the skins God gave them are often taken as
proof of Gods continuing care. But for van Schurman, Adam receives
only rebuke for what she sees as his misdirected hope, as if offspring from
Eve would give him an ersatz immortality.
417 Yet these curses the foolish man tries to blunt,
418 to seek in his offspring what he lacks but wants.
419 He looks to the mother whom he names Eve,
420 because through her, his seed its life receives.
The skins likewise reprove the fallen couple:

421 God was pleased still more to check their prideful sin,
422 to cover their shame with dead animals skin
423as a sign that those who do not fear their Gods name
424 are more filthy than beasts and persist in their shame.
Granted, these somber notes may be a deliberate antiphon for her exuber-
ance at v. 15, traditionally the protoevangelion or first proclamation of
the gospel that was prized by as heralding the advent of Christthe
seed of the woman destined to crush the head of the serpent, or Satan.
Van Schurman cloaks her exposition in the distinctly Reformed garb of
covenant theology:
389God wants no peace between the woman and the Serpent or its seed,
390 but the seed of this woman will, at the last, crush its head indeed.
391 Behold, from the mouth of God now comes that promise, that great
word
392 in which the new covenant between God and mortals is heard!
397Satan is condemned, God lifts up the human race
398 to live now without end in Gods almighty grace
399through that wonderful covenant that the Lord did provide
400 by the Son of Mans deaththe Son of God at Gods own side!
401 No greater work of love could Gods grace anoint,
402 wherein Gods virtues meet in a single point.
The new covenant, ratified by the death of Christ, replaces the old one
broken by sin (405406, cf. 119). The contrast between the new covenant
and the covenant of works is a recurring theme in the Uitbreiding, empha-
sizing Christ as the head of the new covenant and as the one human being
not bound by the covenant of works but who fulfilled it on our behalf all
the same.17Another emphasis emerges, too: virtue, which is van Schur

mans characteristic way of describing not only Gods goodness and holi-
ness but also Christs identity (seen here as the one in whom all of Gods
virtues meet in a single point) and, beyond that, the human goodness and
holiness for which we were designed.18
All three ingredientsChrist, covenant, virtuerecur in the interlude
(237384) that interrupts the exposition of Genesis 3. A short opening
lament frames the problem in terms not only of what has been lost through
sin but also of how God has no choice but to avenge:
239Here you see not just one lost human being, nor a pair,
240but in them you see the whole human race by guilt ensnared.
241For by Gods justice and the verdict he pronounced as well,
242Gods dishonored honor must be avenged with death and hell:
The narrator then addresses her implied audience with an exhortation, to
the effect that this isnt just Adams problemit is ours as well.
245O people, consider well that we must all avoid this snare,
246for the Devil again urges us to war with heaven here,
247as if Gods justice could justly seem cruel or uncouth,
248or as if Gods truth here could itself conflict with Truth.
The Devils new ploy, however, is not to tempt us to eat a forbidden fruit
but to make us doubt Gods justice and truthfulness. What follows is a
condensed theodicy in which van Schurman first argues for human
responsibility for the first sin, then explains how Gods perfect justice is
carried out by his punishment of sin and by his appearance in human
form to redeem. Van Schurman draws deeply on the language of Romans
911, including Gods right as the potter to shape vessels as he wishes.
Nonetheless, she declares, God wants a better image of Himself to raise
(373) than was found in Adam, and at this point she essentially asks and
answers Anselms question of Cur Deus Homo, Why did God become a
human being?
377Adam was too far from the divine life, it seems indeed,
378Gods endless good within himself, alas, he could not read.
17Covenant is mentioned over a dozen times, on lines 525528, 535536, 551552, 557
558, 591592, 861868. For further details on the covenant of works among the theologians
of the Nadere Reformatie, see Muller, AC, 175189.
18Deugd- (virtue) occurs thirty times in the Uitbreiding, but a brief perusal of van
Schurmans works and correspondence discloses how prominently the possession or
acquisition of virtue figures in her thought and writings.
379The bond between God and Adam had to be in one person,

380so that he might remain faithful to God and one with Gods Son.
The various Anselmian echoes in this section (including the injustice of
Gods loss of honor and the necessity of Gods constancy) will be devel-
oped even more sharply in the second half of the Uitbreiding, where
van Schurman favors the language of debt and payment to depict the
human plight that Christ alone can resolve. One might reasonably wonder
about her preference for Anselm over the Reformed language of penal
substitutionuntil, almost at the poems end, one finds Christ also
described as having borne Gods wrath (toorn, 925).19
The Uitbreiding in the Context of Commentaries of Her Day
Anna Maria van Schurmans entire poem could be seen as a continuous

biblical exposition punctuated by untitled locithat is, by common
places or doctrinal excurses. I do not intend to argue that this was her
actual intention, but I do mean to insist that a didactic poem such as this
one could hardly be dismissed as uninterested in teaching theological
doctrine. Even the few excerpts presented here disclose how her theologi-
cal interests shape what she emphasizes as well as, one may credit, what
she has chosen to omit. We therefore ought to ask if her reading of Genesis
drew on any particular source, however faint its traces. Given her immense
learning and reading, a case for direct use or dependence could be very
hard to marshal. But the questions interest is not dispelled by the answers
difficulty, and there is every reason to look for the influences of her exeget-
ical forebears. Two proximate and probable candidates have already been
mentioned: the Reformed professors Voetius and Rivet, her longstanding
friends and mentors. However, only oneRivetalso wrote a commen-
tary on Genesis, and that leads us to conclude this investigation by
comparing his work with hers.
Rivets commentary appeared in 1633, purporting to offer 190 theologi-
cal and scholastic exercises on Genesis from his public lectures in the
famous academy of the Netherlands.20 Each exercise is prefaced by the
19The Anselmian notion of human indebtedness is especially prominent in lines

437448, but van Schurmans language about Christs work is eclectic: line 385, where
God wants to snatch from the Devils jaws that weak and hapless prey, comes hard on the
heels of line 383, where the transformative power of Gods love is highlighted.
20Andr Rivet, Theologicae & scholasticae exercitationes CXC in Genesin (Leiden:
Elzevir, 1633).
specific questions to be treated, and the forty-one abstracts covering

Genesis 13 thus recap many traditional issues in Genesis as well as more
recent controversies with Arminians, Socinians, Roman Catholics, and
others. Not surprisingly, many of van Schurmans exegetical emphases
find precedents in Rivet. This is not to claim that she read or even owned
Rivets book, but such precedents do force a recognition of her continuity
with her most immediate context. We know that both Augustine and
Aristotle were favorites in her reading, and she could have read any num-
ber of fathers, medievals, or Reformers on her own.21 But she also could
have found in Rivet (or Voetius) many reports of these earlier sources,
either to guide her own reading or to shape or confirm her own theologi-
cal inclinations.
In any case, several of van Schurmans allusions in Genesis 1 correspond
to extended discussions in Rivet, including such topics as the creatio ex
nihilo or the Trinitarian unity underlying the works that God manifests
externally (that is, toward us).22 Rivet vigorously defends the possession
of the image of God by women, but he also gives a nod to the idea that
even the body indirectly images God; indeed, he makes the latter point by
borrowing one of Calvins more eloquent lines.23 But unlike Calvinyet
very much like van SchurmanRivet makes a further connection between
Gods image and the role of virtue as a primary means by which that image
is manifested.24 He also alludes to conscience as an aspect of the image
that all humans bear, much as van Schurman did early in her poem,
though where van Schurmans allusion to Romans 2 was indirect, Rivets is
explicit.25
Correlations between van Schurman and Rivet are fewer in Genesis 2,
mostly because she herself has less to say. However, when she insists that
Adam was able to name the animals because he knew their nature or
essence (natuur, wizen), she is making a traditional point found in similar
terms in Rivets comments on this passage;26 and when she understands
21For van Schurmans reading, see van Beek, First Female, 3538, 43, 6667, 117118.
22Rivet, Exercitationes 1, 9a.
23For Rivets uncredited use of Calvins Comm. Genesis 1:26 (CO 23:2627), see
Exercitationes 5, 28; for his defense of women as the image of God, see 5,28. Voetius
defense of women as Gods image has been translated by Irwin, Whether a Christian
Woman Should Be Educated, 107109.
24Christ is thus the exemplar and prototype of the renewed image precisely as a human
being adorned with every kind of virtue that pertains to the soul; see Rivet, Exercitationes
5, 26a; cf. Uitbreiding 7592.
25Rivet, Exercitationes 5, 27b-28a.
26Rivet, Exercitationes 22, 117a; cf. Uitbreiding 121126. The same point is made by
Luther and Andrew Willet in their commentaries on Genesis.
God resting on the seventh day as implicitly a command for the Old
Testament church to sanctify that day as a Sabbatha command that has
to be inferred from other passages of Scriptureshe echoes the very same
position Rivet advocated here.27
Although van Schurmans verses on Genesis 3 are often without dis-
tinct theological markings, four points of comparison may be noted,
beginning with one already mentionedLuthers assertion that the first
sin was unbelief, that is, not trusting God and Gods word, rather than the
medieval consensus that the first sin was pride. By the time Rivet wrote,
the question of pride versus unbelief was a line in the sand between
Catholics and Protestants, a lingering sign of Catholic suspicions that
what Protestants really meant by faith amounts to no more than mental
assent, devoid of the transformative and sanctifying power of love.28 Rivet
spends an entire chapter refuting Bellarmine and others on this point,
insisting that it can scarcely be imagined how prideful desire could have
been born in a human being without some preceding act of unbelief.29
Understandably, the debate is not explicitly represented in van Schurmans
poem, but she everywhere espouses what Rivet would have meant by
faith as a h eartfelt reliance on Gods sufficiency alone. Her opening and
insistent question as she considered the temptation and fall of Adam and
Eve was simply, Look, now, are they faithful? and she went on to elabo-
rate in lines 173176 (above) what such faithfulness would entail: honor-
ing God above all, resting in God and finding in God alone ones light,
love, and highest good. Eves specific act of unfaithfulness was thus con-
stituted by her failure to depend on God in every part (187). But van
Schurman does not hesitate to mention pride, too, as a manifestation of
the first sin:
209[Adam] hoped, it seems, to attain an even greater renown
210and with his own glory (yet without God) himself to crown,
To be sure, Rivet had conceded (above) that there was nothing controver-
sial in seeing pride as an ingredient of sin, so long as unbelief is recognized
as its root, and van Schurmans treatment of sin seems to conform to this
arrangement.
27Rivet, Exercitationes 13, 67a; cf. Uitbreiding 141144. It was also the position of
Voetius.
28This traditional controversy over whether and how love can be understood to form
faith (i.e., give life to faith and thus justify the sinner) had set Catholics and Protestants at
odds since the outset of Luthers reform.
29Rivet, Exercitationes 32, 156.
A second point of comparison derives from van Schurmans curious

insinuation that Adams bestowal of the name Eve was a sign that he
hoped to secure some sort of immortality through his offspring. Such a
suspicious reading of Adams motive is unusual, but Rivets commentary
attributes to Rupert of Deutz a plausible precedent, to the effect that
Adam named his wife mother of the living in defiance of God, as if Adam
disbelieved Gods sentence and did not fear deathas if he thought he
would (somehow) triumph or survive despite Gods sobering pronounce-
ment.30 Rivets report of Ruperts pessimistic take on what is usually seen
as a sign of Adams rekindled hope leads one to wonder if Rupert or his
legacy influenced van Schurmans own pejorative reading, and if Rivet
was Ruperts emissary.
A third point arises from van Schurmans somber reading of the skins
that God gave Adam and Eve as exclusively a sign of rebuke, even though
commentators commonly find Gods care in this act of providence.
Rivet prefers to read this part of the narrative as evidence of Gods kind
provision, but he goes on to report without prejudice the views of older
commentators that the skins were also given as a perpetual reminder to
Adam and Eve of their mortality and of their sins punishment rather than
as a new occasion for sinful ambition or pride.31 The latter view, however,
is precisely that of van Schurman.
A fourth point of comparison again arises from van Schurmans exegeti-
cal pessimism, at least with respect to our first parents sinful proclivities.
Eviction from Eden was obviously tragic, but commentators regularly
found ways to argue that it was really all for the best. Van Schurman, how-
ever, confines her account to the sole point that their banishment is meant
to inculcate their unworthiness (niet weerdig) to stand before their Lord
(427428). Rivet writes at vastly greater length on this episode (as on all
others), but it is striking that he uses an equivalent term to describe Gods
intention to remind Adam that he has made himself unworthy (indignus)
of remaining in the garden.32
30What Rivet calls Ruperts hallucination is tethered to its refutation by Benedict

Pererius, so that Rivet may be reporting Rupert entirely at second hand (Exercitationes 39,
197b). In fact, by stressing Adams hope specifically for posterity as a mark of his defiance
and unbelief, Ruperts original argument bears an even closer resemblance to van
Schurmans; see De trinitate et operibus ejus 3.26 (PL 167:313).
31Rivet, Exercitationes 39, 200b.
32Rivet, Exercitationes 40, 206a.
Some Assessment
This exploratory study of the exegetical character and context of Anna

Maria van Schurmans Uitbreiding has necessarily focused on the first half
of the poem, which is most closely tied to the text of Genesis 13. What is
missed in this selection, however, is the bulk of her vibrant treatment
of Christs work on the cross, in intercession, and at the worlds final
consummation, as well as her intense account of the life of the Christian
under the new covenant as one now lives by the new law of the Spirit and
draws near to Jesus as his bride. This last topicthe nuptial union of
Christ with the Christian and the churchrepresents not only a trajec-
tory that would lead us back to van Schurmans possible medieval sources,
particularly the writings of various mystics, but also one that viscerally
connects with her contemporaries in the Nadere Reformatie, for whom
nuptial imagery and the older exegesis of the Song of Songs played an
important part in their prayer and devotion.33
Nonetheless, we have seen enough to recognize the Uitbreiding not
only as an epic poem but also as a work that in its own way has received
from and contributes to the traditions of biblical commentary literature.
Not surprisingly, this semi-private work affords few clues about specific
influences, and we are likely to have more success in identifying her audi-
ence than her sources. Yet if much of her exegesis of Genesis 13 repre-
sents commonplaces of the commentary tradition (as a comparison with
Rivet confirms), it is also evident that she was neither passive nor undis-
criminating in the selection of views she presented. The commentary tra-
dition is a learnd tradition, often scholastic, and van Schurman moved in
this arena with ease and fluency, as demonstrated on occasion by her con-
sidered preferences for minority (but still traditional) exegetical views.
Clearly, she had digested traditional exegesis well enough to be able to
capitalize on the specific distinctions that suited her own purposes.
It would be misleading to overstate the contrast between the poems
two halves, though, because her intense piety and her schooled theology
are comfortably interwoven throughout. Only a few years later, van
Schurman would vehemently reject her scholastic training and her schol-
arly writings and renown in favor of the still more purified Christianity of
33For van Schurmans affinities with earlier women mystics, see Gssmann, Das wohl-
gelahrte Frauenzimmer, 1046, 110; for nuptial imagery in the Nadere Reformatie, see de
Reuver, Sweet Communion.
Jean de Labadie, but in the Uitbreiding no cracks mark the rift to come.
Tutored in Protestant scholasticism, keenly aware of Reformed commit-
ments, deeply rooted in Scripture and the broad tradition of the church,
Anna Maria van Schurman crafted truly a work of practical exegesis, a
didactic poem that arose from and looked to cultivate prayer, repentance,
faithfulness, obedience, and virtueall in worship of the savior whom
she knew alone as my Love, my All (944).34
34I would like to extend heartfelt thanks to Dr. Pieta van Beek for her generous assis-
tance in preparing this essay.
JOHN HOWE (16301705) ON DIVINE SIMPLICITY:
A DEBATE OVER SPINOZISM
Reita Yazawa
Introduction
Some contemporary scholarly discussions on divine simplicity deviate

from the originally intended meaning of simplicity in the seventeenth
century Reformed orthodoxy. For example, Brian Davies states, from first
to last the doctrine of divine simplicity is a piece of negative or apophatic
theology and not a purported description of God.1 William Mann thinks
that the concept of divine simplicity has difficulty in accommodating
diversely distinct attributes.2 Nicholas Wolterstorff and Alvin Plantinga
think that the doctrine of divine simplicity, specifically that of Thomas
Aquinas, is untenable and incoherent.3 Contrary to these modern read-
ings, Richard A. Muller argues that the debate over the divine simplicity in
the Middle Ages was not over the implications of a distinctionless notion
of simplicity but over the precise nature of the distinctions that, arguably,
belong to the Godhead.4 One of the ramifications of the debate over the
precise interpretation of divine simplicity can be found in a debate in the
seventeenth century.
Seventeenth-century Reformed theology faced a radical challenge from
Cartesian notions of substance and simplicity.5 One consequence of this
Cartesian inroad into Reformed theology is the debate over Spinozism.
1Brian Davies, Classical Theism and the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity, in his Lan
guage, Meaning and God (London: Chapman, 1987), 59. See also F. Gerrit Immink, The
One and Only, in Understanding the Attributes of God, ed. van den Brink and Sarot
(Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1999), 115117.
2William Mann, Divine Simplicity, Religious Studies 18.4 (1982): 451471; Mann,
Simplicity and Immutability in God, in The Concept of God, ed. Morris (Oxford: OUP,
1987), 253267. See also Christopher Hughes, On a Complex Theory of a Simple God: An
Investigation in Aquinas Philosophical Theology, ed. Alston (Ithaca: Cornell, 1989).
3Nicholas Wolterstorff, Divine Simplicity, in Our Knowledge of God, ed. Clark
(Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1992), 133149; Alvin Plantinga, Does God Have a Nature? (Milwaukee:
Marquette UP, 1980), 4647.
4See Muller, PRRD, 3:41, with review of modern scholarship on divine simplicity on
3941. For the distinction of divine persons in the Godhead, PRRD, 4:189195.
630 reita yazawa
Spinoza appropriated Cartesian metaphysics and introduced an interpre-

tation of divine simplicity different from the traditional reformed under-
standing: simplicity that does not allow distinctions of divine intellect,
will, power, and persons.6 This novel concept of simplicity was perceived
by many Reformed thinkers to nullify the God-world distinction, divine
freedom, secondary causes, and the Trinity. Accordingly, late seventeenth-
century Reformed theologians developed serious diatribes against Spi
nozas pantheistic thought.7
One of the Reformed writers who vehemently opposed Spinozas philo-
sophical theology was John Howe (16301705), a nonconformist Puritan
and one-time private chaplain to Oliver Cromwell. Howe recognized
Spinozas work as a threat to a traditional understanding of divine sim-
plicity, attributes, and Trinitarian persons. Although the French philoso-
pher Nel Aubert de Vers published his own criticism of Spinoza, it did
not satisfy Howe.8 Thus Howe developed his own lengthy discussion in
The Living Temple9 against Spinozas posthumously published work, The
Ethics.10
Despite his significant argument against Spinozism, scholarly treat-
ment of Howe is unfairly limited. David Field characterizes Howes
thought as rigid Calvinism in a softer dress, but Howes debate with
Spinozism is not addressed.11 Citing Rosalie L. Colie,12 Jonathan I. Israel
argues that only Henry More and Samuel Clarke critically engaged
6Benedictus de Spinoza, Earlier Philosophical Writings: The Cartesian Principles and

Thoughts on Metaphysics, trans. Hayes (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merill, 1963). Hereafter EPW.
7Early-eighteenth century late-orthodox and transitional theologians also responded
to Spinoza, but their thought is not discussed here. See Maria-Cristina Pitassi, De la cen-
sure la rfutation. LAcadmie de Genve, Revue de Mtaphysique et de Morale 93.2
(1988): 147164. I am grateful to the editors for calling my attention to this source.
8Nel Aubert de Vers, Limpietie convaincu, ou dissertation contre Spinosa (Amsterdam,
1685). Concerning Auberts engagement with philosophical controversies of the 1680s, see
Paul J. Morman, Nel Aubert de Vers: A Study in the Concept of Toleration (Lewiston: Mellen,
1987), 3641, 95154.
9John Howe, The Living TemplePart I. Concerning Gods Existence and His Connect
edness with Man against Atheism, or the Epicurian Deism (1676). Part II. Concerning
Animadversions on Spinoza, and a French Writer Pretending to refute Him (1702), in Works,
3vols. (London: Tegg, 1848; reprinted: Ligonier: SDG, 1990), 1:1344.
10Benedict de Spinoza, The Ethics, in A Spinoza Reader: The Ethics and Other works, ed.
and trans. Curley [= Reader] (Princeton: PUP, 1994).
11David Field, Rigide Calvinisme in a softer dresse: the moderate Presbyterianism of John
Howe (16301705) (Edinburgh: Rutherford House, 2004).
12Rosalie L. Colie, Spinoza in England, 16651730, Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Society 107.3 (1963): 183219, who discusses Howe on 188189. I am grateful to
the editors for calling my attention to this source.
john howe: a debate over spinozism 631
Spinozas philosophy while others including Howe failed to grasp Spino

zas thought.13 Muller points out that Howes diatribe on Spinozism indi-
cates the high orthodox conviction that the new philosophies could not
serve Christian theology in a positive way that the waning Christian
Aristotelian and Platonic models had done.14 However, hardly any schol-
arly monograph on this debate can be found. Though several biograph
ical sketches on Howe are available, their treatment of his debate over
Spinozism is quite limited or even overlooked.15 In contrast to some
representative research on Spinoza, the intersection of Spinozism and
seventeenth-century Reformed thought has not yet fully been examined.16
Howes masterpiece The Living Temple and other collateral writings
deserve further scrutiny from the viewpoint of a Reformed response to
Spinozas metaphysics.17
This essay will demonstrate that John Howes attack on Spinozas teach-
ing of divine simplicity is indicative of Reformed efforts to restate the
compatibility of divine simplicity with divine attributes, and, contrary to
some modern readings, establishes the point that simplicity as under-
stood in the era of Protestant orthodoxy did not entail an absence of dis-
tinctions in the Godhead. In order to validate this thesis, I will first identify
an emergence of Spinozism and its implication for the notion of simplicity
in the late seventeenth century. Then, I will show how Howe responded to
Spinozas monistic argument in order to vindicate the distinctions of
13Jonathan I. Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity,

16501750 (New York: OUP, 2001), 599. I am grateful to the editors for calling my attention
to this source.
15Horton does not go beyond simply lamenting the invective tone of Howes contro-
versy with Spinozism. Robert F. Horton, John Howe (London: Methuen, 1895), 114115.
ForHowes biography, see also Henry Rogers, The Life and Character of John Howe, M.A.:
With an Analysis of His Writings, A new edition (London: Religious Tract Society, 1837
1862?); Scott W. Major, The Life of John Howe (London: Congregational Union of England &
Wales, [18951987?]); J.P. Hewlett, Life of John Howe, in Works, 1:ix-xxxix; Field, Rigide
Calvinisme, 817.
16Harry Austryn Wolfson, The Philosophy of Spinoza, unfolding the latent processes of his
reasoning (Cambridge: HUP, 1948); Julius Guttmann, Philosophies of Judaism: The History of
Jewish Philosophy from Biblical Times to Franz Rosenzweig, trans. Silverman, intro.
Werblowsky (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964). For Spinozas own writings,
see Benedictus de Spinoza, Chief Works, trans. Elwes, 2 vols. (New York: Dover, 1955);
Spinozas Short Treatise on God, Man, and Human Welfare, trans. Robinson (Chicago: Open
Court, 1909).
17John Howe, A calm and sober inquiry concerning the possibility of a Trinity in the
Godhead, in Works, 2:527559; Letters to Dr. Wallis, in Works, 2:560573; Summary prop-
ositions, in Works, 2:574576; A letter to a friend, in Works, 2:577595; A view of that part
of the late considerations addressed to H.H. about the Trinity, in Works, 2:596626.
632 reita yazawa
divine attributes. These examinations will clarify that a different appro-

priation of the notion of simplicity came into being in the late seventeenth
century and Howe responded to the new interpretation by restating a tra-
ditional Reformed understanding of divine simplicity.
An Emergence of Spinozism
Spinozas thought on metaphysics started to disseminate around England

and the European continent in the late seventeenth century.18 His Reni
Descartes principiorum philosophiae and its appendix Cogitata meta
physica was published in 1663. Though he died after the publication of
another work Tractus theologico-politicus (1670), his other major works
were published posthumously.19 Among them, The Ethics20 as the system
of his thought proved to be highly provocative to traditional theism.21
Spinozas metaphysics gained the attention of many Reformed thinkers as
his thought diverged from the traditional Reformed doctrine of God.22
The focal point of debate is how the notion of divine simplicity should
be interpreted in relation to the divine attributes. To be sure, Spinoza
inherits, in one aspect, a traditional notion of simplicity. Hence it is cru-
cial to distinguish continuity and discontinuity between Spinozas thought
on simplicity and that of Reformed orthodoxy. Spinoza shares in common
with Reformed orthodoxy the notion of simplicity as non-compositions.
For Spinoza, compositions in substance amount to aggregate of compart-
mentalized parts and hence divisions in substance. As divine substance
isindivisible and should never be preceded by any distinct components,
divine simplicity should exclude any composition:
Now it must be shown that God is not a composite being; from this we will
be able to conclude that he is an entirely simple being, and this we will do
easily. For since it is self-evident that the parts which comprise a thing are
prior, in nature at least, to the thing which they compose, necessarily those
substances from whose coalition and union God would be composed will be
prior in nature to God himself, and each will be able to be conceived through
itself, without being attributed to God. Then, since these substances should
18Wiep van Bunge and Wim Kleve, ed., Disguised and Overt Spinozaism around 1700
(Leiden: Brill, 1996).
19Spinoza, Theologico-Political Treatise, in Chief Works, 1:1266.
20Spinoza, The Ethics, 85265.
necessarily be really distinct from one another, necessarily each could exist
through itself and without the help of the others, so that, as we have just
said, there could be as many gods as there are substances of which God is
supposed to be composed.23
The exclusion of composition in divine simplicity is shared with Howe as
will be seen later.
Spinozas divergence from traditional theism can be found in his pan-
theistic thought which disallows any other substances except for God as
the one and only substance. For Spinoza, substance is what is in itself and
is conceived through itself, that is, that whose concept does not require
the concept of another thing, from which it must be formed.24 In other
words, substance must be a self-caused, independent thing. If this is the
definition of substance, then it is applied only to God who is the self-
caused, independent subject. Hence, [e]xcept God, no substance can be or
be conceived.25 While traditional theism also recognizes substances in
created beings, Spinoza contends that God is the sole substance. The
world is a part of God, this unique substance. Ultimately, the ontological
distinction in traditional theism between the self-caused divine substance
and other entities of the world, conceived as secondary to this primal sub-
stance, is lost.
This radical monism came into being through Spinozas re-appropria-
tion of several concepts. In light of discussion on simplicity, attributes, and
the Trinity, two concepts are notable: divine attributes and modes. Spinoza
defines an attribute as what the intellect perceives of a substance, as con-
stituting its essence.26 To be precise, some Reformed thinkers regarded
attributes as properties conceived by the human intellect. Though divine
attributes and Gods essence are identical, attributes differ from each other
and from the divine essence only from the diversity of conceptions.27
Divine attributes are the essential properties by which hemakes himself
known to us who are weak and those by which he is distinguished from
creatures; or they are those which are attributed to him according to the
measure of our conception in order to explain his nature.28 Spinoza also
identifies the divine substance or essence with attributes and understands
23Spinoza, Thoughts on Metaphysics, in EPW, 137.

24Spinoza, Ethics, D3 (Reader, 85). D = definition.
25Spinoza, Ethics, P14 (Reader, 93). P = proposition.
26Spinoza, Ethics, D4 (Reader, 85).
27Turretin, Institutes, III.v.78.
28Turretin, Institutes, III.v.1. See also Edward Leigh, A Treatise of Divinity (London:
Griffin, 1646), II.i (pp. 2021); Muller, PRRD, 3:212214.
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that the distinction of divine attributes is made according to the human

intellect:
By substance I understand that which is in itself and is conceived through
itself; that is, that whose conception does not involve the conception of
another thing. I understand the same by attribute, except that attribute is so
called in respect to the intellect, which attributes to substance a certain spe-
cific kind of nature.29
Likewise, he writes,
Thus we clearly and distinctly perceive that the intellect, power, and will by
which God created, understood, and now conserves or loves created things
are not distinct among themselves but only in our thought.30
Despite this similarity, however, Spinoza ultimately differs from Reformed
orthodoxy in identifying many of the traditional attributes as modes.
He recognizes that only two attributes are known so far: thought and
extension and he designates others as modes.31 Thus,
All things else that are usually ascribed to God are not attributes but only
certain modes which might be attributed to him either in consideration of
all of his attributes, or in consideration of one attribute.32
Spinoza initially rejected mode as a predicate of substance. He once con-
tended that there is in God no composition of diverse modes is suffi-
ciently evident from the fact that there are no modes in God, since modes
arise from an alteration of substance.33 However, later in The Ethics, he
refined the definition of mode as the affections of a substance, or that
which is in another through which it is conceived.34 He continues,
Whatever is, is either in itself or in another that is outside the intellect
there is nothing except substances and their affections. Therefore, there is
nothing outside the intellect through which a number of things can be dis-
tinguished from one another except substances, or what is the same (by D4),
their attributes, and their affections, q.e.d.35
29Benedict de Spinoza, The Letters, trans. Shirley (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1995), letter 9
(p. 93). See also Richard Mason, The God of Spinoza: A Philosophical Study (Cambridge:
CUP, 1997), 46, 48.
31Spinoza, Ethics, III.P2.Schol. (Reader, 155): the mind and the body are one and the
same thing, which is conceived now under the attribute of thought, now under the attri-
bute of extension. See also Mason, God of Spinoza, 44.
32Spinoza, Short Treatise, 45.
33Spinoza, Thoughts on Metaphysics, V.3 (EPW, 137).
34Spinoza, Ethics, D5 (Reader, 85).
35Spinoza, Ethics, P4.Dem. (Reader, 87).
As [w]hatever is, is either in itself or in another, there should be only

God as being in himself and the world as his mode. Since Spinozas God is
the one and only substance or attribute, every other entity of the world are
recognized as its mode, the affections of the substance. For there is noth-
ing except substance and its modesand modesare nothing but affec-
tions of Gods attributes.36 In other words, everything is either Natura
naturans or Natura naturata: Natura naturans as what is in itself and is
conceived through itself, or such attributes of substance as express an
eternal and infinite essence, that is God, insofar as he is considered as a
free cause,37 and Natura naturata as whatever follows the necessity of
Gods nature, or from any of Gods attributes, that is, all the modes of Gods
attributes insofar as they are considered as things which are in God, and
can neither be nor be conceived without God.38 Created nature does not
have its own reality as a substance, but is merely a mode or instantiation
of the one and only divine substance. As God is the only substance, finite
mental and physical entities must be modifications of that Substance,
regarded from a finite point of view.39 Although there is a distinction
between creating nature and created nature, it is a distinction of aspects
of the same thing. As Spinoza states, Whatever is, is in God, and nothing
can be or be conceived without God.40
Traditionally, mode was the term used in Reformed orthodoxy to
make a distinction of Trinitarian persons. For instance, Turretin explained
that the divine persons can be distinguished from the essence by mode.
Here we do not have a thing and a thing, but a thing and the modes of the
thing by which it is not compounded but distinguished.41 However, in
Spinoza, the meaning of mode shifted from the Trinitarian distinction of
divine persons to individual distinctions in created nature. Replacement
of traditional divine attributes with modes and relocation of the term
mode from the Godhead into all created entities led to a radical notion
of simplicity which disallows distinct attributes in God and modes of sub-
sistence of Trinitarian persons. The notion of simplicity was radically
reduced to monolithic identity. Howe found these aspects of Spinozas
thought particularly problematic.
36Spinoza, Ethics, P28.Dem. (Reader, 103).

37Spinoza, Ethics, P29.Schol. (Reader, 104105).
38Spinoza, Ethics, P29.Schol. (Reader, 105).
39John W. Cooper, Panentheism: The Other God of the Philosophers (Grand Rapids:
Baker, 2006), 69.
40Spinoza, Ethics, P15 (Reader, 94).
41Turretin, Institutes, III.xxvii.4.
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A Response from Howe: Simplicity and Divine Attributes
Howe identified a danger of atheism in Spinozas new notion of simplicity

and responded with a vehement attack.42 Howe was concerned that
Spinozas notion of absolute simplicity does not allow any distinction in it
and thereby is not compatible with distinct attributes in the divine
essence. As Howe phrased the state of the question, It is not the unity, or
oneliness of the Godhead; but the simplicity of it, as the schoolmen have
stated it, that hath created the matter of dispute.43
As noted in the previous section, Spinoza presented a pantheistic view
of substance in which efficient causational relation was denied and only
one substance of the same nature was affirmed. To Howe this peculiar
view of substance indicated the negation of the distinction between
Creator and creature, and also of that between essence and attributes.
Howe perceived Spinozas notion of a numerically identical substance as
a threat to theism itself:
Now this horrid scheme of his, though he and his followers would cheat the
world with names, and with a specious show of piety, is as directly leveled
against all religion, as any the most avowed atheism: for, as to religion, it is
all one whether we make nothing to be God, or every thing; whether we
allow of no God to be worshipped, or leave none to worship him. His porten-
tous attempt to identify and deify all substance, attended with that strange
pair of attributes, extension and thought, (and an infinite number of others
besides,) hath a manifest design to throw religion out of the world that
way.44
Hence chapter one of part two of The Living Temple is entirely devoted to
the refutation of each of Spinozas propositions delineated in The Ethics.
In contrast to Spinoza, Howes thesis in The Living Temple is that there
is a God who is a self-existent perfect Being and the efficient cause of all
other things (substances) distinct from him. Howe emphasizes,
[I]nasmuch as that necessary Being which is the cause of all things else, is
however evinced to be an absolutely perfect Being, and particularly a neces-
sary self-existent Mind or Spirit, which is therefore a most apparently fit and
most deserving object of religion, or of the honour of a temple; which is the
sum of what we were concerned for.45
42Howe, Living Temple, II.i (Works, 1:175).

43Howe, Inquiry, postscript (Works, 2:555).
44Howe, Living Temple, II.i.1 (Works, 1:175).
45Living Temple, II.i.2 (Works, 1:176177).
Howe interpreted Spinozas claim to the effect that it belongs to all sub
stance, as such, to exist of itself, and be infinite and consequently that sub
stance is but one, and that it is impossible for one substance to produce
another.46 Howe focuses on and reacts to this pantheistic claim. Two
examples illustrate Howes point. First, Howe views Spinozas proposition
seven (It pertains to the nature of a substance to exist) as a blurring of
the distinction between God and creation.47 As Spinoza thought that
onesubstance cannot be produced by another substance,48 there should
be only one substance which is a self-caused, self-existent, and indepen-
dent being, which is God.49 Each existence which hitherto was perceived
as substance may now be just an instantiation or modification of this
absolute one substance. If the inseparable unity of essence and existence
is the unique character of substance and there is only one substance which
is God himself, then every other being including humans is now a part or
an expression of this self-caused divine substance. This dissemination of
divine nature to all beings sounded blasphemous to Howe. Thus he says,
[I]t is manifestly impious, communicating the most fundamental attri-
bute of the Deity, to all substance.50
Second, concerning proposition twelve (No attribute of a substance can
be truly conceived from which it follows that the substance can be divided),
Howe points out an inconsistency in Spinozas claim.51 As noted in the
previous section, the early Spinoza recognized attributes distinct only in
reason.52 However, according to Howe, the later Spinozas thought indi-
cates that each different attribute becomes substantiated and thereby
brings forth division of diverse substances into supposedly one substance.
Howe perceived that this real distinction contradicts his basic claim about
radical simplicity. Thus Howe, demonstrating an acute awareness of
Spinozas philosophical development, comments, [A]s he grew elder, his
understanding either became less clear, or was perverted, by ill design.53
Howe continues,

47Spinoza, Ethics, I.P7 (Reader, 88).
48Ethics, I.P6 (Reader, 87).
49Ethics, I.P14 (Reader, 93).
53Howe, Living Temple, II.i.12 (Works, 1:190). Contra Israel, Radical Enlightenment, 599,
who assumes that Howe among others did not demonstrate much appetite for grappling
with Spinozas philosophy as such.
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As his asserting God to be a most simple being, and that his attributes
do only differ, ratione. Whereas now, he makes his attributes as divers, as
extension, and thought, and says they ought to be conceived as really dis-
tinct. Schol. in Proposition 10th. There he asserts all things to be created by
God, here, nothing. There he makes corporeal substance divisible; here, all
substance indivisible, &c.54
If Spinoza maintains his proposition ten (Each attribute of a substance
must be conceived through itself), given that it is the definition of sub-
stance to conceive itself, each attribute eventually turns into substance.55
As a result, diverse substances take place in one substance:
There the definition of substance, is given to every attribute of substance;
therefore, every attribute of substance is a substance, since the definition of
substance to which he refers us in the demonstration of that proposition,
agrees to it; therefore, so many attributes, so many substances.56
In short, [w]e have then his one substance multiplied into an infinite num
ber of substances.57 Virtual identification of attributes and substance mili-
tates against Spinozas own thesis:
[T]hat if there be diversity of attributes, they will constitute a diversity of sub
stances, which it was before impossible to him to disallow, having defined
an attribute (as was formerly noted) to be that which constitutes the essence
of substance. Therefore, his whole cause is here fairly given away; for his one
substance is now scattered into many, and the pretended impossibility of the
creation of any substantial being quite vanished into thin and empty air.58
These examples show that Howe is concerned that Spinozas idea of
radical simplicity leans toward the virtual cancellation of the distinc
tion between God and the creation and an inconsistent understanding
of divine attributes. For Howe, despite Spinozas repeated recognition
ofdivine attributes, the notion of one and only substance and the impos-
sibility of diverse substances in creation constituted sufficiently alleged
atheism.59
It is true that both Howe and Spinoza deny compositions in the divine
essence. For Howe, composition implies a pre-existing component that
brings such things together, and supposes such and such more simple
54Howe, Living Temple, II.i.10 (Works, 1:187, margin).

59See also Morman, Nel Aubert de Vers, 105.
things to have pre-existed apart or separate, and to be brought afterwards

together into a united state.60 As composition signifies independent, pre-
existing substances gathered together and formed into a certain amalga-
mation, it can imply multiple substances in the divine essence. Since this
is clear violation of divine simplicity, any composition in the divine
essence must be denied.61
However, for Howe elimination of composition in God does not neces-
sarily mean annulment of any and all distinctions. Howe notes, It is true,
while I affirm such a simplicity as excludes all composition, I affirm not
such as excludes all variety.62 For many Reformed thinkers, the concept
of divine simplicity did not eliminate, but rather accommodated distinc-
tions and diversity. For instance, Heereboord points out that simplicity
does not mean, generally, the absence of all multitudes, nor does it exclude
either all distinction or all plurality.63 Turretin also claims that [t]he
relative attributes do not argue composition, but distinction.64 When
theSocinians argued for the contradiction between divine simplicity and
the plurality of divine attributes, Rijssen responded that though every-
thing is one and the same in God, human beings recognize it by diverse
conceptions.65 Leigh concurs that divine simplicity and plurality of divine
attributes are compatible. Even when he uses the term absolute simplic-
ity, the practical meaning is the same as the simplicity that accommo-
dates distinctive attributes.66 Thus, writes Leigh,
God is absolutely Simple, he is but one thing, and doth not consist of any
parts, he hath no accidents; but himself, his Essence and Attributes are all
one thing, though by us diversely considered and understood. If he did con-
sist of parts, must be something before him, to put those parts together; and
then he were not Eternal.67
While Howe and Spinoza commonly share the denial of composition in
God, they differ in the possibility of diverse divine attributes distinct from
composition. Or to be more precise, although Spinoza still recognized
60Howe, Inquiry, XIII (Works, 2:538).

61Howe, Inquiry, XIII (Works, 2:538).
62Inquiry, postscript (Works, 2:558).
63Adrianus Heereboord, Meletemata philosophica (London: Swalle, 1680), Disputatio
XXI, de simplicitae Dei, I (p. 115). Translation is from Muller, PRRD, 3:278.
64Turretin, Institutes, III.vii.15.
65Leonard Rijssen, Summa theologiae elencticae (Edinburgh: Mosman, 1692), III.x, con-
troversia I, obj. 1 (p.45): Ut sunt in Deo, omnia unum, & idem sunt. Quae nos cogimur
diversis conceptibus nobis imaginari.
67Edward Leigh, A Systeme or Body of Divinity (London: A.M., 1662), II.iii (pp. 166167).
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divine attributes, his later amplification of the definition of attributes

from distinction according to human rationality to constituents of the divine
essence was perceived by Howe as confusion and contradiction given the
fact that Spinoza recognized God as the one and only substance.
Conclusion
I have surveyed the thought of Spinoza and identified his radical notion of
simplicity which eliminates the distinction of divine attributes. Then
Ihave argued that, in opposition to Spinoza, Howe supported the notion
of simplicity which accommodates the distinction of attributes without
allowing any composition.
Howes persistent attack on Spinoza is a restatement of the Reformed
notion of divine simplicity in opposition to radical simplicity which
excludes any distinction of attributes and persons. In the context of a
debate with Spinozias pantheistic thought, Howe reiterated the tradi-
tional understanding of simplicity which accommodates the distinction
of attributes. Therefore, Howes debate with Spinozian thought under-
scores that simplicity, as understood in the era of Protestant orthodoxy
did not entail an absence of distinctions in the Godhead. The argument of
modern writers that the notion of simplicity is untenable as it excludes
any and all distinctions is, though perhaps pertinent to Spinozas notion,
far from the understanding of Reformed thinkers in the seventeenth
century.
ORTHODOXY, SCHOLASTICISM, AND PIETY IN THE
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY FURTHER REFORMATION:
SIMON OOMIUS
Gregory D. Schuringa
Introduction
The Further Reformation, a movement in the Netherlands spanning the

seventeenth century through the early eighteenth century, is rich with
potential to explore many of the themes prominent in Richard A. Mullers
scholarship. An overview of the life, career, and writings of Simon Oomius
(16301706) helps fill a gap in scholarship on the period and can serve to
correct certain misunderstandings of the period.
Oomius primary career was that of a pastor (for fifty-four years) in the
Reformed church of the Netherlands. This man, busy with the same day by
day and week by week tasks as pastors in the centuries before and after
him, also managed to publish over thirty-five, many substantial, books
throughout his lifetime. In the past two decades scholars have begun to
explore Pastor Oomius substantial body of theological literature.1 This
essay seeks to add to this recent scholarship, especially in the context of
this volume of essays which hopes, on the shoulders of Dr. Muller, to pro-
vide a more nuanced and historically accurate picture of church and
school in early modern Protestantism.
1Most notably see the following: K. Exalto, Onderzoekvoorstel betreffende Simon

Oomius, Nieuwsbrief SSNR 7 (1997): 1516; Exalto, Simon Oomius (1630-ca 1706), in De
Nadere Reformatie en het Gereformeerd Pitisme, ed. Brienen et al. (The Hague: Uitgeverij
Boekencentrum, 1989); F. van der Pol, Simon Oomius in Reactie op zijn Tijd,
Documentatieblad Nadere Reformatie 23 (1999): 4462; van der Pol, Religious Diversity and
Everyday Ethics in the Seventeenth-Century Dutch City Kampen, ChH 71:1 (2002): 1662;
van der Pol, The Orthodox-Reformed Pietist: Simon OomiusHis Relationship to
Philosophy, with Particular Attention to Dissertatie (1672) and Institutiones Theologiae
Practicae (16721680), Philosophie Der Reformierten, ed. Frank and Selderhuis (Stuttgart:
Frommann-Holzboog, 2012): 323336; J. van den Berg, Het Geopende en Wederleyde
Muhammedisdom of Turckdom. Beschrijving van een werk van Simon Oomius (1630
1706) (Doctoraalscriptie, THUK Kampen, 1998); Simon Oomius, in BLNP 6:211212. See
also my Embracing Leer and Leven: The Theology of Simon Oomius in the Context of
Nadere Reformatie Orthodoxy (Ph.D. diss., Calvin Theological Seminary, 2003).
642 gregory d. schuringa
We begin with some essential foundations for our study and contribu-
tion, especially related to the history and current state of scholarship
on the post-Reformation movement known in Dutch as the Nadere
Reformatie, spanning, roughly, the years 16001750.
Laying Foundations
The first matter, quite basic, but necessary to establish, is that of terminol-
ogy. The term Nadere Reformatie has been translated into English most
often as either Dutch Second Reformation, or Further Reformation.
Each presents its problems, as many translations of technical terms do,
though Further Reformation appears to be the English and Puritan ori-
gin of Nadere Reformatie.2 From here on out our preference will be to use
the Dutch term for the period. Church historical scholarship knows and
acknowledges various terms, periods, and movements left untranslated.
As the breadth and depth of the Nadere Reformatie continues to become
more known, it will no doubt more and more become known by its proper
name, which goes back to the period itself.3
Another foundational matter related to the study of this period is rec-
ognizing how little is known of it outside of church-historical and theologi
cal scholarship in the Netherlands. While especially the last thirtyyears
have produced numerous Dutch language articles and monographs on
theperiodespecially instrumental has been the DocumentatieNadere
Reformatie, a journal begun in 1977still little scholarship has been
attempted in English. Solid awareness is lacking of even the major repre-
sentatives, such as Jean Taffin, Willem Teellinck, Gisbertus Voetius,
Jodocus van Lodenstein, Jacobus Koelman, Herman Witsius, Wilhelmus
Brakel, Bernardus Smytegelt, Wilhelmus Schortinghuis, and Theodorus
van der Groe, well-known among church historians in the Netherlands.
Lesser-known figures, as yet to be studied in-depth by Dutch church histo-
rians, are almost entirely unknown. Dr. Joel Beeke, one of the few who
have written on the subject in English, mentions in this context Theodorus
G. Brakel, Adrianus Hasius, Abraham Hellenbroek, Nicolaas Holtius,
2For a good discussion of the terminological problem see Joel Beeke, Appendix: The
Dutch Second Reformation (De Nadere Reformatie), in The Quest for Full Assurance (Grand
Rapids: BTT, 1999), 287293. Dutch scholars and others today seem to prefer the term
Further Reformation, as seen, for example, in the English summaries of articles in the
Documentatieblad Nadere Reformatie 28.1 (2004): 33, 62, and 79.
3See on the origin of the term, De oorsprong van de uitdrukking Nadere Reformatie,
Documentatieblad Nadere Reformatie 9:4 (1985): 128134.
orthodoxy, scholasticism, and piety 643
David Knibbe, Johannes Marck, Petrus van Mastricht, Gregorius Mees,

Franciscus Ridderus, and Rippertus Sixtus.4
A further foundational point relates directly to the theme of this vol-
ume. There is a problem of perception related to this period and scholar-
ship on it. In particular, the piety of the period poses a challenge. Originally,
this aspect of the Nadere Reformatie caused some to avoid study of the
period. We see this especially in the influential analyses of Heinrich Heppe
and Albrecht Ritschl in the late 1800s. This exact same issuepietyhow
ever, has also caused renewed interest in recent years.5
The Nadere Reformatie has been widely admired as a rich movement of
piety which included a strong desire for a practical outworking of the faith
in the believers personal life, home, church, and even in all of society. As
such it resembles and is closely connected to Puritanism in England.6 But
the movement is misrepresented and done an injustice when it is viewed
as a movement of piety in isolation from its context. Specifically, a prob-
lem in the scholarship is that the seventeenth-century Dutch Reformed
orthodox and scholastic context of these pastors and theologians is either
inadequately acknowledged, or worse, seen as opposed to the piety of the
Further Reformation.
Sometimes this has happened because of a distaste for Reformed scho-
lasticism and orthodoxy. For how could a movement of warm piety and a
rich spirituality be connected at all to a movement that has been charac-
terized negatively by some scholars as consisting of rigid, rationalistic sys-
tems, dogmatic precision, and dry (and cold!) theology? While recent
studies in early modern Protestantism have done much to put theology
and theologians of the period back in their proper context, thereby dis-
proving some past negative theses concerning Reformed orthodoxy and
scholasticism, these studies have not yet thoroughly been applied to the
Nadere Reformatie.7 An overview of the life, career, writings, theology and
4Beeke, Appendix, 305.

5H. Heppe, Geschichte des Pietismus und der Mystik in der reformirten Kirche, namentlich
der Niederlande (Leiden, 1879); A. Ritschl, Geschichte des Pietismus in der reformirten
Kirche, vol. 1 (Bonn: Marcus, 1880), 101363.
6See on this, for example, W. van t Spijker, R. Bisschop, and W.J. op t Hof, Het
Puritanisme (Zoetermeer: Uitgeverij Boekencentrum, 2001), 271339.
7See as examples of the reassessment: Muller, AC; Muller, S&O; Muller, Ad fontes argu
mentorum: The Sources of Reformed Theology in the Seventeenth Century (Utrecht:
Universiteit Utrecht, 1999); Arie de Reuver, Sweet Communion: Trajectories of Spirituality
from the Middle Ages through the Further Reformation, trans. De Jong (Grand Rapids: Baker,
2007); Willem J. van Asselt, P.L. Rouwendal, et. al. Inleiding in de Gereformeerde Scholastiek
(Zoetermeer: Boekencentrum, 1998); R&S.
theological program of Simon Oomius, an as-yet lesser-known, but

representative figure of the Nadere Reformatie, suggests it is time for a
reassessment of the relationship between the Dutch pietists and their
Reformed orthodox contemporaries. These theologians were not only not
in opposing camps as sometimes suggested by the literature, but these
theologiansNadere Reformatie representatives and Reformed scholas-
ticswere often the same people!
Nadere Reformatie Piety versus Reformed

Orthodoxy and Scholasticism
The following examples will show that past scholarship on seventeenth-

century Dutch Reformed theology and church history has sometimes cre-
ated a bifurcation between the Nadere Reformatie and Reformed orthodoxy
and scholasticism. Most damaging is that many of these remain the only
significant words published on certain aspects or representatives of the
period. Krull, in his introduction to what is still one of the only mono-
graphs dedicated to Koelman, a major representative of the Nadere
Reformatie, writes that Koelman was reacting against the stagnation of
dogmatism and dead, fine-print theology which had developed at the
cost of the practice of Christianity and heartfelt piety and spirituality.8
This view is typical of early Nadere Reformatie studies from around the
turn of the last century.9
More recently Graafland speaks of the biblical consciousness of the
Nadere Reformatie as helping to correct the damaging influence of scho-
lasticism.10 Brienen speaks of the Nadere Reformatie as a reaction against
dead orthodoxy.11 Stoeffler, in his major work, referring to the Dutch
Reformed proponents of the Nadere Reformatie, writes of an attempt
by them to correct the then current dry-as-dust orthodoxy in favor of
the Christianity of the reformers, which was a living, vital, and hence
8Jacobus Koelman: Eene Kerkehistorische Studie (Sneek: Campen, 1901), 2.

9See also, e.g., P. Proost. Jodocus van Lodenstein (Amsterdam: Brandt en Zoon, 1880),
38; W.J.M. Engelberts, Willem Teellinck (Amsterdam: Ton Bolland, 1898), i-ii; L. Knappert,
Geschiedenis der Nederlandsche Hervormde Kerk gedurende de 16e en 17e Eeuw (Amsterdam:
Meulenhoff, 1911), 1:234, 273; J. Reitsma, Geschiedenis van de Hervorming en de Hervormde
Kerk der Nederlanden,, 5th ed. (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1949), 338.
10C. Graafland, Gereformeerde Scholastiek VI: De Invloed van de Scholastiek op de
Nadere Reformatie (2), Theologia Reformata 30 (1987): 340.
11Quoting J. van Genderen in De Prediking van de Nadere Reformatie (Amsterdam: Ton
Bolland, 1974), 10.
effectively satisfying faith.12 He claims that in contrast to the orthodox of

their day, the Reformed pietists wanted a living faith. Further, Stoeffler
writes, they disliked the rigid objectivity of orthodox theology and they
blew the roof off of the tight little structure of orthodoxy.13 In Stoeffler,
polemical and devotional theology, the seventeenth-century orthodox
and the seventeenth-century pietists, simply cannot fit together. This view
is typical of numerous past studies of the Nadere Reformatie, and not
enough newer studies have been done to correct these statements and
conclusions.
The Training, Writings, and Theology of Simon Oomius
An overview of the life and theology of Dr. Simon Oomius suggests

thattheabove grid must not be placed over all early modern Protestant
theology in the Netherlands. In Oomius one finds piety and a practical-
theological drive in no way in tension with polemics, technical precision,
and orthodoxy.
Oomius displays elements typical of both of these supposed opposing
camps: the orthodox Reformed and representatives of the Nadere Refor
matie. As practical as his theological writings are, and as concerned for the
spiritual life of the believer as he is, he works out of a Reformed scholastic
training which he greatly valued and continued to draw from and use
throughout his life. Particularly his magnum opus, the Dutch language
Institutiones Theologiae Practicae, but also his other writings demonstrate
that Oomius does not work out of a reaction to Reformed orthodoxy; on
the contrary, a Reformed orthodox himself, he saw his practical theology
as naturally flowing out of his orthodoxy and, indeed, as a legitimate and
necessary element of it.
The Piety and the Practical Drive of Oomius Theology

That Oomius was a self-conscious pastor and theologian of the Further
Reformation is readily evident. Like other Nadere Reformatie representa-
tives, Oomius wrote many works on the Christian life including, typical of
the program of the Nadere Reformatie, the Ecclesiola. There he, like other
Nadere Reformatie theologians, argues that it is vital to view the home as
12F. Ernest Stoeffler, The Rise of Evangelical Pietism (Leiden: Brill, 1965), 11.
13Stoeffler, The Rise of Evangelical Pietism, 17, 19.
a little church, with the father serving as a priest of sorts and with par-
ents and children growing together in the Christian life, and giving
devotion and worship to their heavenly Father. The home for him and his
contemporaries was considered the foundation for a continuing Refor
mation in the seventeenth-century Dutch church and broader society.14
Also in the massive Institutiones Theologiae Practicae, we see a clas-
sic Nadere Reformatie concern. Oomius displays there a characteristic
seventeenth-century understanding of practical theology, that is, that it
refers to the application of all doctrinal loci to the life of believers and the
church as a whole.15 Additionally, Oomius wrote a number of works which
demonstrate that he, like typical representatives of the Nadere Reformatie,
had concerns beyond the home and church. These writings indicate that
he had interest in broader social and political developments and he
wanted the whole of the Netherlands to experience continuing Refor
mation in his day and context. This is apparent in his Institutiones as well
when he applies each doctrine in various ways to the everyday life of the
believer.
Oomius publishers and his close associates, as indicated by his for-
wards, dedications, and the poetry written to him on the occasion of his
various publications, suggest he was in the midst of Nadere Reformatie
circles, as do the regular references in his writings to a further or con-
tinuing Reformation. The context of these references indicates a desire to
apply and continue the original Reformation in his seventeenth-century
contextespecially in the busy town of Kampen where he pastored for
the majority of his career.16
The Orthodox and Scholastic Foundation of Oomius Theology

Oomius orthodox and scholastic context is also readily apparent. His own
account of his academic training shows that he was trained under and had
tremendous appreciation for a variety of Reformed orthodox, even scho-
lastic, figures, but especially Gisbertus Voetius and Johannes Hoornbeeck.17
14See on this subject L.F. Groenendijk, De Nadere Reformatie van het Gezin. De Visie van
Petrus Wittewrongel op de Christelijke Huishouding (Dordrecht: van den Tol, 1984).
15See on the definition of practical theology during the time, Voetius, De Theologia
Practica, in SDT, 3:159; Voetius, De praktijk der godzaligheid ( sive Exercitia
pietatis1664), 2 vols., ed. C.A. de Niet (Utrecht: de Banier, 1996), Ch. 1, Par. 1.
16See especially Van der Pol, Religious Diversity and Everyday Ethics in the
Seventeenth-Century Dutch City Kampen, 18 and 61. Van der Pol shows here how Oomius
sought to promote the Nadere Reformatie ideals in Kampen.
17See on Oomius academics and life in general especially his last published work:
Cierlijke Kroon (Leiden: vanden Dalen, 1707), 296366.
Oomius, like other theological students of his time, defended disputa-

tions, the great medium of the scholastics of the time to vigorously defend
and expound doctrine, under both Voetius and Hoornbeeck.18 Voetius
was a leading Dutch Reformed scholastic of the seventeenth century and
Hoornbeeck was one of the leading polemicists of the time. Oomius
showed much appreciation and respect for both of them and they for him.
In fact, Hoornbeeck wrote a glowing letter of recommendation for Oomius
as he sought out pastorates after finishing his academic training, and both
Hoornbeeck and Voetius signed the letter.19 Oomius tells us in his Disser
tatie vande Onderwijsingen in de Practycke der Godgeleerdheid, where he
describes and gives the background of his Institutiones Theologiae Practicae
and shows his perceived need for them, that his professor Hoornbeeck,
the great polemicist, is the one who gave him the idea to write a complete
system of practical theology.20
In this little bit of Oomius biography, we find something that past lit-
erature pitting Reformed pietists against the scholastics would seem not
to allow so easily: polemical and practical concerns valued by the same
person. Along these lines, we find that later in his life Oomius wrote a sig-
nificant polemical work on Islam, polemical works against papists, and,
in his Dissertatie, he includes a lengthy defense of the practical nature of
the Reformed faith against all the major opponents of the Reformed
orthodox: Roman Catholics, Remonstrants, Socinians, Lutherans, and
Enthusiasts and Libertines. Oomius shows in all of his more dogmatic
works that he was concerned both to explain and expound doctrine as
well as to defend it against adversaries of the Reformed faith.
Piety, Scholasticism, and Orthodoxy Happily Together

in Oomius Institutiones Theologiae Practicae
An examination of the three completed parts of this pastors Institutiones

further shows us that in Oomius, at least, we find Reformed scholasticism
and orthodoxy and Nadere Reformatie piety existing together in har
mony.In the first part of his Dissertatie, the introduction to this practical
18For an introduction to disputations during that time see W.J. van Asselt, E. Dekker,
ed., De scholastieke Voetius (Zoetermeer: Boekencentrum, 1995), 1416. See also A.
Goudriaan, Reformed Orthodoxy and Philosophy, 16251750. Gisbertus Voetius, Petrus van
Mastricht, and Anthonius Driessen (Leiden: Brill, 2006).
19See Cierlijke Kroon, 296366.
20Simon Oomius, Dissertatie van de Onderwijsingen in de Practycke der Godgeleerdheid
(Bolsward: van Haringhouk, 1672), 390.
theology, Oomius shows a concern for theological prolegomena which is

in line with the Protestant scholastics. In that discussion of theological
prolegomena he sometimes reflects early orthodox concerns and other
times concerns typical of the orthodox of his own time. For example,
he discusses the term theologia practica in detail, reflecting the latter.
Everything he writes on theological prolegomena, however, reflects
Reformed orthodoxy and scholasticism of the seventeenth century. Fur
thermore, the categorizing he engages in as well as the detail he often goes
into, for example in the discussion of archetypal and ectypal theology,
istypical of scholastic precision.
As Oomius thoroughly handles theological prolegomena he arrives at
some noteworthy points which help determine the rest of his theology. At
one such point, he defines theology as a kind of sapientiain other words,
it embraces both the theoretical and the practical. For this reason, for him,
theological formulation must be followed with application of the theology
formulated. His definition and discussion of theologia practica also lead
him along this route.
One finds that it is exactly out of Oomius carefully formulated theology
that his desire to apply theology to the life of believers flows. His concern
for piety and application arises out his very desire, instilled by a scholastic
training at the universities of Leiden and Utrecht, to precisely define the-
ology and its various parts. His in-depth discussion on the nature of
Reformed theology led him to find that theology is, in its very nature, not
dry or dead or speculative or cold, but practical. Precise theological formu-
lation led to this and thus led to the plethora of pages written throughout
his life on the topics under theologia ascetica and to the painstaking details
on what particular doctrines mean for the life of the believer.
When Oomius handles the doctrines of Scripture and God, as he con-
tinues his Institutiones, we find what we might expect given the founda-
tion built in his prolegomena. In the doctrine of Scripture he displays
similarities with many other orthodox Reformed.21 For one, he offers a
full locus on Scripture, like many Reformed of his time did, a natural
outgrowth of the sola Scriptura principle of the Reformation. Also, his
description, general discussion, and organization of the attributes of
Scripture are typical of the Reformed orthodox of his time, and generally
quite technical.
21See his Institutiones Theologiae Practicae. Ofte Onderwijsingen in de Practycke der

Godgeleerdheid. Eerste Deels Eerste Boeck, Vervattende de Verhandelinge der Theologia
Didactica (Bolsward: van Haringhouk, 1672).
While other Reformed had written on the application of the doctrine of

Scripture, Oomius provides something new in the sheer massiveness of
what he accomplished. While others sought to apply the doctrine to thelife
of believers in similar ways, Oomius appears somewhat unique in the tre-
mendous amount of material he wrote. In addition to the length of the
writing, the practical section of the work is highly structured and orga-
nized, pointing to Oomius aimand successat applying the doctrine.
In his doctrine of God we see something similar.22 While, as his defini-
tion of theology dictates, Oomius starts out by explaining the doctrine of
God in all of its parts, he moves, in line with his aim, to what the doctrine
means practically at every possible point (and subpoint!). His initial expla-
nation of the doctrine shows a concern for technical precision and right
doctrine displayed by all the Reformed scholastics. His application of the
doctrine, as in the doctrine of Scripture, is lengthy, detailed, and highly
structured. This fact in itself betrays a scholastically trained mind.
The intertwining of doctrine with praxis in the thought of Oomius is
further illustrated in his doctrine of God by the fact that he regularly
includes polemics in his practical sections. For example, when he speaks
of what each divine attribute means to the believer, he often includes a
point on how it serves to refute those who do not believe the doctrine or
who do not have a right conception of it. Despite those who suggest that
the polemics of the orthodox among the seventeenth-century Reformed
were a distraction from, or worse, an enemy of practical application,
Oomius does polemics and application in the same breath, even subsum-
ing the polemical section of parts of the doctrine of God at times as sub-
sections under the broader heading of practical application.
Adding to the idea that Nadere Reformatie in general was not a reaction
to damaging orthodoxy and scholasticism, it should be highlighted that
it is plain in Oomius writings that he considered his conclusions and his
theology to be mainstream among his contemporaries both in church
and school, not anything odd or different or new. He believed he was
engaging in the same theology and program as the early church, the
several generations of Reformed pastors before him, and his contempo-
raries, pastors and professors alike.
22See his Institutiones theologiae practicae, ofte onderwijsingen in de practycke der god
geleerdheid. Eerste tractaet des tweeden boecks van het eerste deel, vervattende de verhan
delinge der theologia didactica (Bolsward: van Haringhouk, 1676) and Institutiones
theologiae practicae, ofte onderwijsingen in de practycke der godgeleerdheid. Vervolgh van
het eerste tractaet des tweeden boecks van het eerste deel, vervattende de verhandelinge der
theologia didactica (Schiedam: vander Wiel, 1680).
Furthermore, and also worth highlighting, especially his Dissertatie, but

also more of his writings, indicate that he was engaged in an international
program. He valued Puritan theology greatly as his references and trans
lation endeavors show. He saw himself engaged in the same Reformed
practical-theological project as contemporary theologians and pastors in
England, Scotland, France, Switzerland, and elsewhere.
Oomius did, however, think there was a significant way he was con
tributing to this program. According to his analysis, though it was in the
very nature of Reformed theology to apply doctrine, given the many
groups the Reformed had to continually defend their faith against since
the time of the Reformation, he saw a need for more instruction in practi-
cal theologynot just more instruction but also vernacular instruction,
rather than the academic Latin. Despite their tremendous amount of
polemics, Oomius finds that the Reformed still had more practical writ-
ings than other Christians, such as the Catholics and Remonstrants, while
more practical theology was needed in the theological schools and
churches by way of books and pamphlets.
Thus, though not unique in what he was doing, Simon Oomius did see
a need for two things which prompted him to write: a need to write a com-
plete system of practical theology and to do so in the Dutch language.
Though some theologians had begun or were planning a system of theol-
ogy in which the doctrines were applied at every point, no one had as of
yet come close to completing such a project. Certainly no one had done
this in the Dutch language.23
Oomius felt there was a strong need to lay out Reformed theology and
defend it, all with the view toward applying it in the Dutch language so
that students training to be pastors, pastors themselves, and the layperson
in the church could grow in the faith. He saw this need too because ene-
mies of the Reformed faith often wrote in Dutch. He thus reasoned a
response was necessary in the same language so that people would not be
led astray.
Conclusion
This overview of the training, writings, and theology of Simon Oomius

suggests that here, at least, there was no neat split between Nadere
23For Oomius own analysis of the need for a complete system of practical theology,
see his Dissertatie, 368389.
Reformatie piety and Reformed orthodoxy and scholasticism as much past

scholarship on early modern Protestantism has claimed. At the very least
these findings should give us pause in making a distinction between the
two too rigid. Especially given the contents of Oomius Institutiones
Theologiae Practicae, as well as an overview of the rest of Oomius works
and his stated theological purposes and program, one can simply not say
that the Nadere Reformatie concerns were a reaction against dead ortho-
doxy or sought to work against the damaging influence of scholasticism.
In Oomius view, Leer (doctrine) and leven (life), the theoretical and
the practical, are not separated, but embraced as two necessary elements
of theology and of the life of the believer. And while Oomius was unique
in attempting the most expansive practical-theological system of his time
in the Dutch language, his overall view of theology and even his project
was not unique, nor an exception or aberration. Petrus van Mastricht
shortly after him completed a similar project, thought it was in Latin and
not as expansive as that of Oomius. His beloved professor, Johannes
Hoornbeeck, suggested the project. According to Oomius, had Gisbertus
Voetius had the time, he would have been the best person to complete
such a project. The more well-known Nadere Reformatie pastor, Wilhelmus
Brakel, whose major work is available in English, though less expan
sive and less technical than Oomius, actually completed a practical-
theological system in the Dutch language during Oomius lifetime. Oomius
shows awareness of others internationally who were engaged in similar
projects and he particularly indicates appreciation for, and even at times
dependence on English pastors and theologians who had been quite
prolific in producing practical-theological works.
Given all this, these findings suggest that studies filling the gaps in
Nadere Reformatie scholarship would affirm the thesis that it is too simple
and, in fact, outright untenable to make out the proponents of the Further
Reformation to have been involved in a program that was in reaction to
the Reformed orthodox and scholastics of the same time period. This does
an injustice to the Nadere Reformatie, Reformed orthodoxy and scholasti-
cism, and the intentions of these theologians themselves.
As the discoveries and studies and writings of Muller inspired this
study, may the Nadere Reformatie continue to be explored in its proper
theological context for the benefit of many.
MYLIUS ON ELLEBOOGIUS:
A FATAL MISINTERPRETATION
Godfried Quaedtvlieg
Introduction
There are outstanding theologians whose influence is great during their

lifetime and there are theologians whose influence is great only after their
death. Cornelis Hendrikus Elleboogius (ca. 16031701) belongs to the sec
ond category.1 Whereas during the first half of the seventeenth century
Elleboogius was a man of low repute in international Calvinism, it was not
until the first decade of the second millenium that he was rediscovered
as an important source for describing and analyzing the intellectual and
religious climate of the late seventeenth century in the Dutch Republic
and abroad. The starting-point for the rediscovery of Elleboogius in his
toriography is located in the Netherlands and the United States of America.
Without exaggeration it can be claimed that it was the international
research project of R.A. Mylius and W.J. van Asselt that put Elleboogius on
the map again.2 In this context special mention should be made of the
groundbreaking article of R.A. Mylius, that was based on a profound and
impressive analysis of Elleboogius main systematic works (counting more
than 10,000 pages), and some archival research in Aberdeen and Utrecht
which was published in 2010.3 At the same time, van Asselt published a
clear overview of Elleboogius theology, exegesis, ethics, and polemics,
1Contra Mylius who mistakenly dates Elleboogius birth on ca. 1615 at Schiermonnikoog.
See R.A. Mylius, In the Steps of Voetius: Synchronic contingency and the significance of
Cornelius Elleboogius Disputationes Selectae de Tretragrammato to the Analysis of his Life
and Work, in Scholasticism Reformed: Essays in Honur of Willem J. van Asselt, ed. Wisse et
al. (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 92. The archives of Schiermonnikoog report as his day of birth
30April 1603.
2Because of the huge amount of earlier publications, we only mention the fundamen
tal article of Willem van Asselt, Bouwkunde en Verbondstheologie: Het fantastisch
Tempelbeeldwerk van C.H. Elleboogius en de inwerking van de eschatologie van Coocceius
op Voetius en zijn opvolger (unpublished paper, Utrecht University 1998), later adapted
and translated by R. Blacketer as Federal Architecture: The Visionary Temple Recon
structions of Cornelius Elleboogius and the Impact of Cocceian Eschatology on the Voetian
School,CTJ 36.3 (2001): 623666.
3Mylius, Steps of Voetius, 92102.
654 godfried quaedtvlieg
Figure 4.Cornelis Hendrikus Elleboogius (1603-1701).

mylius on elleboogius: a fatal misinterpretation 655
also presenting a bibliography of Elleboogius including some lost manu

scripts belonging to his correspondence,4 especially with his teacher, the
Utrecht professor Gisbertus Voetius (15981676), and a very rare love
letter written in late Rabbinic Hebrew from Anna Maria van Schurman
(16071678) to Elleboogius (d. 1637), who in response called Anna Maria
the loveliest of all women and the most learned woman in the Utrecht
Republic of Letters in the seventeenth century.5 I agree with van Asselts
conclusion that although Elleboogius is not known as a promoter of wom
ens rights, his theology and personal acquaintance with van Schurman
combined to lead him to defend women against misogyny.6
Thus the publications of Mylius and van Asselt reveal Elleboogius
importance as a prominent representative of Dutch Protestantism. As
Mylius and van Asselt rightly observe, he was a man who united in his
person the characteristics of a scholastic theologian and a great mystic. At
the same time, he was a fervent protagonist of federal theology and a
proto-pietist belonging to the movement of the Further Reformation
(Nadere Reformatie) in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic.7
Psychohistory?
Discussing Elleboogius intellectual development, Mylius attempted to

reconstruct the roots of his theology by focusing on the young man
Elleboogius during his student years at Utrecht University (16381641).
4See Willem J. van Asselt, Cornelis Hendrikus Elleboogius als invloedrijk Gereformeerd
theoloog in Hollands bloeitijd (Utrecht: Wristers, 2011). This recent book is also based on
material found in a collection of pamphlets in Knuttel (vol. IX, nrs. 216236) overlooked in
the older biographies of E. Neusbeen (1842) and Enno van Kniegewricht (1922).
Unfortunately, Mylius, Steps of Voetius, also does not refer to these pamphlets in the
Knuttel collection. See W.P.C. Knuttel, Catalogus van de pamflettenverzameling berustende
in de Koniklijke Bibliotheek, bewerkt met aanteekeningen en van een register der schrijvers
voorzien, 9 vols. (The Hague, 18891920), IX, nrs. 216236.
5See Van Asselt, Elleboogius als invloedrijk theoloog, 23. For more details on van
Schurmans intellectual powers and influence in Republic of Letters in Europe, see also
Joyce L. Irwin, ed., Anna Maria van Schurman: Whether a Christian Woman should be edu-
cated and other writings from her intellectual circle (Chicago: CUP, 1998). See also Mirjam de
Baar and Brita Rang, Anna Maria van Schurman: A Historical Survey of Her Reception
since the Seventeenth Century, in Choosing the Better Part: Anna Maria van Schurman
(16071678) (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1996), 910; and John L. Thompson, Piety, Theology,
Exegesis, and Tradition: Anna Maria van Schurmans Elaboration of Genesis 13 and Its
Relationship to the Commentary Tradition in the present volume.
6See especially Cornelis Hendricus Elleboogius, Van de Uytnementheyt des vrouwlicken
Geslachts (Amersfoort: Ex officina Huydekooperii apud Elleboogsteeg, 1666).
7See Mylius, Steps of Voetius, 97; Van Asselt, Elleboogius als invloedrijk theoloog, 23.
Like Erik Erikson did with Luther in his Young Man Luther (1958), Mylius
argues that the key to understand Elleboogius entire theological enter
prise is how he resolved a fundamental identity crisis (especially his love
affair with Anna Maria van Schurman) with the help of Duns Scotus
theory of synchronic contingency.8 Since lovers are crucially important
(where would we be without them?), Mylius relates Elleboogius personal
problems to his adoption of Scotist tenets in order to overcome this heart
breaking crisis in his youth. Elleboogius life, and consequently his theol
ogy, are thus understood as the consequence of a personal application of
the main tenets of Scotist theology, especially the notions of haecceitas
and synchronic contingency or power for opposites, which implies an
account of the wills indeterminism: at the very same time as a will is exer
cising its causal power in bringing about an action A, it must retain its
causal power to bring about not-A.9 Conversely, Elleboogius concept of
divine agency is inferred by Mylius from Elleboogius wills indeterminism
during his early psychological identity crisis.
The difficulty Mylius approach presents to the historian is that the his
torical evidence for his thesis is both meager and contradictory. A more
potentially fruitful psychohistorical approach to Elleboogius is (as we
shall see) through the use of contextual family theory proposed by Scott
Hendrix (1994).10 At the same time, Mylius reassessment of Elleboogius
life and work is marred by a kind of doctrinal mythology, a term coined
by Quentin Skinner. Thereby Skinner indicated a procedure of working
with the presupposition that the thought of a certain person is organized
according to a constellation of some unit idea, in Elleboogius case the
doctrine of synchronic contingency. The special danger of Mylius proce
dure is that of anachronism crediting authorsin this case Elleboogius
with a meaning they could not have intended to convey and finding too
readily expected doctrines in their texts. The result is that there is no place
left for a clear analysis of what Elleboogius himself may have intended
ormeant.11 Skinners method helps us to avoid simple decontextualized
approaches and value judgments on Elleboogius which are historically
and theologically unfounded. It avoids the tendency to reductionist and
pathological explanations.
8See Mylius, Steps of Voetius, 99102.

9See Duns Scotus, Lectura I 39.15, nn.5152 (Vatican, 17:49596).
10Scott Hendrix, Loyalty, Piety, or Opportunism: German Princes and the Reformation,
Journal of Interdisciplinary History 25 (1994): 211224.
11See Quentin Skinner, Visions of Politics, vol. 1, Regarding Method (Cambridge: CUP,
2003), 5759.
The Concept of Contingency in De Tetragrammato
Although Mylius work on Elleboogius can be characterized as a work of

excavation, of theological archaeology by someone who is knowledgeable,
erudite, and an enthusiast, bringing to our view work of great interest and
importance, bones that can live, there are still some fundamental flaws in
this article.12 Due to the huge amount of material Mylius is using in his
research and because addressing all the issues lies beyond the bounds of
the present investigation, I will focus on the main thesis of Mylius article.
Jumping over the federal and pietistic (even mystic) motifs in Elleboogius
theology, I will address the issue that Mylius thinks to be basic for under
standing the whole of Elleboogius theology, namely that the federal
motif in his theology ultimately rests on his understanding of synchronic
contingency.13 His main arguments for this thesis, however, rest on a
superficial and naive reading of Elleboogius main and mature work, his
Disputationes de Tetragrammato (1689).14 The main purpose of this brief
essay is therefore to show that careful analysis of the modal logic used by
Elleboogius in this work reveals that in some crucial passages in this work,
he changed his mind and said goodbye to Scotus theory of synchronic
contingency and thus that it is not appropriate to presume that he main
tained his commitment to Scotistic synchronic contingency during his
whole life, as Mylius seems to suppose.
The first traces of his recantation of the synchronic contingency theory
can already be found in his Disputationes de Tetragrammato, especially in
Disputatio xi, 11 bearing as its title, Utrum contingentia orginaliter sit sen-
tentia scotistica an thomistica? Pr. Neg[atur], Sec. Aff.[irmatur]. Careful
and contextual reading of this disputation shows, quite surprisingly, that
Elleboogius follows clearly the basic modal logic of the Thomist tradition
rather than the diffuse and ambivalent Scotistic tradition by defending
emphatically a diachronic contingency. The main shortcoming of Mylius
analysis is that he overlooks this important disputation, focusing only on
Elleboogius earlier work, in particular the profound meditation on possi-
bilia in his Disputatio theologica vigesima secunda, in which synchronic
12So Pieter Helmet, Synchronic Contingency in Reformed Scholasticism, Nederlands

Tijdschrift voor Gereformeerde Scholastiek 6 (2009): 210.
13Mylius, Steps of Voetius, 93.
14See C.H. Elleboogius, Disputationes de Tetragrammato, sive de tribus Elohim, libri tres
(Aberdeen: Impensis Huberti Blagravii Bibliopol., 1689). Contra Mylius who mentions
Franeker as the place of publication in 1691. See Mylius, Steps of Voetius, 95n14.
contingency indeed plays a rather dominant role.15 In De Tetragrammato,

however, he seems to denounce this earlier commitment to the Scotist
theory of contingency.
But before embarking on this important issue, a few remarks on the
genre of De Tetragrammato are in order, an issue totally missed by Mylius.
The genre of De Tetragrammato is notas Mylius seems to suggesta
reportatio but an ordinatio of his lectures held and later published in
Aberdeen as professor extra ordinarius.16 It was written and edited by
Elleboogius himself. It was not a reportatio, i.e. work written down by a
secretary or friend, while Elleboogius was giving lectures, even though the
work may have been corrected by Elleboogius afterwards as the case of
most of his works, for example his De oeconomia architecturalis.17
With regard to contents it becomes clear that Elleboogius main tar
get in Disputatio xi.11 is Scotus himself who (according to Elleboogius)
founded determinate truth-value of future contingents in the divine will.
Divine will, however, cannot establish determinate truth-value, since it
would obstruct freedom. Therefore, Elleboogius proposes to replace the
Scotist model of natural knowledge (scientia naturalis or necessaria) of
infinite possibila of which some are chosen, by his own theological version
of the principle of plenitude. In this way he tries to relate the future con
tingency of things to the certain foreknowledge of God with the result that
time and modality are linked up by a clear concept of diachronic contin
gency. Echoing Thoamas Aquinas Summa contra Gentiles (I.67.122)
sometimes even verbatimhe states:
Contingens enim, cum futurum est, potest non esse Ex quo autem prae
sens est, pro illo tempore non potest non esse: potest autem in futurum non
esse, sed hoc non iam pertinet ad contingens prout praesens est, sed prout
futurum est. Omnis igitur cognitio, quae supra contingens fertur prout
praesens est, certa esse potest. Divini autem intellectus intuitus ab aeterno
fertur in unumquodque eorum quae temporis cursu peraguntur prout prae
sens est, ut supra ostensum est. Relinquitur igitur quod de contingentibus
nihil prohibit Deum ab aeterno scientiam infallibllem habet.18
15Cf. Elleboogius, Disputatio theologica vigesima secunda: De possibilia infinita

(Leeuwarden: Theophilus Schenkel, 1678), cap. Iii.2.
16Contra Mylius, Steps of Voetius, 95.
17Full Title: De oeconomia architecturalis spiritualis ss. Templo: a tabernaculo Mosis ad
visiones Ezechelitae de novissimis, libri quinque, 2 vols. (Leiden: Pieter Trommelvlies,
16831689).
18ET: For when the contingent is future, it can be not but insofar as the contingent
is present, in that time it cannot be not. It can be not in the future, but this affects the con
tingent not so far as it is present but sofar it is future. All knowledge, therefore, that bears
Here, Elleboogius emphatically defines contingency as alternativity for a

later moment. At the moment a contingent thing is, it cannot be other
wise. Like Thomas, the core of Elleboogius view on eternity (in this pas
sage) is the Boethian view of eternity comprehending all time, by which
Gods present glance extends over all time.19
It should be clear that this view on eternity implies a diachronic con
cept of contingency which makes everything that is present necessary. It
seems that Elleboogius needs the necessity of the present in order to
secure divine infallible foreknowledge. Furthermore, from what follows in
this disputation, it appears that the background of Elleboogius terminol
ogy is an Aristotelian concept of necessity and contingency. Necessity
istaken by Elleboogius in its etymological sense of unavoidable (Latin:
ne-cedo), whereas he interprets contingency as fallibility. With regard to
God, his agency must therefore be necessary or effective and infallible.
Still, Elleboogius assures his readers that necessary knowledge of God
agrees with the contingencies of its known objects. Like Thomas, he com
pares it with the necessary operation of sunshine, which nevertheless
does not make the fruit bearing of plants necessary.20
Scotus Enervatus: Contingency and Biography
Another clear trace of Elleboogius goodbye to Scotus can be found in his

biography, especially his loyalty to family relations. It was not piety, nor
opportunism that made Elleboogius aware of the inapplicability of syn
chronic contingency, but loyalty to family values. Surprisingly, neither
Mylius, nor Elleboogius earlier biographers such as Egbert Scheenbeen
and Enno van Kniegewricht, are aware of the historical evidence that
Elleboogius had a younger brother Frederik Willem Pieter (ca. 16201703)
who played an important role in the educational development of his
brother.21 After his ministry in the Dutch Reformed Church on the isle of
on something contingent as it is present can be certain. But the vision of the divine intel
lect from all eternity is directed to each of the things that take place in the course of time
in sofar as it is present, as shown above. It remains, therefore, that nothing prevents God
from having from all eternity an infallible knowledge of contingents.
19Cf. Aquinas, ST, Ia.14.13 with Elleboogius, De Tetragrammato, xi, 11.2: aeternitas
autem, tota simul existens, ambit totum empus.
20Cf. Elleboogius, Disputationes de Tetragrammato, xi, 11.3 with Aquinas, Summa contra
Gentiles, I.67.221 and ST, Ia.14.13.
21For an extensive biography of Frederik Willem Pieter Elleboogius, see Willem J. van
Asselt, F.W.P. Elleboogius: une esquisse biographique, Bulletin de la Socit de lHistoire
du Protestentisme en Hollande (2000): 353462.
Schiermonnikoog (1643) and pastoral services in Wemeldinge (1645),

Krabbendijke (1650), and Amersfoort (1680), Frederik decided to study
philosophy and theology at the university of Leuven under the tutelage of
some Dominican monks.22 It is in Leuven that he wrote a doctoral disser
tation on Scotus philosophy, called Scotus Enervatus: Non habenti aufertur
quod videbatur habere, which was published in 1693 in Leuven by the
widow of Dido Latomus.23 He dedicated this work to his older brother and
in the preface he wrote (translation mine):
Most noble brother, if I have published your praises among others [here he
refers to his brothers works on federal theology and his theologia emblem-
atica] I have done what I ought. For an honest and sincere heart does not
close inside and admire within itself alone what, if it becomes known to
others, is a case of honor to the one whose gifts are being praised; and it can
also be useful for others both as an example that they may be incited toward
honorable emulation; and that they may pay tribute gratefully to God that
he has adorned also you with such splendor of letters and good arts. These
reasons moved me to bring in the open those things your modesty almost
hides, insofar I was able, just as I will do again when occasion arises. As far
as I am concerned, I thought you had sinned more by lack (in defectu) than
by excess (in excessu) except that I think that even that defect leads to
perfection.24
The defect that leads to perfection refers to the via Scotii which Frederik
labels as a non ita liquet and, therefore, a conatus non frugiferens (not fruit
ful attempt) to explain human destiny. In what follows, he joins his older
brothers opinion on Scotus ambivalence on the issue of contingency by
showing indeed why it is incorrect to assume that Scotus invented a totally
new concept. What Scotus was actually doing when writing on contin
gency was, according to Frederik, simply applying an old Aristotelian or
Thomistic concept to a new subject matter. Referring to Scotus Lectura
I 39.124, Frederik also argued that actually Scotus himself introduced dia
chronic elements into his contingency theory by quoting Scotus rather
opaque sentence that voluntas autem divina non potest habere nisi unicam
volitionem, et ideo unica volitione potest velle opposita obiecta (that the
22In Amersfoort he was a very beloved preacher. This is confirmed by the fact that one
of Amersfoorts streets is named after him. The modern visitor can still go for a nice walk
in the Elleboogsteeg.
23Unfortunately, the Scotus Enervatus is never mentioned in modern secondary litera
ture on Elleboogius, until in 29 July 2012 it was rediscovered by van Asselt in the Library
of the now defunct University of Franeker. Nowadays this rare document is in possession
of the Library or Tresoar of the Fryske Akademie at Leeuwarden (call number E47.158).
24Elleboogius, Scotus Enervatus (Leuven, 1683), praefatio, 4.
divine will can only have one single volition and therefore it can will
opposite objects by one single volition).25 According to Frederik, Scotus
seems to argue here that God wills with one single volition (unica voliti-
one) whatever he wills. God has one volition ad intra, but this one volition
can be related to many opposite things ad extra. Ergo: God can simultane
ously will one thing at time 1 and the opposite thing at time 2. He con
cludes by saying that Scotus theory of contingency is so ambivalent since
it has a diachronic aspect as well as a synchronic aspect: the freedom of
the divine will can relate to opposite objects by one and the same volition
and is infinitely freer than we are with diverse volitions.26 In the final sec
tion of his Scotus Enervatus, Frederik, like his brother, points out that the
idea in Scotus of contingency is not so different from that of Thomas in his
Summa theologiae I.14.9.27 There Thomas argues that it is not necessary
that all that God knows should exist at some time, past, present, or future,
but only such things as he wills to exist or permits to exist. And again, it is
no part of Gods knowledge that such things should exist, but that they
could exist.28
A Recently Discovered Manuscript
But there is more evidence that problematizes Mylius main thesis. Due
the tireless Elleboogius research by van Asselt, mention should also be
made of the discovery of an interesting manuscript which was found in
the Tresoar Library at Leeuwarden. It is written in seventeenth-century
Dutch, counting only two pages.29 After meticulous research by the
Tresoar librarian Jacob van Kanaal in Leeuwarden it appeared to be an
ego-document containing a very confidential note of Cornelis to his
brother Frederik, dated 1 April 1699, two years before his death.30 Being
struck down by a serious illness, he looked back upon his turbulent life
and reported the troubles in his youth caused by the unsuccessful love
affair with Anna Maria van Schurman and Duns Scotus. In moving words
he confessed before his brother that he nu van nieuws overthuight bij
25Duns Scotus, Lectura I 39, 124.

26See F.W.P. Elleboogius, Scotus Enervatus, xi.11, 2527.
27See also Pieter Helmet, Synchronic Contingency in Reformed Scholasticism,
Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Gereformeerde Scholastiek 6 (2009): 210211.
28Aquinas, ST, trans. Thomas Gilby (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1969), 34.
29See Tresoar, Leeuwarden, call number: F85471.
30I must express my gratitude to Dr. Jacob van Kanaal for his assistance in deciphering
the manuscript and his comments on the first draft of this article.
U.E. boexken, gheheeten Scotus enervatus om het zogenoemde Scotiaan

sche waenbeeld, oock door den ghodsalighe professor Gisbertus Voetius
onderweesen sijnde, inhoudende eene gelijcktijdighe of simultaane
gebeurlijckheit [= synchronic contingency], op te geeven, hetgeen ik reeds
ontrent de jaeren dat ick mijne Tetragrammaton schrijvende was ver
moedde, en nu opnenlijck aen het ligt brengen mochte.31 His main
argument for rejecting the ratio Scoti was dat de moghelijcke weerelt van
den subtielen doctor in welcke het moogelijck gheweest soude sijn met
A.M. ghehuwt ghweest te sijn, slechts eene loogisch moogelijcke, doch
gheen realiter existeerende weerelt is. Deese zoo genoemde mogelijcke
weerelden hebben mij in groote wanhoop en twijffel gebracht respecter
ende de goddelicke providentie aangaende mijn lotsbestemming.32 In
short: Elleboogius could not cope with the infinite possibilia regarding his
romance with Anna Maria. Agonies of doubt had befallen him and his
plans to marry her had depended on too many conditionals or ifs.33
Therefore, he declared solemnly that the innumerable possible worlds
in which he could have loved Anna Maria were only logical possible
worlds, not real existing worldsthus revealing that his commitment to
Scotist synchronic contingency was just a youthful sin inspired by his for
mer teacher in Utrecht, the great professor Voetius and his protgee Anna
Maria. This, Elleboogius added, also explained why he had remained a
confirmed bachelor. Indeed, the Almighty infallibly foreknew that he
would never fall in love and why Anna Maria woulddiachronically
turn her back on her previous lover and follow Jean de Labadie, who called
her (though in sensu composito) his dear sister in Christ.34
In conclusion it can be said that in the 1690s Elleboogius openly
denounced synchronic contingency from a complex of motives which
interwove theological integrity with loyal affirmation of his family ties
in the confidential note to his younger brother. Therefore, Mylius
31ET: Your booklet called Scotus enervatus made me again aware that I was right in
giving up the Scotistic delusion of synchronic contingency, also taught by the pious profes
sor Gisbertus Voetius, which idea I already fostered during the years I was writing my
Tetragrammaton, but which opinion I now openly declare.
32ET: The possible worlds of the subtle doctor in which it could have been possible to
be married to A[nna] M[aria] is only a logical possible world, not a really existing one. This
brought me in great despair and raised doubt regarding my personal destiny.
33Thus Elleboogius gave priority to the necessity of the consequent: NpNq, not the
necessity of the consequence: N(pq). The necessity of the consequent would still obtain
after all. In some sense he could be seen as a determinist.
34Cf. Mylius narrative concerning the turn of events which broke Elleboogius heart
and was almost his undoing. See Mylius, Steps of Voetius, 95.
conclusion that the whole of Elleboogius theology, including his cove

nantal and pietistic motifs, rested on a fundamental and continuous
endorsement of synchronic contingency, does not hold any longer.
Further research into the complexity of these issues is needed. In the
meantime, plans are being made to transfer all the Elleboogiana to the
library of the Henry Meeter Center, Grand Rapids, so that in the future this
library will be the place to be for every historian interested in Elleboogius.
THE SHAPE OF REFORMED ORTHODOXY IN THE SEVENTEENTH
CENTURY: THE SOTERIOLOGICAL DEBATE BETWEEN GEORGE
KENDALL AND RICHARD BAXTER
Jordan J. Ballor
There is perhaps no greater example of the learned pastor engaging in the

highest levels of theological discourse, both polemical as well as construc-
tive, than the seventeenth-century Puritan divine Richard Baxter. Baxter
was largely self-taught, but this autodidact would proceed to produce a
literary corpus often identified as consisting of the largest English-
language output of the seventeenth century.1
Whether it was because of his lack of formal, technical training in scho-
lastic theology, his dogged independence of thought, or his contrarian dis-
position (or some combination thereof), Baxter was involved in a wide
variety of theological debates during his lifetime. One identification
closely associated with Baxter in the intervening centuries is the identifi-
cation of him by other controversialists as an Arminian with respect to his
soteriological views. Arminianism takes its name from Jacobus Arminius,
a Dutch theologian who taught at the University of Leiden in the first
decade of the seventeenth century.2 As a historiographical label, however,
it is often used with respect to trends in England that also predate
Arminius rise to prominence at Leiden, and refers to a variety of theologi-
cal positions viewed as diverging from Reformed orthodoxy.3
1See generally N.H. Keeble, Richard Baxter: Puritan Man of Letters (Oxford: Clarendon,
1982). This essay has its origins as a course paper prepared for a doctoral seminar taught by
Richard A. Muller at Calvin Theological Seminary in 2006 on Arminius and Arminianism.
A draft of this paper subsequently appeared in the CTS graduate student journal Stromata,
and this final published version represents and updated and more concise argument con-
cerning the debate between Kendall and Baxter.
2For the international influence of Arminius, see AAE.
3For the discussion of Arminianism in England in and beyond the latter decades of the
sixteenth century, see Peter White, The Rise of Arminianism Reconsidered, PP 101 (1983):
3454, and White, The Rise of Arminianism Reconsidered: A Rejoinder, PP 115 (1987):
217229; William M. Lamont, The Rise of Arminianism Reconsidered: Comment, PP 107
(1985): 227231; P.G. Lake, Calvinism and the English Church 15701635, PP 114 (1987):
3276; Nicholas Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists: The Rise of English Arminianism, c. 15901640 (New
York: OUP, 1987), and Tyacke, The Rise of Arminianism Reconsidered: Debate, PP 115
(1987): 201216; David G. Mullan, Theology in the Church of Scotland 1618-c.1640:
A Calvinist Consensus? SCJ 26.3 (1995): 595617; R.T. Kendall, Calvin and English Calvinism
666 jordan j. ballor
A number of conflicting positions have been taken concerning

Baxters theological status as a Calvinist, an Arminian, or some tertium
quid. J.I. Packer and William Lamont, albeit from rather different starting
points, consider Baxter to hold an Arminian view of justification.4 Others,
such as Hans Boersma and Alan Clifford, in one way or another consider
Baxter to occupy a position differing from both Arminianism and so-called
high Calvinism.5
Simply noting that Baxters stance differs from that of the high
Calvinists does little to prove that he falls outside the bounds of
Reformed orthodoxy, however. As Richard Muller notes, the controversy
over Baxters doctrine of justification was one of the bitter battles among
the Reformed, but it was not one of the controversies that caused
Reformed churches to rupture into separate confessional bodies or iden-
tify a particular theologically defined group as beyond the bounds of the
confessions.6 The lines of demarcation between high Calvinism and
other theologies is thus not necessarily identical with the lines defining
to 1649 (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1997); and Rosalie Colie, Light and Enlightenment: A Study of
the Cambridge Platonists and the Dutch Arminians (Cambridge: CUP, 1957).
4J.I. Packer, Arminianisms, in Through Christs Word, ed. Godfrey and Boyd
(Phillipsburg: P&R, 1985), 121148; and Packer, The Redemption & Restoration of Man in the
Thought of Richard Baxter: A Study in Puritan Theology (Vancouver: Regent College, 2003);
William M. Lamont, Richard Baxter, the Apocalypse and the Mad Major, PP 55 (1972):
6890; Lamont, Richard Baxter and the Millennium: Protestant Imperialism and the English
Revolution (Totowa: Rowman & Littlefield, 1979); and Lamont, Puritanism and Historical
Controversy (Montreal: MQUP, 1996). See also J.L. Neve, Arminianism in its Influence
upon England, Bibliotheca Sacra 88 (1931): 153, who writes that in Baxters independency
of theological inquiry there was the unconscious courting of the Arminian attitude of
mind.
5Hans Boersma, A Hot Pepper Corn: Richard Baxters Doctrine of Justification in its
Seventeenth-century Context of Controversy (Zoetermeer: Uitgeverij Boekencentrum, 1993);
Alan Clifford, Geneva Revisited or Calvinism Revised: The Case for Theological
Reassessment, Churchman 100 (1986): 323334, and Clifford, Atonement and Justification:
English Evangelical Theology, 16401790: An Evaluation (New York: OUP, 1990), 2031. For
those who generally advocate for this understanding of Baxter, see also G.P. Fisher,
The Theology of Richard Baxter, Bibliotheca Sacra and American Biblical Repository 9.33
(1852): 135169, and Fisher, The Writings of Richard Baxter, Bibliotheca Sacra and
American Biblical Repository 9.34 (1852): 300329; J. Wayne Baker, Sola Fide, Sola Gratia:
The Battle for Luther in Seventeenth-Century England. SCJ 16.1 (1985): 115133; Carl
R. Trueman, Richard Baxter on Christian Unity: A Chapter in the Enlightening of English
Reformed Orthodoxy, WTJ 61.1 (1999): 5371; and Tim Cooper, Fear and Polemic in
Seventeenth-Century England: Richard Baxter and Antinomianism (Aldershot: Ashgate,
2001). See also Cooper, John Owen, Richard Baxter and the Formation of Nonconformity
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011), 86.
6Muller, PRRD, 1:76. See also Muller, Covenant and Conscience in English Reformed
Theology: Three Variations on a 17th Century Theme, WTJ 42.2 (1980): 30834.
the shape of reformed orthodoxy in the 17th century 667
confessional orthodoxy.7 Even so, ongoing Reformed ambivalence

about Richard Baxter is illustrated in a recent introductory guide to
Puritan figures, which identifies Baxter as one who frequently leaned
towards Arminian thinking, and describes his soteriology as Amyraldian
with the addition of Arminian new law teaching.8 This general suspicion
of Baxters orthodoxy has recently been challenged explicitly by Tim
Cooper.9
But in fact those who argue that Baxter is an Arminian, at least with
respect to doctrines like justification and predestination, do have much
support from Baxters contemporaries, many of whom questioned the
orthodoxy of Baxters views. This is especially true with respect to his
doctrine of justification as espoused in his first published work in 1649,
Aphorismes of justification, which occasioned a great deal of dispute,
most notably with John Owen.10 Baxters debates with Owen have been
well-surveyed elsewhere, but these would not be the end of the controver-
sies on these matters for Baxter, who was particularly concerned about
the idea of justification from eternity that he saw present in Owens teach-
ing.11 Indeed George Kendall, in the midst of attacking the views of John
Goodwin and while explicitly affirming justification in an eternal sense,
would later criticize Baxters stance on justification and related doctrines
7See Richard Muller, Diversity in the Reformed Tradition: A Historiographical

Introduction, in Drawn into Controversie, ed. Haykin and Jones (Gttingen: V&R, 2011),
2325.
8Joel R. Beeke and Randall J. Pederson, Meet the Puritans (Grand Rapids: RHB, 2006),
66. See also Jonathan D. Moore, The Extent of the Atonement: English Hypothetical
Universalism versus Particular Redemption, in Drawn into Controversie, 153.
9See Cooper, John Owen, 88. As Boersma observes, In modern research, most
statements that Baxter is an Arminian are carefully qualified. See Boersma, A Hot Pepper
Corn, 21n144.
10Richard Baxter, Aphorismes of justification with their explication annexed (London:
Tyton, 1649).
11In an appendix to his Aphorismes, Baxter engaged Owens position as it had appeared
in a 1647 work, Salus Electorum, Sanguis Jesu; Or, The Death of Death in the Death of
Christ, upon the request of an anonymous reader of Baxters Aphorismes, who desired
some satisfaction in that which Maccovius, and Mr Owen oppose in the places which
I mentioned (Appendix, 9). Baxters response included the charge that Owen had misun-
derstood Grotius (an Arminian) on universal redemption (Appendix 123159). Owen
responded in a short work, Of the Death of ChristAnd The Doctrine Concerning these things
formerly delivered in a Treatise against Universal Redemption Vindicated from the Exceptions,
and Objections of Mr Baxter (London: Cole, 1650). For the particulars of the dispute,
see Cooper, John Owen, Richard Baxter and the Formation of Nonconformity, 87100;
Carl Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, Renaissance Man (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007),
113118; and Paul Chang-Ha Lim, In Pursuit of Purity, Unity, and Liberty: Richard Baxters
Puritan Ecclesiology in Its Seventeenth-Century Context (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 182187.
on a number of points.12 Baxter replies to Kendalls criticisms in a some-

what longer treatise the following year, The reduction of a digressor (1654).13
The survey here of the debate between Kendall and Baxter mirrors the
threefold topical arrangement of their exchange, which is first set by
Kendall and followed by Baxter: the eternality of immanent acts of God,
the conditionality of the covenant of grace, and the instrumentality of
faith.14 Baxters understanding of a distinction between the divine decree
of election as an immanent act and the outworking of the covenant of
grace as a transient act of justification is critical for his later positive claims
regarding the conditionality of the covenant and faith as a condition
(rather than an instrument) of salvation. We will find that Baxters insis-
tence on an understanding of justification as a temporal act is at the heart
of his dispute with Kendall. Kendall understands the conditionality of the
covenant in Baxter to be a denial of the unconditionality of election as had
been articulated in the Canons of Dordt and the Lambeth Articles, for
example, and as being in agreement with Arminius own contention that
election is conditional.15 As such Kendall accuses Baxter of teaching a doc-
trine of justification by works. But, indeed, when Baxter talks about faith
being a condition of the New Covenant, he is in fact making a fine termi-
nological and theological distinction between a condition and a cause.
This is also underscored by Baxters denial of faith as an instrument of
justification. Baxter is in fact attempting to guard against a synergistic
12George Kendall, , or, A vindication of the doctrine commonly received in

the reformed churches (London: Ratcliffe and Mottershed, 1653); Kendall is responding
to Goodwins Apolytrosis apolytroseos, or, Redemption redeemed (London: Macock, 1651).
For the Aphorismes and their anti-antinomian background, as well as early criticisms,
including those from John Owen and George Kendall, see Cooper, John Owen, Richard
Baxter and the Formation of Nonconformity, 7183.
13Richard Baxter, The reduction of a digressor: or Rich. Baxters reply to Mr George
Kendalls digression in his book against Mr Goodwin (London: Underhill, 1654). Baxters
response is roughly ten times longer than Kendalls original digression. For more on
Goodwin, see Herbert D. Foster, Liberal Calvinism: The Remonstrants at the Synod of
Dort in 1618, HThR 16.1 (1923): 137; and Ellen More, John Goodwin and the Origins of the
New Arminianism, Journal of British Studies 22.1 (1982): 5070.
14For Baxters dispute with Kendall as relating to Baxters doctrine of God, see Simon
J.G. Burton, The Hallowing of Logic: The Trinitarian Method of Richard Baxters Methodus
Theologiae (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 214217. But on Burtons treatment of Baxters analogy of
being, see David S. Sytsma, Mechanical Philosophy in the Hands of an Angry Puritan:
Richard Baxters Philosophical Polemics (Ph.D. diss., Princeton Theological Seminary,
2013), ch. 4.
15See, for example, Article IV of The Apology or Defence of James Arminius, in
Arminius, Works, 1:74550, which states, Faith is not an effect of election, but is a neces-
sary requisite foreseen by God in those who are to be elected: And the decree concerning
the bestowing of faith precedes the decree of election, 745.
doctrine of justification, which for seventeenth-century Calvinists is con-

sidered a hallmark of Arminian heterodoxy. The state of the dispute
between Kendall and Baxter thus conflicts with any facile characteriza-
tion of Baxter as holding an Arminian doctrine of justification.16 The shape
of the conflict between Kendall and Baxter shows that even in the wake of
an international Reformed consensus at the Synod of Dordt and the con-
demnation of the errors of the Remonstrants, a diversity of views contin-
ued to exist and spark theological controversy in Reformed theology. This
analysis of this dispute, then, will lend credence to Baxters own remark to
Peter Ince (d. 1683), following on the heels of Kendalls attack: I am more
firmly established against Arminianisme than ever I was in my life.17
Introduction to the Dispute
The immediate context for George Kendalls criticism of Richard Baxter is

Kendalls engagement of the views of John Goodwin. During this work
against Goodwin, Kendall devotes a number of pages directly to Baxter,
and within the theological context of mid-seventeenth century England,
Kendalls accusation is clear: Kendall is implicitly linking Baxter with
Arminianism. Baxter himself understands this to be the case, when he
writes of Kendall, He thought to get an Advantage for his Reputation, by
a triumph over John Goodwin and me; for those that set him on work
would needs have him conjoin us both together, to intimate that I was an
Arminian.18 As Boersma writes, It was, therefore, imperative for Baxter
that he lay Kendalls charges to rest, especially where they concerned the
simplicity and immutability of God.19 These latter issues are dealt with
primarily in the first section of the dispute, concerning the understanding
of the eternality of immanent acts of God.
Kendall begins his digression against Baxter by enjoining the latter on
the question of whether it is possible to conceive of there being any new
16This conclusion given the particular context of the Kendall-Baxter debate supports
the larger conclusions reached by Burton concerning Baxters relationship to Arminianism
in Hallowing of Logic, 317320.
17Baxter to Peter Ince, 21 Nov. 1653: I am more firmly established against Arminianisme
than ever I was in my life; & much more since I left Twisses way, & went the way of the
Synod of Dort, than I was before. See N.H. Keeble and Geoffrey F. Nuttall, Calendar of the
Correspondence of Richard Baxter, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), 1:118. This correspon-
dence is discussed in ODNB, s.v. Ince, Peter (1614/16151683).
18Baxter, Reliquiae Baxterianae, I.110. See also Boersma, A Hot Pepper Corn, 47.
19Boersma, A Hot Pepper Corn, 47.
immanent acts of God. Kendall defines an immanent act as such as is

terminated in the agent, and not in anything without it.20 Kendall notes
that Baxter does not absolutely assert that there are new immanent acts
in God, but that Baxter confesses his ignorance on the matter in his
Aphorismes.21 The problem as Kendall sees it is that to express doubt as to
whether all immanent acts in God are eternal is to question Gods immu-
tability.22 Wondering at what Baxter could possibly mean by questioning
the eternality of immanent acts, Kendall writes, if the meaning be that
any transient be eternal, that is a mystery beyond all that hath been heard,
then somewhat was made from eternity; if the meaning be, that no imma-
nent act is eternal, thats after the same rate. The first made the creature
eternal, the second denies God to be eternal.23 Either implication is
one that will have serious and deleterious consequences for Baxters
theology.
Baxters defense begins along the lines of an apology for theological
circumspection. He quotes lengthy passages from a variety of church
fathers, which discuss the limitations of human knowledge of God. Baxter
writes, In generall, I am very strongly perswaded that it is one of the
greatest sins that a great part of Pious Learned Divines are guilty of,
that they audaciously adventure to dispute and determine unrevealed
things; and above all others, about the Nature and Actions of the Incompre
hensible God.24
Baxter continues by engaging a variety of opinions to subvert Kendalls
objections, particularly relying on sources such as Surez, Scheibler,
Keckermann, and Burgersdijk.25 The difficulty for Kendall is that Baxter
himself refuses to side with any of these many and various opinions, but
simply offers them as alternatives to Kendalls explanations. The burden
of proof is on Kendall to show the certainty of his doctrine in the face of
such opposition. As Baxter notes, Remember that I say not that your
Doctrine is Untrue, but Uncertain. It may be possibly as you say; but
20Kendall, , 134.
21Kendall, , 134: Now that there can be any new immanent act in God,
Master Baxter doth not venture to affirme; only he is pleased to say this, that all immanent
acts in God are eternal, he thinks it quite beyond our understanding to know. See also Baxter,
Aphorismes, 173174.
22See Boersma, A Hot Pepper Corn, 99.
23Kendall, , 135.
24Baxter, Reduction, 3, p.7. Trueman characterizes Baxters theological approach as an
indictment of the speculations of both the Calvinists and the Arminians. See Trueman,
Richard Baxter on Christian Unity, 69.
whether you can tell that it is so, or prove it to be so, I doubt.26 What
Baxter is arguing against here is a kind of theological certainty about what
can be attributed to God on the basis of what we know about human acts.
Baxter consistently argues that justification is a transient act of God
and is therefore temporal. But the relation between this transient act,
properly called justification, and the immanent act (or will) in God is
precisely the main point of dispute. We can see the distinction between
the transient and the immanent act that Baxter makes in the analogous
case of creation. He writes,
The Existence is more than the meer Ee Volitum, or Will that they shall
exist: And it is not all one to know the Thing it self in it self, and to know it in
its Cause. Though God therefore did from Eternity intuitively know the Ee
Volitum, and know the Creature in himself its Cause, and know its futurity,
and so fore-know all things: yet it follows not that he intuitively knew the
Creature in it self, as existing, (Unlesse we assert the co-existence of all
things in Eternity with God).27
In this case, the immanent act is the will that they shall exist, while the
transient act is the actual act of making the creatures to exist.
Boersma observes a difficulty in Baxters theology here regarding acts of
justification arising de novo.28 It is unclear, however, that Baxter is actually
arguing that some immanent acts do originate de novo, or whether it is
simply the transient acts that originate de novo when the eternally deter-
mined condition for their actualization has been met. Indeed, it seems
plausible that rather than arguing that Gods will to justify a believer
arises in him de novo, that instead Baxter means to claim that Gods actual
justification, his transient act of justification, arises de novo in time.29 This
claim is consistent with the findings of the latter two points of the Kendall-
Baxter debate.
The Conditionality of the Covenant
Kendalls next point of dispute with Baxter is over the covenant of grace,
and whether it can be considered to be conditional. Kendall defines justi-
fication as a remission of our sins, and accepting of us as righteous, and
identifies it as both an immanent and transient act, since an immanent
26Baxter, Reduction, 5, p. 16.

act there must be confest, if there be a transient one.30 Indeed, since jus-
tification as an immanent and transient act are so closely related, argues
Kendall, it is acceptable to call either act by the name justification.31 For
Kendall, the eternality of immanent acts means that justification is most
properly identified with the eternal decree. In Kendalls understanding
justification has two aspects, as both a transient and immanent act of God.
This is no doubt why Kendall takes such offense to Baxters contention
that the covenant of grace is conditional. For Kendall, whatever is predi-
cated of the covenant of grace can also be predicated of the eternal decree,
since the two are so closely identified. A doctrine of a conditional cove-
nant would have terrible results, and gets at the heart of Kendalls true
concern regarding Baxters doctrine: it teaches a form of justification
by works. Kendall writes, Man shall properly be said to justifie himself,
(a thing which Mr. Baxter looks on, as well as he may, as monstrum
horrendum,) for where there is a promise of a reward made to all, upon a
condition of performing such a service he that obtaines the reward, gets it
by his own service; without which the Promise would have brought him
never the nearer to the reward.32 In this way, the heart of Kendalls charge
against Baxters understanding of the covenant of grace as conditional is
that it is a synergistic doctrine.33 Kendall fears that in viewing the cove-
nant as conditional, man can be said to be the primary actor in justifica-
tion. Justification is accomplished not so much by Gods promulgation of
the Covenant, as the man Covenanter his performing the Condition, which
is the immediate cause of it, and therefore he justifies himiself, and that
more than God in the New Covenant.34 Kendall goes so far as to say that
there is a necessary relationship between holding a form of justification by
works and viewing the covenant as conditional. He writes, Truly whoever
makes faith the Condition of the New Covenant, in such a sense as full
obedience was the condition of the old, cannot avoid it, but that man is
justified chiefly by himself.35
30Kendall, , 138.
31Kendall, , 138: I contend that immanent act there can be no other then the
decree of God to passe his transient act; and that this decree of God to passe the transient act
of justifying carries in it as much as concernes Gods remission of sinnes, and acceptance of us
as righteous; and therefore hath much in it like to justification; and may be stiled so without
blasphemy.
32Kendall, , 140.
33Kendall, , 140.
34Kendall, , 140.
35Kendall, , 141.
Baxter certainly cannot abide the charge of synergism, and engages

Kendalls criticisms directly. He denies the validity of Kendalls identifica-
tion of justification with both the immanent and the transient act of God.
Baxter writes, Immanent acts pass not into the extrinsick objects and
make no change on them, and therefore are not causall: and therefore
cannot well as causals be denominated from their effects: therefore no
immanent act of God can be called Justification, or part of Justification, or
a justifying act.36 He contends instead that it is the transient act that is
properly called justification, since it is the transient act only that effecteth
Justification (Passive:) therefore it is the transient act only that is to be
called Justification.37 We can see here how the previous point of debate
over the nature of immanent and transient acts has bearing on the respec-
tive understandings of Kendall and Baxter on justification.
For Baxter, the immanent act of God is something like the divine
decree, or the eternal will to justify. But this is not absolutely identical
with the actual transient act of justification. Thus Baxter writes to Kendall,
When you say God decreed to Justifie do not you plainly make Decreeing
and Justifying two things? and denominate only the transient act which
is in time Justification? So of other acts; as when we say God decreed to
create: you do not say, His Decreeing was Creating.38
It is because of his distinction between the immanent decree and the
transient act of justification that Baxter can hold to the conditionality of
the covenant of grace without lapsing into a denial of the unconditionality
of the decree. Since the two are not identical, what is predicated of one
is not necessarily predicated of the other. In Baxters view, the difference
is primarily that the decree has to do with creatures as future realities
(yet to be created), while the covenant as an instrument of actualizing
justification has to do with present created and fallen creatures. So Baxter
writes, And thus I conceive, Decree respecting the future, and Accepting
and Approving being acts that connote a present object, and so may
not be said to be such acts till the object exist, therefore God may well
be said to Decree to Accept us, and Approve us, and Love us, and
Delight in us &c. though all be Immanent acts.39 In this way Baxter finds
Kendalls conflation of the separate immanent and transient acts highly
problematic.

With respect to Kendalls charge that the teaching of the covenant of

grace as conditional results in mans self-justification, Baxter refuses to
accede to the conclusion. He writes, I deny that there is any other Cause
doth intervene between the Covenant, and the Effect. A condition on
mans part must be performed before the Law or Covenant of Grace will
Actu Causare, i.e. Justificare. And this condition hath its Causes: But
Remission and Justification have no intervening Causes.40 The human
being cannot be said to be a cause in her justification because faith is sim-
ply a condition and not a cause. This distinction is an important key to
Baxters doctrine. He writes of Kendall, Its a pity that he cannot distin-
guish between a Cause and a meer Condition: Where he saith he that
obtains the reward gets it by his service I say, it is here By it, as a Condition
sine qua non, but not By it, as by a Cause.41 Faith is the occasion for the
execution of the justifying action in time, but is not the basis or the foun-
dation for Gods decree to save in eternity.
In defense of his doctrine of the conditionality of the covenant,
Baxter employs another distinction, between the covenant as conditional
and as absolute or actual. This distinction is conceptually analogous to
the common sufficient for all, efficient for the elect view of the atone-
ment codified by the Synod of Dordt. Baxter writes, Conditionally
God Justifieth All by his Covenant, at least All to whom it is Revealed.
Actually he Justifieth only them that have the Condition. I oppose Actually
to Conditionally, because that while it is but Conditional, it is not Actual
in Law sense, that is, Effectual, though it is in Actu, so farre done as it
is.42 If Baxters view of justification were to be put into a similar construc-
tion, he might say conditional for all, actual (or absolute) for the elect.43
And so while Kendall thinks that Baxters doctrine leads to a form of
synergism or human self-justification, Baxter in fact levels a reciprocal
charge against Kendall.44 And he does so in his refutation of Kendalls
view that faith is an instrument (rather than a condition) of receiving
justification.

43It is for this reason that Clifford interprets Baxters view to be in accord with
the teachings of the Synod of Dordt on the extent of the atonement, as indeed Baxter
confessed himself to be. See Clifford, Geneva Revisited or Calvinism Revised, 325.
See also Boersma, A Hot Pepper Corn, 217.
The Instrumentality of Faith
The final point of the dispute between Kendall and Baxter revolves around
the issue of conceiving faith as an instrument in justification. Kendall
writes, Mr. Baxter objects against Faiths being an instrument of our
Justification, and that it is neither mans nor Gods instrument. I shal make it
appear to be both Gods [and] mans in some sense, though in different
respects, notwithstanding all he hath said to the contrary.45
With respect to viewing faith as Gods instrument, Kendall argues that
it is only improperly called such: I do not say it is properly, but it is his
work, and by giving us faith he justifies us, as shall be shewed anon, he
giving us that which is our instrument, whereby we receive the righteous-
nesse of Christ.46 So the instrumentality of faith is most properly
understood to refer to its human use. Even so, writes Kendall, I alone
receive, but these are Gods acts, and though God be not said to believe, he
truly may be said to be the author of my belief, my belief; is an immanent
act in me, and so denominates me the believer, a transient act as from God,
and denominates him only the author of my beleeving.47 Faith is Gods
instrument insofar as he is the author and originator of faith. In the proper
sense, then, faith can be said to be mans instrument. Kendall emphasizes
that this does not result in a form of self-justification, however. He writes,
Man may not be said of his believing, to justifie himself, but to beleeve to his
Justification, and to receive Justification by beleeving; for that by faith, as it
is Gods work, God doth justifie him.48
Kendall himself finds that Baxter places too large an emphasis on
faith by calling it a condition. By doing so Baxter has elevated it to the
status of efficient cause. He writes of Baxter, according to him it hath
more then the influx of an instrumental, that of the principal efficient
upon our Justification as being that which makes this a conditional
grant, in the Covenant to become absolute; and all the benefit we receive
by the Covenant is more to be ascribed to our faith then Gods grace in the
Covenant.49
As we have seen, Baxter rebukes Kendall for not properly accounting
for the difference between a condition and a cause. Baxters intent is to
45Kendall, , 141.
46Kendall, , 141.
47Kendall, , 141142.
48Kendall, , 142.
49Kendall, , 142. Cf. Boersma, A Hot Pepper Corn, 177.
avoid a doctrine of synergism, which is why he describes faith as a condi-

tion rather than an instrument. Baxter writes, the thing which I deny is,
that faith is an Instrument in the strict Logical sense, that is, an Instru
mental efficient cause of our Justification: and that I expressly disclaim
contending de nomine, or contradicting any that only use the word
Instrument in an improper larger sense, as Mechanicks and Rhetoricians
do: so that the Question is de re, whether it efficiently cause our Justification
as an Instrument? This I deny.50 In this way, Baxter accuses Kendall,
if you make faith the proper Instrument of justifying, you make man his
own pardoner, and rob God of his Soveraignty.51 For Baxter, the term
instrument in its proper sense denotes the instrumental form of efficient
causality.52 In this way we can see a shared concern between Kendall
and Baxter. Kendall thinks that identifying faith as a condition turns it
into an efficient cause, while Baxter thinks the same for identifying faith
as an instrument.
Here the dispute between Kendall and Baxter has finally come into
sharpest relief. Both want to maintain a doctrine of justification that elim-
inates faith as an efficient cause. Where Kendall tends to identify the
eternal decree with the temporal act of justification, Baxter clearly distin-
guishes between the two. For Kendall, this means that if the decree is
unconditional then the covenant of grace must be as well. For Baxter,
this means that he can maintain that the decree is unconditional while
at the same time asserting that its actualization in time through the
covenant of grace is conditional. The divergences on these points come to
a head over the question of the instrumentality of faith.53
Conclusion
We have seen that Richard Baxters dispute with George Kendall is rooted
in the formers distinction between the immanent decree of God and
justification as the temporal transient act of God. At each point in the
dispute, Baxter criticizes Kendall for not appropriately understanding the
terminological distinctions that are necessary to properly regard his theol-
ogy. Kendall sees any argument for the conditionality of the covenant of

grace as a hallmark for Arminian synergism. In such a case, he says, man

will be necessarily seen to justify himself.
But from Baxters perspective, his emphasis on distinctions is intended
to avoid any form of self-justifying synergism, and he finds that Kendalls
lack of precision runs the risk of committing the same error. In his view,
Kendall comes dangerously close to asserting that justification is an eter-
nal, immanent act of God. For Baxter, this is simply a conflation of neces-
sarily distinct concepts and a fundamentally antinomian error.
Kendalls implicit linkage of Baxter with Arminianism is part and parcel
of his explicit claim that Baxter teaches a synergistic doctrine of justifica-
tion. Such is the nature of polemic in the seventeenth century. For Kendall
and other so-called high Calvinists, to speak of the covenant of grace as
conditional is tantamount to admitting Arminian, papist, and synergistic
heterodoxy. For his part, Baxter too could respond in kind, accusing any-
one who hinted at a doctrine of justification from eternity as complicit
with antinomianism.
While such labels and categorizations were often effective rhetorical
devices in the polemics of the era, their value as historical labels must be
critically examined. Packer tends to obscure rather than clarify the doctri-
nal situation of the seventeenth century when he describes Baxters doc-
trine of justification as Arminian.54 Under such an interpretation, what
Cooper observes would still hold true: In the context of mid-seventeenth-
century English polemic, the Aphorismes could only ever be seen to be an
Arminian document, and its author an Arminian. The conceptual space of
the middle way was fragile, vulnerable and ultimately untenable. The
harsh reality of religious polemic dictated the terms.55 Baxters theology
is simply not identical with either the high Calvinism of a George Kendall
or the Arminianism of a John Goodwin. Figures such as Kendall do not,
however, have an absolute monopoly on Reformed confessional ortho-
doxy, which can accommodate some variety of theological perspectives.
There remains a great deal of work to be done to understand both
Baxters soteriological views in particular as well as the broader shape of
Reformed orthodoxy in this period.56 If we are to understand Baxter as
54See Packer, Arminianisms, 122, 133.

55Cooper, Fear and Polemic, 98. On Baxterianism, see Clifford, Geneva Revisited or
Calvinism Revised, 331.
56For the influence of James Ussher, John Davenant, and othersparticularly the
middle way of the British and Bremen delegations to Dordton Baxters theological
development, see Lim, In Pursuit of Purity, Unity, and Liberty, 173180. The mirroring
representing a mediating theology between high Calvinism and Armi

nianism, as Keeble claims, then we need to simultaneously broaden our
understanding of Reformed confessional orthodoxy.57 But an important
place to begin a proper assessment of Baxters theology is to break through
the obfuscation of historical labels, often inherited from the polemics
of earlier eras, and engage these works on their own terms. A simple histo-
riographical scheme absolutely identifying high Calvinism with Reformed
orthodoxy and any dissenting theological positions with Arminian het-
erodoxy is simply inadequate to this task.
dynamics concerning conditionality of the covenant and antinomianism in the Kendall-

Baxter debate and the Marrow Controversy of the eighteenth-century are also worthy of
further exploration.
57Keeble, Richard Baxter, 148.
G.W. LEIBNIZ AND PROTESTANT
SCHOLASTICISM IN THE YEARS 16981704
Irena Backus
Introduction
The main object of this article is to examine Leibnizs attitude to what we

call nowadays Protestant Scholasticism or Reformed orthodoxy. This is
the name frequently but not accurately given to the theological orienta-
tion of Protestant churches after the death of Calvin and up until the early
Enlightenment. The name Protestant Scholasticism is due to the fact
that post-Reformation theology is characterised among other things by its
exponents lack of interest in empirical reasoning and their correspond-
ingly greater interest in applying reason to first principles or axioms such
as Gods essence or double predestination which are supposedly drawn
from the Bible and from certain normative texts such as the confessions of
faith or the decrees of the Synod of Dordt. Now as regards the biblical
foundation of doctrines such as the essence of God or double predestina-
tion, it goes without saying that the Bible does not contain either in so
many words. However, some passages can be interpreted so as to bear out
the double decree of God regarding predestination or the purely abstract
question of Gods essence, which gives its distinctive shape to much of the
Protestant Scholastic exegesis. If we turn to the article Reformed ortho-
doxy in the Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Reformation, we read that men
such as Theodore Beza (15191605) and Lambert Daneau (ca. 15301595)
were the first to:
adapt the Calvinist doctrines to the requirements of academic transmission,
utilizing the resources of dialectics and rhetoric to structure theology while
making careful use of some elements of metaphysics to deal with the loci
theologici that the reformers had merely touched upon, such as the essence
of God.1 Imbued with classical and patristic culture, tinged with a veneer
of medieval scholasticism, their still awkward attempts foreshadowed the
deeper and more balanced syntheses of the Reformed theologians of the
1I mention other aspects of Protestant Scholasticism or Reformed Orthodoxy in Irena

Backus, Reformed Orthodoxy and Tradition, in Companion to Reformed Orthodoxy, ed.
Herman Selderhuis (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 91117.
680 irena backus
17th century such as the theologian and philosopher Bartholomaeus

Keckermann (Systema s.s. theologiae, 1611), the Basel theologian Amandus
Polanus of Polansdorf (Syntagma theologiae christianae, 1624) and Johannes
Wolleb (Christianae theologiae compendium, 1620).2
The article does not define the scholastic aspect of Reformed orthodoxy
and seems at a loss to define the unifying factor among sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century theologians of diverse colourings and orientations
such as John Calvin; Theodore Beza, Calvins successor and first rector of
the Geneva Academy reputed to be the pioneer of the Reformed doctrine
of double predestination; Hieronymus Zanchi (d. 1590) professor of theol-
ogy at Heidelberg;3 Johannes Piscator (15461625) rector of the Herborn
Academy and a Ramist; Lambert Daneau, Bezas contemporary and pro-
fessor of theology at Leiden; Bartholomaeus Keckermann (d. 1608)
Reformed professor at the Danzig Gymnasium known to Lutherans as the
father of modern systematic theology;4 or Marcus Friedrich Wendelin
(15841652), professor of theology and philosophy at the Anhalt Gym
nasium and theologically a follower of Piscator and the latters view of
Christs obedience as against Bezas.5 Of course, they are all teachers of
theology and compilers of or authors of systems which attempt to recon-
cile reason and scriptural belief by recourse to traditional Aristotelian cat-
egories while avoiding empiricism. The other common factor which could
be cited is their reputed indebtedness to Calvin whom they supposedly
consider as their model and a founding father. Now, as Richard Muller
pointed out recently, Reformed theology of the period in fact varies enor-
mously in its dependence on the Genevan reformer,6 the prime example
here being Franois Turrettini who considers Calvin as the ultimate
authority on the one hand7 while deviating from the Genevan reformer in
his explanation of phenomena such as the Incarnation and in his method-
ology in general.8 Finally, as already mentioned, a common factor which
unites the writers cited above and other representative of Protestant
Scholasticism is their use of Aristotles logic and philosophy to explain
2Olivier Fatio, Orthodoxy, in OER, III.182.

3Johannes Bolte, Zanchius, Hieronymus, in ADB, 44:679.
4Joachim Staedtke, Keckermann, Bartholomus, in NDB, 11:388389.
5F.W. Cuno, Wendelin, Marcus Friedrich, in ADB, 41:714716.
6Richard Muller, Reception and Response. Referencing and Understanding Calvin in
Seventeenth Century Calvinism, in Calvin and his Influence, 15092009, ed. Backus and
Benedict (New York: OUP, 2011), 182201.
7See Muller, Reception and Response, 191195.
8See Backus, Reformed Orthodoxy and Tradition, 91117.
leibniz and protestant scholasticism 681
theology.9 All this makes sense only in an academic context and has little
to do with piety, spirituality, and religious emotions in general.
The seventeenth century was also the era of Lutheran orthodoxy
which, although more diversified and less scholastic than Protestant
Scholasticism, is nonetheless easier to define. It began with the Formula
of Concord which united Philippists and gnesio-Lutherans and is normally
considered to have lasted until the early Enlightenment. Lutheran theol-
ogy became more stable in its theoretical definitions and a distinct
Lutheran scholastic method developed gradually, especially for the pur-
pose of arguing with the Jesuits, and was finally established by Johann
Gerhard (15821637). Abraham Calovius (16121686) represents the climax
of the scholastic paradigm in orthodox Lutheranism. The Lutheran scho-
lastic method relied, like Protestant Scholasticism, on Aristotelian phi-
losophy to establish the intellectual framework of doctrines. Among
orthodox Lutheran theologians were e.g. Martin Chemnitz (15221586),
Aegidius Hunnius (15501603), Leonhard Hutter (15631616), Johannes
Andreas Quenstedt (16171688), Johann Friedrich Knig (16191664) and
Johann Wilhelm Baier (16471695). The theological heritage of Philip
Melanchthon eventually rose up again in the Helmstedt School and espe-
cially in theology of Georg Calixt (15861656), which caused the Syncretistic
Controversy. Another theological issue was the crypto-Kenotic contro-
versy. In the closing years of the movement Lutheran orthodoxy was torn
by influences from Rationalism and Pietism. Orthodoxy also produced
numerous postils, which were important devotional readings. Along with
hymns, they conserved orthodox Lutheran spirituality during this period
of heavy influence from Pietism and Neology. Johann Gerhard, Heinrich
Mller (16311675), and Christian Scriver (16291693) wrote other kinds of
devotional literature. The last prominent orthodox Lutheran theologian
before the Enlightenment and Neology was David Hollatz (16481713).
Alater orthodox theologian Valentin Ernst Lscher (16731749) was vio-
lently opposed to Pietism and engaged in the well-known controversy
against it with Joachim Lange (16701744) in the years 17071722.
Mediaeval mystical tradition continued up until mid-seventeenth century
in the works of Martin Moller (d. 1606), Johann Arndt (15551621) and
Joachim Ltkemann (16081655). Pietism became a rival of orthodoxy but
9See among other works on this Heppe, RD or, for a more contemporary and more reli-
able viewpoint, Muller, PRRD. The latest secondary literature is listed in Carl Trueman,
Calvin and Protestant Scholasticism, in The Calvin Handbook, ed. Selderhuis (Grand
682 irena backus
adopted some orthodox devotional literature, such as the works of Arndt

and Scriver which were often later mixed with pietistic literature.10
Political and Ecclesiastical Background to the Union

Negotiations with the Brandenburg Church
Leibniz was a Lutheran by profession and was never actively involved in

education. Although interested in theological matters, he never took him-
self for a theologian and was always careful to refer to and consult the
Lutheran faculty at Helmstedt on questions to do with Protestantism in
general, be it Reformed or Lutheran (or rather Evangelical as he pre-
ferred to call it). To examine his place within Lutheran orthodoxy would
thus be a fruitless exercise. However, the object of this article is not to
examine his theology, if he had one, or to worry about whether it was his
theological preoccupations that gave rise to his metaphysical system or,
on the contrary, whether it was his metaphysics and science that fed his
theological views. I have shown elsewhere that these questions, which
have occupied some modern Leibniz scholars recently, are in fact point-
less as the two realms, philosophy and theology, are too closely connected
in his thought to warrant the enquiry about which came first.11 As stated
above, my object here is to examine Leibnizs view of what we call today
Protestant Scholasticism or Reformed orthodoxy as evidenced by what
is probably the fullest theological document he ever produced. The docu-
ment which remained in manuscript until the appearance of the most
recent volume of Leibnizs writings in the Akademie-Ausgabe, Series IV,
volume 7 (Politische Schriften) which publishes both the preliminary and
the definitive version of it,12 is entitled Unvorgreiffliches Bedencken ber
eine Schrift genandt Kurtze Vorstellung (hereafter UB1 and UB2) and can be
dated ca. 16981704, the latter date marking the time when it was handed
10On Lutheran orthodoxy see Robert Preus, The Inspiration of Scripture: A Study of the
Theology of the 17th Century Lutheran Dogmaticians (London: Oliver and Boyd, 1957) or
Bengt Hgglund, History of Theology, trans. Lund (St. Louis: Concordia, 1968).
11On the view that Leibnizs theology gave rise to his philosophical system, cf. Christia
Mercer, Leibnizs Metaphysics: Its Origins and Development (Cambridge: CUP, 2001). For a
summary and opposing view see Philip Beeleys review of Mercer in Notre Dame
Philosophical Reviews, accessed 25 May 2012, http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/23188/. For my dis-
cussion of the respective place of theology and philosophy in his system cf. Irena Backus,
The Mature Leibniz on Predestination, The Leibniz Review 22 (December 2012): 6796.
12Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Smtliche Schriften und Briefe, ed. Berlin-Branderbugische
Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Akademie die Wissenschaften zu Gttingen
(Berlin: Akademie, 2011) (hereafter: AA IV, 7), esp. 423648.
over to the authorities of the electorate of Brandenburg. Leibniz collabo-

rated on it with the Lutheran irenicist abbot of Loccum, Gerhard Wolter
Molanus, his partner in all church-union negotiations, with Catholics as
well as Protestants.13 The organisation and structure as well as omissions
from UB2 as against UB1 are due very largely to Leibniz and he did not
reveal their nature to Molanus until as late as 1701.14 Be that as it may, the
document, as the title indicates, was a reply to a short treatise by the
Brandenburg chaplain and Calvinist spokesman in the ensuing negotia-
tions, Daniel Ernst Jablonski, an irenically minded churchman rather like
his Lutheran opposite number Molanus.15
Claire Rsler,16 Irena Backus,17 and others have already noted that the
attempts for union with Brandenburg were motivated by Hannovers fra-
gility in the wake of the primogeniture quarrel and by the outcome of the
treaty of Ryswick of late 1697 which was disastrous for Protestantism as it
precluded its restoration in territories which had become Catholic under
the French occupation. At the same time, also under the terms of the
Treaty of Ryswick, Louis XIV recognised the Protestant William III of
Orange-Nassau as the official monarch of England, and this meant (as
neither William nor his successor Queen Anne had any children) that
the House of Hannover/Braunschweig-Lneburg could now hope for one
of its members succeeding to the English throne. However, the Act of
Settlement which forbade Catholic heirs access to the English Crown and
which settled Sophie of Hannover as a legitimate heir to William of Orange
(d. 1702) and Mary was only in its incipient stages at the end of the 1690s.
It was eventually passed by the British Parliament in 1701 and became law
13On Molanus see esp. H. Weidemann, Gerard Wolter Molanus, Abt zu Loccum. Eine
Biographie (Gttingen: V&R, 1925, 1929); M. Ohst, Einheit in Wahrhaftigkeit. Molans
Konzept der kirchlichen Reunion, in Die Reunionsgesprche im Niedersachsen des 17.
Jahrhunderts, ed. Otte and Schenk (Gttingen: V&R, 1999, 133155; J. Meyer, Labb Molanus
et les tentatives de rapprochement des glises, in UnionKonversionToleranz, ed.
Duchhardt and May (Mainz: Steiner, 2000), 199217.
14See AA IV, 7, 431. See also my review of this volume of the Akademie-Ausgabe forth-
coming in Studia Leibnitiana (2013).
15On Daniel Ernst Jablonski (16601741) see esp. Joachim Bahlcke and Werner
Korthaase, ed., Daniel Ernst Jablonski. Religion, Wissenschaft und Politik um 1700 (Wiesbaden:
Harrasowitz, 2008). See also Joachim Bahlcke et al., ed., BrckenschlgeDaniel Ernst
Jablonski im Europa der Frhaufklrung (Potsdam: Deutsches Kulturforum stliches
Europa, 2010).
16Claire Rsler, Negotium irenicum. Les tentatives dunion des Eglises Protestantes de
G.W. Leibniz et de D.E. Jablonski. (Ph.D. diss., lUniversit Paris IV, 2009). (Forthcoming in
due course in book form. Cited here in the unpublished version. Hereafter: Rsler, 2009).
17See Irena Backus, Leibnizs concept of substance and his reception of John Calvins
doctrine of the Eucharist, British Journal of the History of Philosophy 19.5 (2011): 917934.
684 irena backus
in 1707. Leibniz was aware of its preparation and said that he would wel-
come it with relief if it would put an end to appearance-saving conversion
to Anglicanism of potential successors to the Crown who were Catholic-
born and intend to restore the Catholic religion, as had been the case with
Charles II. In the unsigned excerpt Ex epistola amici ad amicum of early
1698 Leibniz voices great fears about the future of German Protestantism
and thanks heaven that William has succeeded to the English throne.
However, if anything should happen to William, nothing stops England
from regressing to the status of a Roman Catholic monarchy it had been
under James II. If that were to come about, the German Protestants would
have only the Dutch to defend them against Catholic encroachment,
and their forces would not be sufficient. Leibniz also says (as it turned
out, rightly, given the War of Spanish succession) that only an alliance of
Protestant rulers can save the German Protestant states.18
These are the whys and wherefores of the religious union negotiations
between Hannover and Brandenburg, the only Protestant (in the larger
sense) electorates in the Empire of the time. They were accompanied by
tentative attempts on the part of Leibniz (in his capacity as privy council-
lor of the Hannover Court) and Daniel Ernst Jablonski (the Reformed
chaplain of the Brandenburg Court) to negotiate with the Church of
England, as shown by Leibnizs plan to publish the Latin version with
some annotations of Jablonskis Latin translation of Gilbert Burnets
Commentary on the 17th Article of the Church of England dealing with
predestination.19 Religious union of some kind with the English church
would further strengthen the Protestant wing in Europe. Leibnizs and
Jablonskis strategic error was to place too much hope in Gilbert Burnet.
They apparently did not know that Burnets Exposition of the 39 Articles
including article 17 was condemned by the Convocation of the Church of
England in 1701 and that he was gradually losing power. Needless to say,
nothing ever came of these attempts to befriend the Church of England
but Leibnizs and Hannovers efforts did not stop there. Molanus and
Leibniz on the one hand and Franz Anton von Buchhaim on the other,
successor of Cristobal Rojas de Spinola who had been key Catholic figure
in the Catholic-Lutheran negotiations of 1683, began negotiating again for
union between the two churches, Lutheran and Catholic. Meetings with
18See AA IV, 7, no. 32, 197198.

19See my forthcoming review in Studia Leibnitiana (2011/2) of the 2011 partial edition,
G.W. Leibniz, Dissertation on Predestination and Grace, trans. and ed. Murray (New Haven:
YUP, 2011).
Buchhaim were held in Loccum in 1698 and ended with the drafting by
Molanus of the Declaratio Luccensis in September 1698, which specifies
the conditions under which the Protestants would be ready to unite with
the Roman Catholic church. These are: 1) their right to maintain commu-
nion in both kinds in exchange for their toleration of the Catholic com-
munion; 2) release of Protestants from the obligation of celebrating
individual Masses or Masses in a foreign language; 3) liberty of belief and
practice was to be left untouched with regard to Protestant clergy; 4) the
procedure of ordination of clergy had to satisfy both parties so that
Protestant clergy could be viewed on equal footing with the Catholics.20
This declaration was favourably received by the Hannover elector
Georg Ludwig but nothing more came of that set of negotiations. This was
partly due to the fact that Friedrich Ulrich Calixt (son of the syncretist
Georg and already present at the talks of 1683), who was charged by
Leibniz with approaching the Helmstedt theologians to get their assent,
produced a document that was anything but irenical and so no represen-
tative of the Helmstedt Faculty attended the conference in Loccum.21
Now, the motives of Leibniz and the Hannover Court regarding their
attempts at reconciliation with the Roman Catholic church in the Empire
and the church of Rome as a whole are never made clear. However, it
seems reasonable to suppose that, questions of convictions apart, Leibniz,
Molanus, and most likely Georg Ludwig himself felt that some sort of
reconciliation would protect Hannover against a Catholic takeover if
the negotiations with Brandenburg failed. In fact both sets of negotiations
came to nothing and the conciliatory moves towards the Church of
England did not even properly begin as Leibniz never published his anno-
tations on Jablonskis Latin version of Burnet on predestination and grace.
In a word, some care must be taken before identifying Leibniz as the
great precursor to the modern ecumenical movement. While union of all
Christian churches extending to other religions was indeed a part of
Leibnizs theologico-philosophical system, the way it could be put into
operation was less clear.22 Leibniz acted not on his own behalf but in his
20See AA IV, 7, nos. 50, 51, 274317.

21See AA IV, 7, no. 45, 259261; no. 47, 263270. Cf. also AA I, 14, 861.
22The plan was fully formulated as early as 1668 in the Demonstrationes Catholicae
which Leibniz drafted while consulting Baron Johann Christian von Boineburg, his
Catholic patron in Mainz. See further Maria Rosa Antognazza, Leibniz: Intellectual
Biography (Cambridge: CUP, 2009), 8592 and literature cited therein. The negotiations of
1683 held by Leibniz and Molanus with the Catholic bishop Rojas de Spinola were initiated
by the Emperor Leopold of Hapsburg. Cf. Antognazza, Leibniz, 202205.
686 irena backus
capacity as librarian and (subsequently) councillor to the Hannover elec-

tor. While the 1683 negotiations with the Roman Catholics were initiated
by the Emperor Leopold von Hapsburg, the round of 1698 was principally
the doing of the electors Georg Ludwig of Hannover and Friedrich Wil
helm I of Brandenburg. This meant inevitably that, while acting in accord
with his basic convictions and drafting the documents as he wanted them
to be in 16981704, Leibnizs margin of manoeuvre in deciding their ulti-
mate fate was very limited if not non-existent. Moreover, these negotia-
tions never issued in any general ecumenical meeting and remained more
or less private, between two of the three Confessions.
The Meaning and Purpose of the

Unvorgreiffliches Bedencken
In order to fully understand the meaning and purpose of UB1 and UB2, we
should bear in mind that these two documents are a reaction and response
to Jablonskis Kurtze Vorstellung der Einigkeit und des Unterscheides (1697)
(hereafter: KV),23 given to the Hannover Court manuscript in 1697 by
Ezekiel von Spannheim24 on Jablonskis and the Brandenburg Courts
behalf. The KV begins by stressing the vital importance of the Augsburg
Confession (Confessio Augustana; hereafter: CA) to the Lutherans and
noting that the CA variata does not bring anything new to the first version
except to express more clearly the seven main points of difference between
Lutherans and Catholics, these being: justification, faith and the word of
God, the merit of good works, the eucharist, penance, church ordinances,
and confession of faith. Jablonski sees no obstacle to the Reformed of his
own time subscribing to both the variata and the invariata version of the
CA while expressing his preference for the invariata. However, in order to
clarify any remaining points of difference, he proposes to examine all arti-
cles of the CA in turn examining any contentious questions that remain.
The outstanding points of dissensus are article III on the person and office
of Christ, where Jablonski acknowledges that the disagreement is not so
23For the modern and indeed the only printed edition of it cf. Hartmut Rudolph, ed.,
Zum Nutzen von Politik und Philosophie fr die Kirchenunion. Die Aufnahme der inner-
protestantischen Ausgleichsverhandlungen am Ende des 17. Jahrhunderts, in Labora dili-
genter. Potsdamer Arbeitstagung zur Leibnizforschung vom 4. bis 6. Juli 1996, ed. Fontius et al.
(Stuttgart: Steiner, 1999), 128166.
24Ezekiel von Spannheim (16291710), diplomat, lawyer and theologian was the son of
the Swiss theologian Friedrich Spannheim. Cf. Hermann von Petersdorff, Spanheim,
Ezechiel, in ADB, 35:5059.
great as to damage the foundations of faith. Article IX on baptism is also in

that category as is article X on the eucharist, which nonetheless raises
some problems notably due to the words unter der Gestaldt des Brods
und Weins in the German version.25 Jablonski thinks that this problem
can easily be resolved as the phrase is omitted from the Latin version of
the CA, an omission which in his view would suggest that it is not essential
and that it means no more than the community of the body and blood of
Christ in contradistinction to transubstantiation. In a word, according to
Jablonski, that article too could be agreed upon.26 Articles XI and XII on
confession are the object of some dissent. But articles XIII to the end can
be subscribed to by the Reformed with no problems. By far the longest
section of the KV is devoted to the differences on the predestination
decree which the Lutherans believed was single (predestination to elec-
tion only).27 Jablonski does not propose a satisfactory solution but points
out rightly that several Reformed churches have adopted Universalism, a
name used by both parties for what we would call nowadays the doctrine
of universal atonement, much to the pleasure of the Lutherans.28 He
finally recommends that the Lutherans tolerate the doctrine of special
grace and its double decree (predestination to salvation and damnation)
as one not founded biblically but commendable on account of its tradi-
tional importance, the prestige of some of its proponents, and the service
it has performed to the church over several hundreds of years. If the
Lutherans are clear about the biblical foundations of their own teaching,
they should find it easy to tolerate Particularism and double election.
In short, the document is based on the CA and recommends toleration
without really making any proposals for union. For the rest, it draws on
the method of the Leipzig Colloquy of 1631 of establishing clearly points of
consent and dissent. It was bound to elicit a mixed reaction from the
Lutherans as not really moving beyond the stage reached in 1631 in the
Leipzig Colloquy and not proposing any type of coherent union.29 It
skirted around the problem of the Eucharist and around other difficulties
and did not attempt to iron out ambiguities.
25Rudolph, Zum Nutzen, 146.

29See Bodo Nischan, Reformed Irenicism and the Leipzig colloquy of 1631, Central
European History 9 (1976): 326. Cf. also Irena Backus, Leibnizs Conceptions of the
Eucharist in 16681697 and his Use of the 16th Century Sources in his Religious Negotiations
between Hanover and Brandenburg, in Leibniz und die kumene, ed. Li et al. (Stuttgart:
Steiner, 2012), 171214.
688 irena backus
For the purposes of the present study, it is important to note that it

contains no allusions to representatives of Protestant Scholasticism such
as Wendelin or Keckermann. However, its article XII (opposing the doc-
trine of the irresistibility of grace) refers to the quarrel on predestination
between Hieronymus Zanchi and Johannes Marbach (15211581) and
notes that initially there was no opposition between the two confessions
in matters of double predestination. On the contrary, Jablonski insists that
even some Lutherans, starting with Luther himself and going on to the
Marburg Theology Faculty in the second half of the sixteenth century
agreed with Calvin, Beza and Zanchi. The Marburg Theology faculty in
fact supported Zanchis view against Marbachs. Moreover, as Jablonski
himself believes in universal atonement (that is, he believes that Christ
died for all) and as his is the official position of the Brandenburg church
following internal disagreements, he makes a point of stressing that some
Reformed (including his own church) are in fact closer to the Lutheran
than to the Calvinist position.30
Leibnizs first reaction to the KV is expressed in a short confidential
document Beym Eingang which ostensibly deals with the introductory
part of the KV.31 Leibniz objects to the appellation Lutheraner which
he finds more impolite than Evangelicals. While basically approving
Jablonskis reliance on the CA, he is not entirely happy about the Bran
denburg chaplain raising the variata to a public status, which it never had
at the time. As for the Leipzig Colloquy method of resolving quarrels by
clarifying points of dissent and points of consent on the basis of the CA,
he judges it only partly satisfactory and notes that it would have been
equally helpful, if not more so, to focus on the wording of the CA and on
the exact meaning of the phrases such as sub specie panis et vini in arti-
cle X. Moreover, Leibniz notes that most of the Lutheran-Reformed quar-
rels focus not on the CA or its Apology, but on the question of predestination
and grace. To resolve this and other serious matters dividing the two par-
ties, Leibniz would rather have had Jablonski investigate the controversies
between the Evangelicals and the Reformed by going back to their origin
and sources. This would have shown the Brandenburg chaplain that the
two groups did not see their work as reformers in the same way from the
outset. Leibniz argues firstly that the Reformed view was grounded in
30Rudolph, Zum Nutzen, 147151. On the nature of the conflicts which led to
Brandenburg adopting universal atonement see Backus, The Mature Leibniz on Predes
tination, 6796.
31AA IV, 7, no. 53, 328334.
Zwinglis, Carlstadts and their followers zeal to remove all signs of papacy
and to lead their followers from the external to the internal and spiritual.
This accounts for their violent removal of images and of other abuses as
well as for their denial of the presence of Christs body and blood in the
Eucharist and outside it. Secondly, Calvins system, which was widely dif-
fused, brought about the doctrine of the double decree on predestination,
which caused the Reformed to want to distinguish the elect from the oth-
ers as sharply as possible and make God work only on behalf of the elect
on the basis of predestination only and without considering any sins they
might commit. In other words, Leibniz implies, they made God into the
author of evil.
However, as Leibniz himself never pretended to the status of a theolo-
gian, shortly after compiling Beym Eingang he sent the KV for an opin-
ion to the Helmstedt theologians, Johann Andreas Schmid and Johann
Fabricius. Their reaction was rather more favourable and they did not
question Jablonskis basic method: their reply to Leibnizs request (7 Feb
ruary 1698) follows the order of the KV reducing the number of dissenting
issues to three: person of Christ, the eucharist, and predestination. Like
Jablonski they also refer back to the Leipzig Colloquy stressing its instru-
mental role in bringing Johannes Bergius (who was the Brandenburg
representative in 1631) round to the universal atonement point of view.
Inall, Fabricius and Schmid basically do no more than put forward some
points of detail for correction to the KV.
Protestant Scholasticism as a Heresy
On the issue of predestination, Fabricius and Schmid take a different view

to Leibniz whose Beym Eingang they naturally did not know. They grant
that the question concerns Gods prae-visio and the absolute decree as the
Lutherans at the Leipzig Colloquy affirmed that God elected us by grace
but knew in advance that those who would persevere and truly believe in
Christ were predestined to be saved. Not only do they not raise objections
similar to Leibnizs but affirm the two doctrines, single and double predes-
tination, to be one and the same doctrine. They rely on a letter from the
Anglican bishop Joseph Hall to John Dury where the former says:
There is nothing more certain than that God foresaw who would believe
and that he predestined them to salvation and from this it should follow
that the same Saxon theologians (especially in the Leipzig Colloquy) are
happy to affirm that faith is nothing other than the gift of God himself. God
690 irena backus
in person foresaw what he decreed from eternity that he would give the
believers of the time. Therefore, everything is safeguarded and there is no
point in postponing the end of this strife any longer.32
Joseph Hall, the Anglican bishop and member of the British delegation at
the Synod of Dordt was hardly a representative Reformed hardliner as he
was no supporter of more radical Calvinist positions. But the Helmstedt
reply no doubt influenced Leibniz in two ways, as the section on predesti-
nation and the decree in UB1 and UB2 shows. First and foremost, he ceased
to regard predestination as the most decisive point of conflict between the
Lutherans (or Evangelicals) and the Reformed. Secondly, despite this, he
still found it important to give a rundown of some of the more hard line
representatives of Protestant Scholasticism, not so as to show the serious-
ness of the Lutheran-Calvinist dispute on the question but to point out
wherein lay the different errors of the Reformed theologians. Significantly,
as we are about to see, Leibniz confronts the advocates of double predes-
tination not so much on grounds of doctrinal error as on grounds of philo-
sophical incoherence.
His choice of opponents, Wendelin, Keckermann, Voetius, Piscator,
Beza and Calvin to mention only the principal ones, shows that he views
the Reformed as a differentiated camp but one that is uniformly wrong.
He stresses that the French theologians such as Jean Daill or Mose Amy
raut subscribed to the doctrine of universal grace.33 However, although
naturally avoiding the term of heresy and acknowledging that it is wrong
to punish human weakness and incapacity to understand, he still sees the
doctrine of Gods double decree as conceptually confused and ecclesio-
logically wrong (in the sense of error in theology as applied to the nature
and structure of the Christian church), which is how he defines heresy
(while granting that to be truly heretical, a particular doctrine must also
have been condemned by one or more ecumenical church c ouncils).34
32Letter printed in J. Bergius Der Wille Gottes von aller Menschen Seligkeit, (1653), 300:
Nihil certius estquam Deum praevidisse credituros et salvandos praedistinasse: detur
hoc modo quod iidem Saxonici (nemlich in colloquio Lipsiensi) non illibenter profitentur
fidem esse [unice] Dei ipsius donum. Praeviderit ab aeterno Deus quod ipse ab aeterno
dare decreverit in tempore credituris ; tuta sunt isthic omnia, nec est quod iste contentio-
nis finis ultra protrahatur.
33AA IV, 7, 535.
34On heresy in Leibniz see Frdric Nef, Declarative vs. Procedural Rules for Religious
Controversy, Leibnizs Rational Approach to Heresy, in Leibniz: What Kind of Rationalist?
ed. Dascal (Dordrecht: Springer, 2009), 383395; Irena Backus, Leibniz et lhrsie anci-
enne, in Largument hrsiologique, Lglise ancienne et les Rformes, XVIeXVIIe sicles, ed.
Backus et al. (Paris: Beauchesne, 2012), 6994.
What does the philosophical and ecclesiological error of advocates of

Gods double decree consist in? Leibniz is quite clear about the answer
here and expounds the view that he has defended throughout his career
culminating with the Essais de thodice (1710). For Leibniz double predes-
tination makes God responsible for evil. Indeed, one of his major theo-
dicean tenets is the view that God obliges himself to act in accord with his
main attributes:35 wisdom, goodness, charity, etc., so that his decrees must
accord with these, although their ultimate reasons, which are an issue of
Gods intellect rather than his will, remain unknown to us. Therefore the
decrees themselves are fully comprehensible to human reason, only the
reasons for them remain hidden. Theologians who postulate a hidden
decree whereby God decided (before or after the Fall) to save only a
certain number of individuals (some of whom may turn out to be sinners)
and to condemn others are on par with Descartes who espoused the
voluntarist concept of God. Leibniz rejects Decartes view in his Discours
de la mtaphysique where he says,
31. However, as it is not enough to have recourse to absolute or conditional
prescience of mens future actions if we are to give reasons for the choice
that God makes in dispensing grace, so we must not imagine absolute
decrees either which do not have a rational and reasonable cause.36
When we transpose this view to UB and predestination, this means that
Leibniz considers the hard line representatives of Protestant Scholasticism
to be basically conceptually confused and theologically wrong, in other
words as heretics minus only the name and the conciliar condemnation.
For reasons of space, I shall examine only his view of Keckermann and
Wendelin in detail, judging these to be sufficient evidence for Leibnizs
opinion of Protestant Scholasticism.
Leibniz is of course aware that Keckermann and Wendelin among oth-
ers were sensitive to the difficulties posed by the double predestination
decree and tried to propose different solutions. However, their attempts
to modify the doctrine of double predestination are no more conceptually
coherent in Leibnizs view than the original as put forward by Calvin and
Beza. Leibniz indeed considers that the decision of the Synod of Dordt to
reject the Supralapsarian view did not make much difference to Reformed
35See Agustin Echavarria, Leibnizs Dilemma on Predestination, accessed 27

November 2010, http://philreligion.nd.edu/conferences/leibniz2010/papers/Agustin
_Echavarria-Leibnizs_Dilemma_on_Predestination.pdf.
36G.W. Leibniz, Discours de mtaphysique et Correspondance avec Arnaud, ed. Le Roy
(Paris: Vrin, 1988), 6869.
692 irena backus
theology. As he puts it in UB1 and UB2: Given that the Reformed after the
Synod of Dort allowed such expressions as God wants sins, God wants
evil (that is the evil of sin), they are accused up until now of teaching that
God wants the evil of punishment without regard for the evil of sin.37
However, he does note with relief that Supralapsarianism has ceased to
be the dominant doctrine among the Reformed. For this reason he finds
Keckermanns position particularly incoherent as he explains at some
length referring to the latters Systema sanctae theologiae tribus libris ador-
natum lib.3, cap. 1, using the edition published in Geneva in 1611 prior to
the Synod of Dordt. He accuses Keckermann of denying Supralapsarianism
while giving it free reign, in other words of putting forward a doctrine
which purports to deny the declaration by God of the absolute double
decree before the Fall (Supralapsarianism) whereas in fact all Keckermann
does is change the terminology. Keckermann states,
It does not follow that God has the absolute right to annihilate what he has
created and therefore the absolute right to condemn because creation and
annihilation are the effect of power, whereas damnation is the effect of jus-
tice. Gods power is absolute force whereas justice is relative force taking
into account necessarily the sin or the innocence of the creature. Given that
damnation is the supreme and harshest penalty of the creature, the decree
of damnation cannot be promulgated without any regard for or any allow-
ance for sin, which is the sole immediate cause of damnation. Therefore no
one perishes except by his own fault and it is right to say that we are saved
by eternal election but it is not as apt to say that some are damned because
of reprobation because election is the beginning of salvation but reproba-
tion, properly speaking, is not a beginning but the removal of beginning and
we cannot say that [some] men are eternally preordained to damnation
from eternity unless I add on account of sin.38
To Leibniz this position does not make sense because it does not give
any account of the reason or reasons why God should leave some out of
the decree of election. That is indeed the main problem with Keckermans
statement as he does not specify anything about the nature and timing of
the sin that will exclude that particular individual from election. Leibniz
also analyses the accusation against the Reformed of denying Gods other
attributes, notably wisdom and truthfulness. It is under this latter head-
ingthat he discusses Wendelin. The Reformed attribute two wills to God,
voluntas signi and voluntas beneplaciti, which Leibniz notes is simply
37AA IV, 7 no. 79, 483 (Except for passages where there are substantial variants, I refer
here to UB 2 as the official document which was largely the work of Leibniz himself).
38AA IV, 7 no. 79, 485.
a rethinking of the old rhetorical scholastic distinction between those two

concepts, in other words the distinction between the metonymy in a
phrase such as thy will be done (Mt. 6, 10), which is a figurative way of
saying may this happen what you want to happen, and the proper use
ofwill in the sense of wanting/willing something to happen in the sense
of applying the faculty of the will to make something come about. Leibniz
finds this scholastic distinction itself unclear, albeit not false. By contrast,
the Reformed distinction between the voluntas signi and voluntas
beneplaciti in God portrays the Almighty as saying one thing (e.g. all will
be saved) while meaning precisely the opposite, having already con-
demned some to reprobation.
Leibniz of course is not the first to notice this, but he finds Wendelins
solution as put forward in his Christianae Thelogiae libri duo lib. 1, cap. 1,
th. 18 to be fundamentally wrong. Wendelin in fact argues, like Leibniz,
that Gods two wills appear to contradict one another, but unlike Leibniz
he does not think that there is a real contradiction, asserting instead,
We should reply that there is no contradiction here even though there is a
difference. Indeed, the revealed will or the expression in words that God
wants all men to be saved is not a signum beneplaciti or of Gods decree of
non-sanctification of a large portion of humankind, for there is no agree-
ment here as required between the sign and what is signified or the word
and the concept that goes with it but it is an expression of another decree or
good pleasure (beneplaciti), which is to compel all humans to muster their
zeal for sanctification.39
Leibniz approves of this in so far as Wendelin does not present the two
wills as contradictory. However, he still finds his solution to be incoher-
ent. Gods statement I want you all to be holy (heylig), if explained by
Wendelin as referring to Gods decree of enjoining men to muster their
zeal for sanctification, can mean either As you are all guilty, I want you all
to be holy, or I want you all to be either holy (heylig) or liable to punish-
ment (straffllig). Wendelin, according to Leibniz, does not think that
this formulation goes against Gods will as it leaves open the possibility for
God to say, I do not want you all to be saints otherwise I could make it
come about that you are all holy, as otherwise you could not become holy,
but I do not want to make you all holy. Lutherans will find it impossible
to agree with this statement, warns Leibniz, as God does not just want to
bind or oblige men to adopt saint-making behaviour, he does not just
39AA IV, 7, 491.

694 irena backus
want us to be either saints or liable to punishment, he really wants us all to

be saints and saved. Howeverand this is where Leibniz radically parts
company with Protestant ScholasticismGod does not want it with his
absolute will or one which is valid once and for all with the word, but with
the will which leaves room for sin to take place. This will too is real but is
not always actualised. As early as his letter to Magnus Wedderkopf (1671)
Leibniz argued that God has two wills, the antecedent (valid absolutely
and necessarily) and consequent (valid only in so far as it is compatible
with the bestness of this best of all possible worlds).40 Predestination to
salvation is universal but some are damned either in the name of the best-
ness of this best of all possible worlds and/or because they fail to follow
what is apparently best. If we then view the biblical statement in terms of
this, we can conclude that God wants all to be saved by his antecedent will
but by his consequent will he wants only the best, in other words that
which brings about the greatest harmony and the greatest possible good
in this best of all possible worlds. As Benson Mates noted, for Leibniz the
antecedent will of God is detailed and considers every good qua good,
whereas the consequent will is final, decisive, and arises from the conflict
of all the antecedent wills.41
So Leibniz argues that when Wendelin denies that God wants all men to
be saved, he considers God to have just one will, that which is actualised.
And as only Gods consequent will is actualised in this world he is denying
Gods antecedent will. So the controversy seems to hinge on a double
meaning of the term will, concludes Leibniz. If we take will to mean a
rational inclination to do this or that which is so strong that, if the power
is there, the deed must follow infallibly, then Leibniz fully agrees that
according to this sense of the word God wants nothing except that which
really happens and indeed, if we understand will in that sense, we can-
not really say that God wants all men to be saved. For if he absolutely
wanted it to happen, it would happen infallibly and conversely if he really
did not want it to happen, it would not happen.
But the Scripture and men too in common parlance take the word will
as a reasonable inclination which will be executed if there are no obsta-
cles. Understood in this way will has different degrees according to the
occasion of the inclination, the obstacles, and reason. Every authority,
40See G.W. Leibniz, Confessio philosophi. Papers concerning the Problem of Evil, 1671
1678, ed. Sleigh et al. (New Haven: YUP, 2005), 35.
41Cf. Benson Mates, The Philosophy of Leibniz, Metaphysics and Language (New York:
OUP, 1986), 4546.
including the highest, wants and favours what is good, and insists on it
with its will but when it says this be our will and pleasure, this means it
cannot force things to come about because it does not apply all of its
power to the execution for a variety of important reasons as its wisdom
advises. This could be because the (divine) authority sees that a greater
good will come about if it lets things take their course and not enforce
them or else it sees that a greater evil will be avoided. In other words,
Leibniz considers the biblical statement as an expression of Gods conse-
quent will: God wants all men to be saved. He wants all men to abstain
from sin but he does not want it at any price or in such a way that he actu-
ally hinders mans freedom of action or disturbs the order of things.
Leibniz concludes that Wendelin and those Reformed who agree with
him have no reason to reject this dual meaning of will and to hold that
which really happens as the real will of God operational in this world.
Leibniz ends by commending those who espouse universal atonement for
their agreement to use will in this dual sense.42
Conclusion
Leibniz views the orthodox Reformed doctrine of double predestination

as heretical minus only the term. It obviously would not have been pru-
dent to use the term in the irenical context in which he was writing. It
could in fact be argued that he could not call the doctrine overtly hereti-
cal as it had never been condemned by any ecumenical church council,
which, as pointed out above, was to him another indispensable ingredient
of a heretical teaching.43 However, absence of conciliar condemnation
notwithstanding, for Leibniz it is still a doctrine which is conceptually
confused in any of its versions (including those of Keckermann and
Wendelin, both of whom make an effort to soften it) and therefore eccle-
siologically mistakenthe two other hallmarks of heresy. He never asks
himself the question of what made some of the orthodox Reformed uphold
it, especially as he knew that many of the more eminent Reformed theolo-
gians denied it altogether while some did their best to soften its impact.
The doctrine in its basic hard line form had many functions, one of which
was to point the faithful away from the visible church and towards the
invisible God and show them that they were in his power rather than in
42AA IV, 7, 491495.

43See Backus, Leibniz et lhrsie ancienne, 6994.
696 irena backus
the power of the visible church. Another function was to facilitate theol-
ogy teaching and answer the same question as Leibnizs, that is: if God is
all-good, all-powerful and all-merciful, why is there evil in the world? To
reply as Leibniz did, even had the Reformed considered it, would not have
been satisfactory to them firstly because it amounted to making God a
highly complex being endowed with two wills and secondly because it
finally did not clear up the question of the respective roles of humans and
God in the process of salvation. One of the staples of Reformed theology
since Calvin was the conviction that predestination took place outside of
humans. It therefore was no good to them to account for the existence of
sin by saying that God had his son die for all but that some would sin by
their own free will or due to Gods ultimate plan for the greatest good. Yet
this was the view espoused by the universalist Reformed, or those who
believed in universal atonementa position which Leibniz assimilated
to his own and to the Lutheran doctrine generally. His view was unclear
about the exact role of humans and God in predestination but it was plain
to him that predestination was not out of human reach. In the view of
the Protestant Scholastics this was leaving too much up to humanity.
They could, however, and did say, as the Particularists did, that God had
designed things so from eternity. This kept the doctrine of predestination
and damnation firmly out of the reach of humans, which was the message
they wanted to pass in the classroom. Eventually the doctrine of predesti-
nation was pushed to the margins of Protestant Scholasticism and the
quarrels ceased to preoccupy Reformed theologians.
PART FIVE
LATE ORTHODOXY (ca. 17251790)

THE UNIQUENESS OF CHRIST IN POST-REFORMATION
REFORMED THEOLOGY: FROM FRANCIS TURRETIN TO
JEAN-ALPHONSE TURRETIN
Martin I. Klauber
Evangelical treatments of the topic of the uniqueness of Christ reflect the

changing nature of society and culture. It is an important doctrine today
in the face of post-modernism and it was debated within the Reformed
world in its historical center, Geneva, during the important period of tran-
sition from the age of orthodoxy to the age of enlightenment. At the core
of this debate were two very important theologians at the Academy of
Geneva, father and son, Francis and Jean-Alphonse Turretin, who held
vastly different views on the subject. In this paper I will look at the transi-
tion from one to the other to show how their views developed and how
they reflected the historical milieu in which they wrote and ministered.
As one of the most famous of the Reformed scholastic theologians dur-
ing what Richard A. Muller calls the era of high scholasticism, Francis
Turretin (16231687)1 set the stage for the development of seventeenth-
century Reformed thought. The Turretin family came to Geneva from
Lucca led by his grandfather Francesco in 1574. His father, Benedict
Turretin (15881631) became professor of theology at the Academy of
Geneva in 1618 and represented Geneva at the French Reformed National
Assembly at Alais in 1620 where the French churches adopted the canons
of Dordt. Francis followed in his fathers footsteps and himself became a
professor of theology at Geneva where he famously opposed the hypo-
thetical universalism of French theologian Moyse Amyraut and the inno-
vative teachings of the French Saumur Academy. Francis Turretin was
most well known for his advocacy of the Helvetic Formula Consensus
(1675), which specifically combatted various aspects of Salmurian theol-
ogy including the idea that the Masoretes had added the vowel points of
the Hebrew Bible rather than being part of the original and inspired text.
His influential systematic theology, Institutio Theologiae Elencticae
(16791685), became required reading for theology students and served as
1For secondary literature, see J. Mark Beach, Christ and the Covenant: Francis Turretins
Federal Theology as a Defense of the Doctrine of Grace (Gttingen: V&R, 2007), 6773.
700 martin i. klauber
the standard text at Princeton Seminary until it was replaced by Charles

Hodges Systematic Theology at the end of the nineteenth century.
Turretins Institutio was translated into English by Charles Musgrave Giger
and has recently been published and edited by James Dennison.2 Turretin
adopted the most conservative of Reformed positions on a wide array of
topics, including the concept of the uniqueness of Christ, and remained
faithful to the Canons of Dordt throughout his life. He viewed Armin
ianism as a major threat to Reformed orthodoxy and considered any com-
promise, such as the doctrines of Saumur, as the first step toward the
dissolution of the heritage of Calvin.
Turretin discussed the issue of the uniqueness of Christ in two different
sections of his Institutio, in his section on prolegomena and then in his
discussion of Christology. He directed his defense of the uniqueness of
Christ in his introduction against the Pelagians, Socinians, and Remon
strants. In his section on Christology, he attacked the Roman Catholic
doctrine of the intercessory role of the saints.
In his introduction to theology, Turretin labeled as impious the idea
that one who is sincere in whatever religion they follow will ultimately
be saved. Here he specifically cited Faustus Socinus in his Praelectiones
theologica (1609) who in essence reduced the fundamental articles of
faith to the lowest possible number in order to include virtually every-
one. Turretin also mentioned on this score Remonstrant theologians
Etienne de Courcelles and Adolphus Venator, who in 1612 denied the
doctrine that no one can be saved who is not placed in Christ by true
faith. Others such as Arminius himself and Simon Episcopius did not go
as far, preferring to say that one can receive the light of grace by the cor-
rect use of natural theology. Turretin also cited some Roman Catholics
such as Erasmus of holding to the same idea, which makes sense owing
to the strong connection between Arminian and Erasmian thought.3
Turretin did not deny the value of other religions or that some truth can
be gleaned from them. They were, however, not only deficient, but also
impious, idolatrous, false, and erroneous.4 Furthermore the usefulness
of such religions is to render their adherents inexcusable before God. He
went on to ask the question of whether there are certain first principles of
religion common to all. He did admit that some of these do exist such as
2Institutes of Elenctic Theology, trans. Giger, ed. Dennison (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1992).
3Institutio, I.iv.1.
christ in post-reformation reformed theology 701
the common belief in the existence of God and the need to worship him.
However, such notions are generally inadequate.5
Natural theology was extremely useful for Turretin for several reasons.
First, it functions as a witness of Gods goodness based on the notion of a
common grace given to all men. Second, natural law is foundational for
organizing society and to prevent the human race from total anarchy.
Third, God grants to man the ability to reason, which allows for the pos-
sibility of receiving revelation. Fourth, God provides natural theology as
an incitement for men to seek after him further. Lastly, it serves as a means
to render man inexcusable before God, even if one had never heard the
specific message of Christ. General revelation, therefore, is not enough in
and of itself to lead of to salvation.6
The reason why it is insufficient is because Scripture clearly teaches
that there is no other way to God than through Christ. He cited passages
such as John 3:16, Acts 4:11, 1 Corinthians 3:11 and Hebrews 11:6. Saving faith
comes from the word (Romans 10:17). Furthermore, it is inadequate to say
that Christ is the ordinary way of salvation but that God could, in extraor-
dinary circumstances, grant salvation to those who live a moral life accord-
ing to natural law. Such a notion, he explained, has absolutely no support
in Scripture. Paul, in his address to the Athenians in Acts 17:2930 refers to
a time of ignorance of the Gentiles: Being then Gods offspring, we ought
not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image
formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God
overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteous-
ness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance
to all by raising him from the dead. If there were a way of salvation out-
side of Christ why would Paul have even had to preach the gospel to
them?7
He contrasted natural theology, which allows some imperfect knowl-
edge of God as the creator of the world, with the clear and perfect revela-
tion, which leads one to saving faith. It would be insufficient to seek after
and worship the unknown god through nature and providence. Further,
Romans 1:1920 does not support the notion of a common religion. The
passage refers to a knowledge rather than belief and such knowledge is
insufficient because it does not include the will of God and the mercy of
Christ, which can only be known through special revelation.8
In addition, Turretin noted that all sins are mortal which lead to con-
demnation (James 2:10) while the commission of one good act does not
save. The Gentiles, who did not have a specific knowledge of Christ,
became idolatrous, worshipping many gods. Even if they had been mono-
theistic, it would have not been enough for salvation. He made a distinc-
tion between being excusable and being saved. Even if a person lived a
completely holy life they would still be guilty of original sin. Any good
action that such a person would commit would merely be external and,
since such works would not have come from the Holy Spirit, it could be
helpful for the present and future but not for the past in that it would not
remit past sin or former guilt.9
Moving to the interpretation of Matthew 13:12, For to the one who has,
more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who
has not, even what he has will be taken away, he rejected the notion that
if the Gentile responded to natural revelation, God would be obligated to
provide special revelation. The very idea that additional revelation would
have to be added shows the absurdity of presupposing that general revela-
tion could in and of itself be sufficient. Furthermore, the verse does not
say that God is obligated to provide grace for those who do all they can.10
Another important passage is Romans 2:4, Or do you show contempt
for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing
that Gods kindness is intended to lead you to repentance? The context
here does not refer to the Gentiles, but to the Jews. So the kindness referred
to here refers to special revelation to the Jews rather than to general
revelation to the Gentiles. The law was given to man prior to the fall, and
had the power to grant life. However, after the fall it cannot give life, but
serves as a mirror of sin and misery to render the sinner inexcusable
(Romans 3: 1920). In Romans 2:14 the Gentiles are said to do the things
contained in natural law, but they cannot even follow this and are, there-
fore, condemned.11
Admitting that some non-believers do good works and live exemplary
lives, he argued that when one likens such works to the nature of Gods
holiness, they pale in comparison. He labeled such deeds as splendid sins
and in the sight of God worthy of no reward. Scriptural examples of fig-

ures such as Melchizedek, Job, or Cornelius the Centurion do count as
people who performed good deeds in a state of nature because all of them
experienced the benefit of special grace and revelation. Cornelius was a
proselyte and believed that salvation would come from the Jews and so he
should properly be classified as one of the patriarchs.12
Another key passage was Hebrews 11:6, And without faith it is impos-
sible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that
he exists and that he reward those who earnestly seek him. This is a dif-
ficult verse that seems to indicate that all that is required is for one to be a
genuine seeker. Turretin explained that, in context, this passage properly
refers to those who seek God by faith through a proper mediator. This can
be proved by the framework of the entire chapter, which refers to saving
faith and by the examples of the people listed in the so-called hall of faith
who did not seek knowledge of God in general, but of the true God in
anticipation of the saving faith that would ultimately be revealed. Here
Turretin countered the argument by the Remonstrant theologian Etienne
de Courcelles who made what Turretin believed to be a false distinction
between faith in God and faith in Christ. In such a scheme, the Arminian
theologian would support the idea that faith in God was all that was
required before Christ. Turretin concluded that no faith in God could be
truly salvific unless it was a specific faith in Christ. 13
Turretin did not make any significant reference to patristic sources in
his defense of the uniqueness of Christ, but he did recognize that many
church fathers hoped that Gentile philosophers who were so helpful for
understanding Christian doctrine could be saved. He cited in this regard,
Clement of Alexandria, Justin Martyr, and John Chrysostom. It would be
understandable for some who ministered prior to the Pelagian contro-
versy to make this mistake, but for those who possessed the benefit of the
Augustinian corpus, he countenanced no excuse. 14
Some Protestant humanists made the same mistake, such as Zwingli,
who expressed hope that Hercules and Socrates among others who dis-
played excellence in philosophy or who displayed uncommon courage
could be saved. The error here could be excused, at least in part, because
these were men who lived prior to the time of Christ and who could pos-
sibly be classified in the same way as the OT saints.15
Having dealt with the insufficiency of natural theology in leading one to

saving faith, Turretin then moved to discuss the role of Christ as the sole
mediator between God and man, a topic in which he refuted the Roman
Catholic argument that the saints and the Virgin Mary also served as inter-
mediaries with the Father. Here he defined the concept of mediator, not
as merely praying for believers, but as commending those offered to God
and making them acceptable by ones own merits. Turretin noted the two
aspects of the priestly office of Christ, satisfaction and intercession. The
error of the Catholics, he argued, was to ascribe both of these offices to
saints as well. Turretin did not mince words when he stated that he would
wage war against such a concept. He pointed to 1 Timothy 2:5, there is
one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ. The
Roman response to this verse was to say that, when the Scripture states
that there is one mediator, it does not say that there is only one. Turretin
responded by affirming that the Greek word heis in biblical and secular
Greek literature usually does refer to the only one citing passages from
Virgil. Furthermore the context of the passage contrasts the fact that just
as God is one in the same way the mediator is one.16
The response of Roman Catholic polemicists was to say that yes,
Christ is the mediator of redemption, but that there may be others
who serve along with him as mediators of intercession. Turretin dismissed
this discrepancy as ridiculous because Scripture nowhere makes a distinc-
tion between the two. Furthermore, one cannot separate Christs role as
mediator and intercessor because propitiation and intercession are two
essential parts of mediation according to 1 John 2:12, Romans 8:34, and
Hebrews 7:25.17
A second response was that Paul was speaking about a specific and pri-
mary form of mediatorship, which does not necessarily preclude lesser
forms of such work. The problem with this concept, according to Turretin,
is that it has absolutely no scriptural warrant. Furthermore, since the Bible
specifically refers to Christ alone as mediator, the entire issue is moot.18
Moving to the exegesis of 2 Maccabees 15:14, the most prominent apoc-
ryphal verse in favor of praying for the dead which reads, And Onias
spoke, saying, This is a man who loves the family of Israel and prays much
for the people and the holy cityJeremiah, the prophet of God. Here
Turretin noted that even Roman Catholics agreed that the entire book of
16Institutio, XIV.iv.6.
2 Maccabees is filled with fables and inconsistencies. It would be, there-

fore, invalid to base an entire doctrine on this book also, let alone this
verse alone. Furthermore, the passage does not really support an interces-
sory role for OT saints, as it merely states that the saints pray rather than
serve as mediators. In addition, the Roman church taught that the OT
saints lived in limbus patrum far from the presence of God and, therefore,
they would be ill suited to serve as mediators.19
So Turretin displayed a classic defense of the doctrine of the unique-
ness of Christ and took on all comers, Arminians, Socinians, Pelagians,
and Roman Catholics. Ironically, it was his son, Jean-Alphonse Turretin
(16711737),20 also a professor of theology at Geneva, who led the opposi-
tion to many aspects of his teachings, most notably the abrogation of the
Helvetic Formula Consensus.
As the historical milieu changed even further during the last quarter of
the century and during the beginning of the eighteenth century, the old
patterns of overly specific creeds such as the Formula Consensus were no
longer useful in defending Reformed thought. The next generation of
theologians at Geneva, led by Jacob Vernet (16981789), would develop a
new system of enlightened orthodoxy that would emphasize a more prac-
tical faith, which was far removed from the old, tightly defined system.21
Although most theologians at the Academy continued to view
Arminianism, Salmurianism, and Roman Catholicism as major threats to
the Reformed faith, deism and even atheism were beginning to be seen as
far more dangerous. The works of Spinoza and Hobbes took aim at the
heart of the Christian faith by denying the validity of biblical miracles.
This was also the era of the beginnings of biblical criticism with scholars
such as the French Oratorian priest, Richard Simon, questioning the
Mosaic authorship of parts of the Pentateuch.22 This early use of such
20On Jean-Alphonse Turretin, see Pitassi, et al., ed., Inventaire critique de la correspon-
dance de Jean-Alphonse Turrettini, 6 vols. (Paris: Honor Champion, 2009); and Klauber,
Between Reformed Scholasticism and Pan Protestantism: Jean-Alphonse Turretin (16711737)
and Enlightened Orthodoxy at the Academy of Geneva (Selinsgrove: Susquehanna University,
1994).
21On Vernet, see Graham Gargett, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jacob Vernet and the
Enlightened Liberty of Eighteenth-Century Geneva, in Libert: Hritage du pass ou ide
des Lumires, ed. Grzeskowiak-Krwawicz and Zatorska (Krakw: Collegium Columbinum,
2004): 136148; Gargett, Jacob Vernet, diteur et admirateur de Montesquieu, in Le Temps
de Montesquieu, ed. Porret and Volpihac-Auger (Geneva: Droz, 2002): 107125; and further
literature in David J. Sorkin, The Religious Enlightenment: Protestants, Jews, and Catholics
from London to Vienna (Princeton: PUP, 2008), 69111.
22Richard Simon, Histoire critique du Vieux Testament (Rotterdam: Renier Leers, 1678).
biblical criticism was far more threatening to the integrity of the biblical
text than had been Cappels position on the inspiration of the vowel points
of the Masoretic text. Now biblical criticism was beginning to cast doubts
about more basic assumptions.
Educated at the Academy from 16851691, Jean-Alphonse Turretin
developed a greatly expanded approach to natural theology. The main
source for his ideas can be found in the second volume of his Opera (Basel
edition of 1748) and is a series of essays included in the De Veritate Religionis
Judicae and De Veritate Religionis Christianae. In addition, he commented
on the issue of natural theology in his commentary on Romans.23
In these works, he noted a common criticism leveled against revealed
religions such as Christianity was that the extent of its revelation has been
limited to a chosen few with the vast bulk of humanity never having the
opportunity to respond to it. In response, Turretin pointed out in his treatise
on special revelation that a surprising number of heathen nations have had
access to Gods specific actions through history. For example, he carefully
noted that both in Creation and in the Flood, God did reveal Himself to all
creation. The miracles of Moses were known by the Egyptians and by all the
neighboring peoples. Jonah was sent to Nineveh, Daniel and Ezekiel to the
Babylonians. The Greek version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, facili-
tated the study of the Old Testament to non-Jews since Greek was the spo-
ken language of most of the known world. When the message of Christianity
was dispersed, it was able to be received by most of humanity.24
However, the big issue for Jean-Alphonse was one of fairness. Although
most people throughout history had some access to special revelation,
many did not. Furthermore, if one needs biblical revelation to come to a
saving knowledge of Christ, such divine disclosures should be dispensed
in an equitable way. The capacity of each person to understand general
revelation would be proportional to the individuals intelligence, educa-
tion, age, social status, and many other factors. Some individuals are sim-
ply smarter than others and have an inherent advantage in receiving both
general and special revelation. It made sense to him that in the final judg-
ment, a just God would evaluate each person fairly, based on the amount
of light received and understood. Therefore, if an individual received only
a limited amount of general revelation, God would judge that person
23Jean-Alphonse Turretin, Dilucidationes philosophico-theologico-dogmatico-morales.

3 vols. (Basel: J.R. ImHoff, 1748); Jean-Alphonse Turretin, In Pauli apostoli ad Romanos
epistolae (Lausanne/Geneva: Marci-Michaelis Bousquet & socior., 1741).
24Turretin, Dilucidationes, II.xi.18.
according to the degree of divine disclosure, which leaves open the possi-
bility of salvation without a specific knowledge of Christ. In his Romans
commentary, he continued his emphasis on revelatory fairness, noting
that the rejection of general revelation would be grounds for divine con-
demnation. The acts of the heathen nations were so heinous that they did
not deserve a fuller measure of revelation. They should be condemned for
their violation against their own consciences, which is the light that God
has given to them.25 To support his position, he referred to Romans 2:12
that all who sin apart from the law will be judged by that law, that is the
law of the conscience. So, one could be blamed only by that standard. The
second passage he referred to was Luke 12:48, where the one who unknow-
ingly sins, will be beaten with few blows. However, the one who know-
ingly does wrong will receive a far greater punishment.26 It should be
noted that Turretin never came out specifically to advocate that the so-
called heathen in Africa could be saved based on general revelation alone,
but he never explicitly denied it.
The younger Turretins doctrine of the uniqueness of Christ fit well with
his desire to reduce the fundamental articles of the faith to the bare mini-
mum with the ultimate goal of Protestant unification, outlined in his
Nubes testium or Cloud of Witnesses published in 1719.27 Jean-Alphonse
defined the fundamental articles as those principles of religion, which so
relate to the essence and foundation of it, and are of so great importance,
that without them religion cannot stand, or at least will be destitute of a
chief and necessary part. In other words, fundamental articles are those
doctrines that are necessary for salvation. The problem comes with deter-
mining the specific identity of these beliefs. In a manner consistent with
the so-called enlightened orthodoxy of the age, he preferred to insist
upon the absolute minimum number of articles in order to allow for the
widest possible measure of agreement.28 It is not surprising that he dedi-
cated the work to William Wake, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was
one of the leading figures of the Latitudinarian movement. Turretin and
Wake carried on a lengthy correspondence for the purpose of promoting
a pan-Protestant accord. Wake also campaigned vigorously for a common
Protestant confession of faith.29
25Turretin, Romanos, 13.

26Turretin, Dilucidationes, II.xi.20; Turretin, Romanos, 1415.
27Jean-Alphonse Turretin, Nubes testium pro moderato et pacifico de rebus theologicis
judicio, et instituenda inter protestantes concordia (Geneva: Fabri & Burrillo, 1719).
28Turretin, Nubes testium in Dilucidationes, 3:46.
29The correspondence between Wake and Turretin is housed in the library of Christ
Church, Oxford University and is catalogued under Archbishop Wake Epist. 31.
Turretin noted that one could determine the difference between funda-
mental and non-fundamental articles from both nature and from
Scripture. From nature, one can discover basic moral precepts based on
the human conscience. Scripture provides more detailed information
about which doctrines are fundamental and which are secondary. One
could agree to disagree on the secondary issues, while the primary ones
are those which all Protestants share. Turretin would not consider extend-
ing the commonality of these doctrines with the Roman Catholics. In his
defense of the concept of biblical perspicuity, Turretin argued that these
doctrines are clearly revealed and lead the believer to true Christian devo-
tion saying: Certainly the design of religion is not to exercise the wit and
understandings of men, nor to burden and overwhelm their memories
with so vast a number of all sorts of truths; but to implant in their minds
the fear and love of God, and excite them to certain duties.30
Having established the basis for determining the fundamental of the
faith, Turretin proceeded to discuss the principles for defining them. The
first was that Christians have an obligation to accept and obey such truths
not just because they are clearly revealed, but because God is worthy of
our devotion.31 God, as the supremely wise instructor of men, reveals
these doctrines in such a way that people with different intellectual
capacities can understand them. He wrote: Fundamentals are plain,
adapted to common capacities, and free from all subtle and intricate dis-
tinctions of the schools.32
In addition, there are relatively few fundamentals articles, an argument
that was common among the Remonstrants and even the Socinians. In
fact, Turretins close confidant, Jean LeClerc, an Arminian professor at
Amsterdam and a graduate of the Genevan Academy, made such an argu-
ment as well in his first published work in 1681. LeClerc had turned against
Reformed theology in part because of the requirement in Geneva to sub-
scribe to the Formula Consensus.33

33Jean LeClerc, Liberii de Sancto Amore Epistolae Theologicae, in quibus varii scholasti-
corum errores castigantur (Saumur: Henri Desbordes, 1681). Both Maria-Christina Pitassi
and Annie Barnes argue that LeClerc and Turretin shared similar views on a number of
topics, including the fundamental articles, pointing to the correspondence between the
two, which lasted from 17051728. Barnes writes: One can see how much his [Turretins]
spirit and his ideas came from LeClerc whom he had admired since his youth, when under
the direction of his tutor he read the Bibliothque universelle [edited by LeClerc]. The
two men were made for a mutual understanding. Barnes, Jean LeClerc (16571736) et le
Turretin criticized what he believed to be the divisive nature of

Reformed scholastic theology by stating that the fundamentals lead one
to godly living. This is the major reason why he never emphasized the
doctrine of predestination in his theological discourse. However, he was
careful to distinguish his position from the Enthusiasts who tended to
emphasize piety over doctrine.34
However, when it came to the doctrine of the Trinity, Turretin ran into
trouble since it could be argued that it was not clearly revealed in Scripture.
On this topic, he noted that it was, indeed, a fundamental article explain-
ing, If therefore, the mode and circumstances, the causes and adjuncts of
a thing are to be accounted fundamental, it will follow that an abundance
of things, of which we can have no clear perceptions, and which do far
exceed our capacities, are nevertheless fundamental.35 On this point, at
least, he distinguished his position from that of the Socinians. Turretin did
emphasize that reason plays a major role in determining the fundamental
articles, but he was prepared to allow for some element of biblical mystery
in the areas of the Trinity and the Incarnation.
What is particularly interesting in his use of the essential articles of the
faith is that he did not include many of the doctrines that made Reformed
theology distinctive. He made no reference to the order of divine decrees
or to election. He did not even mention the sacraments that had been so
divisive between Catholic and Protestants and between Lutheran and
Reformed. He was providing the basis for a pan-Protestant union that
would include Arminian, Reformed, Lutheran, and Anglican Protestants.
This approach made sense given the theological issues that he faced
during his tenure at the Academy when Cartesianism and the ideas of
Spinoza began to infiltrate the Protestant world. Maria-Christina Pitassi
has noted this development, referring to the correspondence between
Jean-Alphonse and Jean LeClerc, where both scholars observed the pres-
ence of atheistic thought in Paris and even in Geneva. Turretin made also
Rpublique des Lettres (Paris: Droz, 1938), 199; Maria-Christina Pitassi, De la censure le
rfutation. LAcadmie de Genve, Revue de Mtaphysique et de Morale 93.2 (1988):
162164. In addition, J.J.V.M. De Vet asserts that LeClerc, in turn, was quite influenced by
Grotius. LeClerc edited and republished Grotius De Veritate Religionis Christianae (1629) in
several editions starting in 1709. LeClerc included his own marginalia in which he updated
Grotius arguments on a number of points relative to discoveries in science. Moreover,
according to De Vets description, LeClercs position on fundamental articles is almost the
mirror image of Turretins stance. See J.J.V.M. De Vet, Jean Leclerc, an Enlightened
Propagandist of Grotius De Veritate Religionis Christianae, NAKG 64 (1984): 160195.
made great use of Pierre Bayles Dictionnaire Historique et Critique (1697)

in his refutation of Spinoza. Turretins lecture notes have been preserved
which include a direct denunciation of Spinoza in which he refers repeat-
edly to Bayle.36 His father Francis would never have used Bayle as a source
because of the suspicion that Bayle held heterodox beliefs. The father had
spent his career battling other Protestants such as the Salmurians or the
Socinians, while the son was trying to protect the core of the Christian
faith from what he considered to be more seditious threats.37
With Jean-Alphonse Turretin, the cycle became virtually complete.
Gone were many of the distinctive doctrines of Reformed thought and his
methodology more closely resembled that of the Remonstrants than of
Calvin. He constructed an extensive system of natural theology intended
to provide a more solid footing for the faith in the face of the threats of
atheism and deism. As a result, he developed a view of divine revelation
based on the concept of fairness whereby one could only be judged based
on the amount of revelation that one had received. This idea left open the
possibility of salvation apart from a specific knowledge of Christ. The
questioning of the uniqueness of Christ reflected the changing times
within the Reformed movement.
36Jean-Alphonse Turretin, Abrgs de Leons de Theol. De Mr. T[urrettini], Archives

Tronchin, vol. 119. La Rfutation du systme de Spinosa par M. Turrettini is an appendix to
these notes. See Pitassi De la censure, 161.
37Pitassi, De la censure, 159164.
JONATHAN EDWARDS (17031758) AND THE
NATURE OF THEOLOGY1
Adriaan C. Neele
Edwards drew the common distinction between the two kinds of theologi-
cal knowledge, the first speculativeand the second practicalThe aim of
[Edwards] theology was to nurture a sense of divine things that took one
deeper into their nature than the speculative understanding alone could
penetrate and to guide and influence us in our practice.
Thus states E. Brooks Holifield in Theology in America.2 Although Holifield
asserts that Edwards aim and distinction of theology may have been
indebted to the Reformed scholastic Petrus van Mastricht (16301706),
many in Edwards scholarship on the theology of Edwards, such as
Ridderbos, Cherry, Gerstner, Holmes, and Lee,3 have overlooked such
indebtedness, which may be an underlying or overarching theme in the
interpretation of the nature of Edwards theology. One reason for such
oversight is that many of Edwards sources remain in untranslated Latin, as
Amy Plantinga Pauw points out, following Norman Fiering.4 Another rea-
son may be, as Gerry McDermott recently remarked, more scholarly work
needs to compare him [Edwards] with European thinkers and issues, and
thereby include him in the ongoing discussions of international philoso-
phy and theology.5
1This essay was presented in various forms as an inaugural address, March 2010 at UFS
(Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae XXXVIII(2), a scholarly paper at the Jonathan Edwards
Society Conference, October 2011, Northampton, MA, and will be published in part and
translated in Portuguese in Fides Reformata (Sa Paulo: Mackenzie University, Graduate
School of Theology, forthcoming).
2E. Brooks Holifield, Theology in America. Christian Thought from the Age of the Puritans
to the Civil War (New Haven: YUP, 2003), 102.
3J. Ridderbos, De Theologie van Jonathan Edwards, (s-Gravenhage: Johan A. Nederbragt,
1907); Conrad Cherry, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards. A Reappraisal (Bloomington:
Indiana University, 1966); Anri Morimoto, Jonathan Edwards and the Catholic Vision of
Salvation (University Park: Pennsylvania State University, 1995); John H. Gerstner, Jonathan
Edwards: A Mini-Theology, (Morgan: SDG, 1996 reprint); Stephen R. Holmes, God of Grace &
God of Glory. An Account of the Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2000); Sang H. Lee, The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Princeton: PUP, 2000).
4Amy Plantinga Pauw, The Supreme Harmony of All. The Trinitarian Theology of
Jonathan Edwards (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 27.
5See http://www.jesociety.org/2010/02/08/whither-edwards-studies/.
712 adriaan c. neele
Therefore, this essay attempts to evaluate Edwards theological inquiry

by a more in-depth view of Protestant scholasticism and its trajectories.
I focus on a single document wherein Edwards most distinctively lays
out his understanding of the nature of theologya sermon of November
1739, published as The Importance and Advantage of a Thorough Knowledge
of Divine Truth (1788).
The period 17371742 was a challenging and transitional time for
New Englands history. War (French-Indian raids, War of Jenkins Ear)
andawakenings shaped Americas early history and theology in unprece-
dented ways in particular following the Great Awakening, an event that
isfixed to that towering figure in intellectual history: Jonathan Edwards
(17031758), preacher, theologian, philosopher, missionary, pastor, and
university president.6
Though steeped in seventeenth-century English Puritanism and conti-
nental post-Reformation reformed thought, New Englands theological
orthodoxy and practice were put to the test during these years. The rise
of Arminianism, the dissemination of Deism, and the news about the
New Methodists7 such as John Wesley (17031791) and George Whitefield
(17141770), all contributed to division and realigned allegiances in the
British colony. The concern over Arminianisn, was expressed in the let
ter exchanges in March 1739 between Capt. Benjamin Wright and the
Rev.Benjamin Doolittle of Northfield, Mass. Doolittle accused his parish-
ioner Wright of having Signified nothing of a desire of peace and love,
while Wright charged that his pastor had often advanced Arminian
principles both in pulpit and private conversation.8 The danger of Deism
was not only generally known in New England but the congregation of
Northampton in particular was, thanks to their pastor, well versed in it.
Insermon twenty-four of the History of the Work of Redemption series of
mid-1739, Edwards warned:
Again, another thing that has of late exceedingly prevailed among
Protestants, and especially in England, is deism. The deists wholly cast off
the Christian religion, and are professed infidels. They bent like the here-
tics, Arians and Socinians, and othersThey deny any revealed religion
6George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards. A Life (New Haven: YUP, 2003); William S. Morris,
The Young Jonathan Edwards. A Reconstruction (Ph.D. thesis, University of Chicago, 1955)
(Eugene: W&S, 2005).
7Jonathan Edwards, Sermons and Discourses, 17391742, in Harry S. Stout, ed., The Works
of Jonathan Edwards Online [= WJE Online], 22:108.
8Edwards, Correspondence by, to and about Edwards and His Family, in WJE Online
32:C56. See also, WJE Online 32:C55, C57.
jonathan edwards and the nature of theology 713
and say that God has given mankind no other light to walk by but his own
reason.9
Edwards was not an insignificant participant in these transformative years
of New England, though based at the rural town of Northampton. His
Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God, published at London
(December, 1737) and Boston (December, 1738), had placed him in the
emerging network of the transatlantic evangelical community,10 and his
preaching of various discourses, such as on the parable of the wise and
foolish virgins (Jan.Apr., 1738), the series on 1 Corinthians 13 (Apr.Oct.,
1738) later published as Charity and Its Fruits, and the sermons that
becameknown as A History of the Work of Redemption (Mar.Aug., 1739),
established him as an extraordinary preacher.
However, it is precisely in these taxing years for New Englands theol-
ogy that Edwards evolved as a theologian par excellence: historically
informed and contemporarily relevant. It is important to note that the
pastor of Northampton did not publish a systematic theology like the
post-Reformation Reformed theologians Franois Turrettini (1623
1687) and Mastricht (16301706),11 or like his eighteenth-century prot-
ges Joseph Bellamy (17191790) and Samuel Hopkins (17211803).12
Edwards commented on his predecessors, whose works are leading
examples of seventeenth-century Protestant scholasticism joined with
piety:
They are both excellent. Turretin is on polemical divinity; on the Five Points,
and all other controversial points; and is much larger in these than Mastricht;
and is better for one that desires only to be thoroughly versed in controver-
sies. But take Mastricht for divinity in general, doctrine, practice, and con-
troversy; or as an universal system of divinity and it is much better than
9Edwards, A History of the Work of Redemption, in WJE Online 9:432.

10Susan OBrien, Eighteenth-Century Publishing Networks in the First Years of
Transatlantic Evangelicalism, in Evangelicalism: Comparative Studies of Popular Protes
tantism in North America, the British Isles, and Beyond 17001790, ed. Noll et al. (New York:
OUP, 1994), 3857; and Frank Lambert, Pedlar in Divinity: George Whitefield and the
Transatlantic Revivals (Princeton: PUP, 1994); Norman Fierings description of the transat-
lantic republic of letters, Jonathan Edwards Moral Thought and Its British Context (Chapel
Hill: UNCP, 1981), 1328.
11Turretin, Institutio theologi elenctic in qua status controversi perspicue exponitur,
prcipua orthodoxorum argumenta proponuntur & vindicantur, & fontes solutionum aperi-
untur (Geneve: Samuelem de Tournes, 16801686); Petrus van Mastricht, Theoretico-
practica theologia (Utrecht: Thomas Appels, 1699).
12Joseph Bellamy, True religion delineatedWith a preface by the Rev. Mr. Edwards
(Boston: S. Kneeland, 1750); Samuel Hopkins, The system of doctrines To which is added,
Atreatise on the millennium (Boston: Thomas and Andrews, 1793).
Turretin or any other book in the world, excepting the Bible, in my

opinion.13
Edwards generous praise was an echo of earlier praise, commencing with
Cotton Mathers handbook for students studying for the ministry, the
Manuductio ad Ministerium:
But after all there is nothing that I can with so much Plerophorie Recommend
unto you, as a Mastricht, his Theologia Theoretico-practica. That a Minister of
the Gospel may be Thoroughly furnished unto every Good Work, and in one or
two Quarto Volumns enjoy a well furnished Library, I know not that the Sun
has ever shone upon an Humane Composure that is equal to it.14
In fact, Mastrichts work was highly valued by such well-known New
England theologians as Benjamin Colman,15 Joseph Seccombe,16 Mas
trichts editor and translator of On Regeneration,17 Samuel Hopkins,18
and Joseph Bellamy.19 And Edwards Amasa Park reported that Jonathan
Edwards Jr. read Mastrichts Theoretico-practica theologia seven times.
In spite of or thanks to Mastrichts work, however, the absence of a pub-
lished form of systematic theology or, following the early modern term,
body of divinity, in the Edwards corpus does not imply that no consider-
ation was given to such a project. On the contrary, as early as 1724 Edwards
drafted an outline of a treatise, entitled A Rational Account of the Principles
and Main Doctrines of the Christian Religion. Though it seems that he
abandoned this project after 1740, the thought of composing a body of
divinity never left him, as he attested in a letter of 1757 to the Trustees of
the College of New Jersey (Princeton University):
I have had on my mind and heart (which I long ago began, not with any view
to publication) a great work, which I call A History of the Work of Redemption,
13Edwards, Letters and Personal Writings, in WJE Online 16:217.

14Cotton Mather, Manuductio ad Ministerium. Directions for a candidate of the ministry
(Boston, 1726).
15Benjamin Colman, A Dissertation on the Image of God wherein Man was created
(Boston: Kneeland and Green, 1736), 2728.
16Joseph Seccombe, Some Occasional Thoughts on the Influence of the Spirit with
Seasonable Cautions against Mistakes and Abuses (Boston: Kneeland and Green 1742), title
page.
17Petrus van Mastricht, A Treatise on Regeneration (New Haven, [1770?]).
18Hopkins, The system of doctrines, 769.
19Joseph Bellamy, The Works (Boston: Doctrinal Tract and Book Society, 18501853),
xiv. Jonathan Edwards lent a copy of Mastrichts work to Bellamy. Cf. Edwards, Catalogue
of Books, in WJE Online 26:227, as was known also to Tyron Edwards (18091894). See
Michael A.G. Haykin, ed., A Sweet Flame. Piety in the Letters of Jonathan Edwards (Grand
Rapids: RHB, 2007), 85.
a body of divinity in an entire new method, being thrown into the form of an
history, considering the affair of Christian theology.20
Mastricht, the favorite theologian of New England, and Edwards in
particular, prefaced his Theoretica-practica theologia (1699) with similar
words,
I had planned for longa great work about the adventures of the church
[and] provide a particular sketch about the history of the churchdealing
about the dispensatione foederis gratia though all the ages of the Church.21
Moreover, in the tumultuous years 17371742, Edwards drafted at the close
of 1739 a Preface to the Rational Account, where he mentions, some
things that may justly make us suspect that the present fashionable divin-
ity is wrong.22 Finally, and precisely at that time, Edwards not only
included in one of his Sermon Notebooks a sketch of a homily on Hebrews
5:12, but also preached an extensive treatment of the text in November
1739 at Northampton, posthumously published as The Importance and
Advantage of a Thorough Knowledge of Divine Truth.23 What is suggested
here is that in these times of New Englands contested theology and its
practice, Edwards emerged as a prime example of effectively communi-
cating the fundamentals of Christian theologycatholic in its trajectory
and contemporary in its setting.
Therefore, a brief analysis with historical-theological commentary of
this homily, both in structure and content, is required to discern Edwards
position in a transitional moment of theology.
In regard to the structure, Edwards sermon on Hebrews 5:12 is a literary
unit, most likely divided over two preaching occasions, comprising three
main divisions, Text, Doctrine and Application,24 of which the latter is
presented as Uses and Directions. Wilson H. Kimnach convincingly argues
that Edwards relied upon the basic structure and general rationale of
the seventeenth-century Puritan sermon.25 However, the form of the
discourse may further have been strengthened by Edwards profound
20Edwards, Letters and Personal Writings, in WJE Online 16:727.

21Mastricht, Theoretico-practica, praefatio, 12.
22Edwards, The Miscellanies (entry Nos. 501832), in WJE Online 18:546547.
23No manuscript has been located. The text was first published in Jonathan Edwards,
Practical Sermons never before published (Edinburgh: M. Gray, 1788), 111 (sermon I), 1225
(sermon II). See on the publication of the text, Edwards, in WJE Online 22:82.
24An indispensable introduction to the sermons of Edwards can be found in Edwards,
Sermons and Discourses 17201723, in WJE Online 10: 3258.
25Edwards, Sermons and Discourses, 10:27.
acquaintance with Mastrichts Theoretico-practica theologia that pre-

sented each loci of Reformed theology in a fourfold and integral manner:
exegesis, doctrine, elenctic and praxisthe latter also containing uses
and directions.26 In particular, Mastrichts work was written not only for
the study of theology but also intended for the preparation of a homily.27
In addition to the threefold division of the discourse, Edwards offers in the
doctrinal section, in sketch and published form, four propositions or ques-
tions: What divinity is, What kind of knowledge in divinity is intended
in the doctrine, Why knowledge in divinity is necessary, and Why all
Christians should make a business of endeavoring to grow in this knowl-
edge. The informed reader notices immediately Edwards sophisticated
approach to the theological discourse by raising the (medieval) scholastic
quaestiones: Quid sit (what is), Qualis sit (what sort) and Quantus sit (how
great). These particular rhetorical distinctions, acknowledged by Edwards
as an examination according to the rules of art,28 unite Edwards ser
monstructure not only with the method of theological inquiry of post-
Reformation Reformed thinkers such as Mastricht and other Protestant
scholastics,29 but also with medieval intellectuals such as Lombard,
Aquinas, and Scotus.30 In summary, the structure of Edwards exposition
on the knowledge of divinity or theology proper, then, can be character-
ized as the methodus theologiae and is thereby placed in a long-standing
trajectory of the development of the systema of theology. This observation
is further underscored by examining the content of the first question, the
Quid sit, stated in Edwards Sermon Notes31 as What we mean by divinity,
and in the published text, What divinity is.32
Concerning the question What divinity is, Edwards provides, first, a
general statement. Divinity, he asserted, isthat science or doctrine
26See on the discussion on the nature of theology, Mastricht, Theoretico-practica, 4:

Usus primus reprehensionisUsus secundus adhortationis.
27Mastricht, Theoretico-practica, preafatio **2: Tandem, ut & usum nostrorum, in
homileticis pro concione habeas, id unum moneo, ut caut observes, praedominans argu-
mentum textus tui.
28Edwards, Sermons and Discourses, 17391742, in WJE Online 22:85. NB: Edwards four
propositions are found also on page 85.
29Mastricht, Theoretico-practica, 3. Cf. Muller, PRRD, I,121122.
30Peter Lombard, Magistri Sententiarum libri IV (Paris: Iohannis Roigny, 1537),
Quaestiones in librum primum; Thomas Aquinas, ST (Rome: editiones Paulinae, 1962),
Ia.1.7: quid sit subiectum eius; Johannis Duns Scotus, In Quartum Librum Sententiarum
(Venetia: Colonia, [ca. 1477]), vol. 1, prologus, v, tr theologia sit practica.
31Edwards, Sermon Notebook 14, in WJE Online 36, entry [164].
32Edwards, Practical Sermons never before published, 3. A concise presentation of the
development of the discourse content is offered in Edwards, Sermons and Discourses, 1739
1742, in WJE Online 22:8082.
which comprehends all those truths and rules which concern the great
business of religion.33 From a historical-theological perspective, one
would recognize Edwards ambivalence at this point of the discourse: does
he mean that divinity or theologia is scientia or doctrina? Does Edwards
take a Thomistic position on the formulation of theology as primary over
other sciences? Such seems the initial direction that the Northampton
preacher takes, when he writes:
There are various kinds of arts and sciences taught and learned in the
schools, which are conversant about various objects; about the works of
nature in general, as philosophy; or the visible heavens, as astronomy; or the
sea, as navigation; or the earth, as geography; or the body of man, as physic
and anatomy; or the soul of man, with regard to its natural powers and quali-
ties, as logic and pneumatology; or about human government, as politics
and jurisprudence. But there is one science, or one certain kind of knowl-
edge and doctrine, which is above all the rest, as it is concerning God and the
great business of religion: this is divinity.34
Leaving for the moment the question of Edwards Thomistic inclination,
the homilitician of Northampton worked towards a definition What
divinity is, concluding with a two-fold notion: Divinity is commonly
defined, the doctrine of living to God; and by some who seem to be more
accurate, the doctrine of living to God by Christ.35
The first given definition (for Edwards commonly defined) stands in a
trajectory reaching back to Petrus Ramus (15151572). Ramus defined
what divinity or theology is, as Theologia est doctrina bene vivendi36
in De Religione Christiana, which was echoed by William Perkins (1558
1602) in A Golden Chain, as The bodie of Scripture, is a doctrine sufficient
to liue well (est doctrina bene vivendi).37 In turn, Perkins student William
Ames (15761633) followed in the footsteps of his teacher and provided a
concise definition of theology in the Medulla S.S. Theologiae: Theologia
est doctrina Deo Vivendi, rendered in the English edition, as Divinity is
the doctrine of living to God.38 Ames work was not only extraordinarily
33Edwards, Sermons and Discourses, 22:85.

34Edwards, Sermons and Discourses, 86.
35Edwards, Sermons and Discourses, 86. The words in italic are in the printed text.
36Petrus Ramus, Commentariorum De Religione Christiana (Frankfurt: A. Welchem,
1576), Cap. I (Quid Theologia sit), 6.
37William Perkins, A Golden Chain (1592), Chap. 1 (Of the bodie of Scripture and
Theology), A3.
38William Ames, Medulla S.S. Theologiae (1627), Cap. 1 (De Theologiae definitione vel
natura), 1; Ames, Marrow of Sacred Divinity (1642), Chap. 1 (Of the Definition, or Nature of
Divinity), 1.
influential in early New England theology, but also belonged to Edwards

core works of study at Yale College and thereafter.39 For the second part
concerning the definition, and by some who seem to be more accurate,
the doctrine of living to God by Christ, Edwards most probably relied on
Mastricht. Mastricht was unique among seventeenth-century Reformed
scholastics in that he expanded Ames definition of divinity to Theologia
est doctrina Deo vivendi per Christum.40 Thus, New Englands theologian
and philosopher provided, and the hearers of Northampton were the
recipients of, a long-understood definition of the quid sit of theology but
mediated by the continental protestant scholastics of the seventeenth
century reaching back another hundred years to another philosopher and
theologian, Ramus. The questions can be raised, why Edwards felt that
this definition was of such importance. He wrote, and preached,
It comprehends all Christian doctrines as they are in Jesus, and all Christian
rules directing us in living to God by Christ. There is nothing in divinity, no
one doctrine, no promise, no rule, but what some way or other relates to the
Christian and divine life, or our living to God by Christ. They all relate to this,
in two respects, viz. as they tend to promote our living to God here in this
world, in a life of faith and holiness, and also as they tend to bring us to a life
of perfect holiness and happiness, in the full enjoyment of God hereafter.41
Returning to Edwards Thomistic thought, such seemed to be enforced by
his third question, about the necessity of the knowledge of divinity
corresponding with Aquinas opening inquiry in the Summa theologicae
on the necessity of the nature and extent of sacred doctrine.42 The percep-
tible Thomistic quality in Edwards view of theology, however, ought to be
modified when we consider his observation that there are two kinds of
knowledge of the things of divinity, viz. speculative and practical, or in
other terms, natural and spiritual.43 This observation is not only of great
importance to the preacher at Northamptongiven the attention in the
doctrine and application section of the sermon to this inquirybut also
places Edwards both in a long-standing trajectory of scholastic inquiry as
to whether theology is a science (scientia), or wisdom (sapientia), as well
39See for example, Keith L. Sprunger, The Learned Doctor William Ames (Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 1972); The Marrow of Theology. William Ames (15761633), ed.
Eusden (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997).
40Mastricht, Theoretico-practica, I.i.36 (p. 12): Theologia ista Christiana, theoretico-
practica, non est, nisi doctrina vivendi Deo per Christum.
41Edwards, Sermons and Discourses, 17391742, in WJE Online 22:86.
42Aquinas, ST, Ia.1.
as a discussion of scholastic distinctionsboth present in medieval and

Protestant scholastic systems of theology.
With the rise of interest in the thirteenth century in Aristotles writings,
the discussion of nature and the extent of theology was formed in part by
the Philosophers classification of the forms of knowledge, science (scien-
tia) and wisdom (sapientia).44 Franciscans, such as Alexander of Hales
(ca. 11831245) and Bonaventure (12211274) insisted on the affective,
practical, and experimental character of theologyexcluding it from con-
sideration as scientia in the Aristotelian sense of a rational or speculative
discipline.45 Aquinas, on the other hand not only argues in the Summa
theologicaeknown to Edwards during his studies at Yale College46
that sacred doctrine is a science,47 but also raises the question, whether
sacred doctrine is a practical scienceto which Thomas, reflecting
Dominican theology, replied, it is not a practical but a speculative sci-
ence.48 These fairly broad lines of the character of theology find their cul-
mination in Duns Scotus (d. 1308) formulation of theology. Scotus not
only resonated with Franciscan theology, though integrated with more
Aristotelian philosophy than previously was accepted, but considered
theology as a discipline oriented toward the ultimate goal of humanity in
God: in essence praxisthat is to say, a knowledge not known for itself
but directed to God.49
This medieval scholastic discussion on the character of theology
expository to matters of faith, whether theology is theoretical or
practicalwould resurface in the works of Protestant scholastic theolo-
gians, including but not limited to the Reformed theologians, and known
in early eighteenth century New England, such as Johannes Cloppenburg
(15921652), Johannes Coccejus (16031669), Johannes Hoornbeek (1617
1666), and Johannes Marck (16561731).50 Such theologians recognized
44In this paragraph I follow Mullers discussion in part on the development of theologi-
cal prolegomena. See PRRD, 1:8896.
45Alexander of Hales, Summa universae theologiae (Cologne: Agri., 1622), q.1, cap.12;
q.2, memb.3, cap.3; St. Bonaventure, Commentaria in quator libros Sententiariam
(Quaracchi, 1882), prologus, q.1.
46A Catalogue of the Library of Yale-College in New Haven (London: T. Green, 1743), 39,
xiii (The Schoolmen, Aquinatis Summa).
49Johannis Duns Scotus, Ordinatio (Rome: Polygottis Vaticanis, n.d.), 1, Prologus, pars
prima.
50Johannes Cloppenburg, Theologica opera omnia Tomus prior (Amsterdam:
Gerardus Borstius, 1684), 600; Johannes Coccejus, Summa theologiae, 2nd ed. (Geneva:
Samuel Chout, 1665), 65; Johannes Hoornbeek, Theologiae practicae (Utrecht: Iohannem
theology as a mixed discipline, both theoretico and practica, though lean-

ing towards the practicabut rejecting its anthropological character, as
proposed by the Remonstrants. However, Edwards inquiry, whether the-
ology is speculative or practica, was raised, in particular, in the prolegom-
ena of the theology of Mastricht and Turretintheologians with whom
Edwards was deeply acquainted. Turretin raised the question explicitly,
Is theology theoretical or practical, inquiring not only about the under-
standing the essence of theology but also on account of controversies
of this time, such as the Remonstrants and Socinians51a concern
Mastricht shared.52 Turretin asserted, furthermore, that a theoretical or
speculative system is occupied in contemplation alone with knowledge as
its object; contrary to a practical theology, which has operation for its
object.53 Therefore, the Genevan theologian concludes: theology is nei-
ther theoretical nor practical but a mixed discipline, and yet more practi-
cal than speculative, which appears, Turretin explained, from its ultimate
goal, which is praxisindeed nothing in theology is theoretical to such as
degree and so remote from praxis that it does not bring about the admira-
tion and worship of God; nor is a theory salvific unless it is referred to
praxis.54 In addition to Turretins question, whether theology is specula-
tive or practical, Edwards most favorite theologian, Mastricht, also dis-
cusses whether the discipline is theoretico-practica.55 Although he does
not reject the Thomistic position altogether, Mastricht is inclined to fol-
low a modified Scotist position on the issue, proposing that the praxis is
defined as doctrina, known for the sake of the end toward which it directs
the knower. In other words, Mastricht aims to maintain a balance between
the speculative and practica, expressed in the conjunction theoretico-
practica,56 yet oriented to the practical.
The appropriation of theological inquiry, following older scholastic
models, then, is specific for post-Reformation theologians such as
Mastricht and Turretin, while the alternative model of theology, offered
by the Remonstrants or Arminians, is fundamentally different: a rejection
of the recognition of theology as a mixed discipline. Simon Episcopius
& Guilielmum van de Water, 1689), 9; Johannes Marck, Compendium theologiae

Christianae didactico-elencticum (Amsterdam: Douci & Paddenburg, 1749), 13.
51Turretin, Institutio, I.vii and I.vii.2 (pp. 2223).
52Mastricht, Theoretico-practica, I.i.20 (p. 6).
53Turrettini, Institutio, I.vii.3 (p. 23).
54Turrettini, Institutio, I.xv.15 (p. 26). Cf. Muller, PRRD, 1:353354.
55Mastricht, Theoretico-practica, I.i.48 (p. 15a): Tertio sitne habitus theoreticus? an
practicus? an theoretico-practicus?
56Mastricht, Theoretico-practica, I.i.48 (p. 15b).
(15831643), following Jacobus Arminius (15601609),57 had argued there

is nothing in the whole of theology that is not directed toward action.58 In
other words, theology is not speculative but a fundamental anthropocen-
tric drive to praxis, which was a departure from the theocentric character
of Reformed theologya prevailing concern for Edwards as well.
Although Edwards inquiry into the nature of theology, then, stands in
continuity with the Protestant and medieval scholastic inquiry, along
with attention to scholastic distinctions such as speculative and practical,
the question remains, as Edwards phrased it, for what kind of knowledge
in divinity is intended.59 In the sermon on Christian knowledge he begins
to point out to the hearers at Northampton that the difference between
having a right speculative notion of the doctrines contained in the Word
of God, and having a due sense of them in the heart, does not imply that
neither of these is intended to be exclusive of the other. But, he declares,
it is intended that we should seek the former [speculative] in order to the
latter [practical]. This is for Edwards of greatest importance for, as he
reminds his hearers, a speculative knowledge of [the Word of God], with-
out a spiritual knowledge, is in vain and to no purposeYet a speculative
knowledge is also of infinite importance in this respect, that without it we
can have no spiritual or practical knowledge.60 We may infer from this
that Edwards does not reject the speculative entirely, as he assigns signifi-
cant importance to it (seek, he counsels, a good rational knowledge of
things of divinity). Yet seeking the speculative comes not at the expense
but in support of spiritual knowledge or practice.
In summary, we note the reception of older Protestant scholastic mod-
els by Edwards. Not only is a similar inquiry on the nature of theology
employed by the preacher at Northampton and post-Reformation
Reformed theologians, but also a discerning on Edwards part, of the char-
acter of theology, following Mastricht more than Turretin, as theoretico-
practica theology. With that, Edwards positioned himself, on the one
hand, in continuity with classical theologyrooted in post-Reformation
reformed and Franciscan-Scotist traditions, and, on the other hand, over
against its challengers, the Arminians and Deists. His familiarity with
Episcopius, identified by Edwards as one of the greatest Arminians,61
and Deists such as Thomas Chubb (16791747), whose writings Edwards
57Arminius, Opera, 339.

58Simon Episcopius, Institutiones Theologicae, I.ii, in Opera (Amsterdam: Ioannis
Blaeu, 1650), 4a: De theologia: eam non esse speculativam scientiam, sed practicam.
61Edwards, Freedom of the Will, in WJE Online 1:289.
refutes later in particular,62 strengthens Edwards point in defining the

essence of theology in these transformative years of New Englands history
and theology.
However, the appropriation of former models of catholic and classic
theology by Edwards provides a rather contemporized problem and pros-
pect. In regard to the latter, Edwards assessed and equated the Deism of
his time with the tendencies of Socinianism of previous centuries. Thus,
he not only provided his vast knowledge of the post-Reformation systema
as an approach for assessing contemporary challenges and proposed
changes, but these systema also presented him with precise and nuanced
definitions of the disciplineindispensable for the interpretation of
events and formulation of his own views. Although Edwards carefully
argued the importance and advantage of a thorough knowledge of divin-
ity to his congregation in 1739, his argument continues to pose a chal-
lenge to the modern reader as well. The discourse is in a language other
than Latinthe language of post-Reformation and medieval sources. The
continuity of intellectual trajectory of theological language, definitions
and distinctions, from the medieval period to Edwards study at Northamp
ton, became instantly absent in translation to the great majority of his
listeners. Not that his hearers in the pew would be aware of such, most
probably, or that Edwards message was deficient by it. However, the sig-
nificance of Edwards as theologian in these transformative years of New
England may be lost as wellat least to most Edwards scholars.63
Therefore, the proposed understanding of this homily must be placed as
fundamental to our understanding of Edwards theology and his much
later published and major works against Arminianism and Deism, such as
Freedom of the Will and Original Sinas his Controversies notebook dat-
ing from the 1730s attests.64
In conclusion, in the midst of the challenging and changing years of
17371742 in New Englands religious history Edwards revisited funda-
mental questions of theological prolegomena. The formulation of his
answers demonstrated not only continuity and discontinuity but also a
demanding appropriation of intellectual thought, that of the catholicity
and classicality of theology. The discourse was drafted and heard in
Northampton, published in 1788, and soon afterwards forgotten, yet its
message was timeless: Practice according to what knowledge you have.
This will be the way to know more.
62Edwards, Freedom of the Will, 343.

63See fn.3 above.
64Edwards, Controversies Notebook, in WJE Online 27.
CALVINISM AS REFORMED PROTESTANTISM:
CLARIFICATION OF A TERM
Herman Selderhuis
The Problem of Terms
Nowadays they do not want to hear these terms any moreso reads a
line from the well-known lexicon of Zedler, dating from 1754.1 Zedler was
explaining what people understand by the term Calvinists and claimed
that its origin is to be found with Zwingli as well as with Calvin, since after
Zwinglis death, Calvin held to his view of the Eucharist that deviated from
Luther. In addition, Zedler writes that Calvinists in France were called
Huguenots and in England were called Puritans, but in the German region
they preferred to be called Reformed.
In a few short sentences, this explanation of Zedler contains all the ele-
ments of the complexity, the apparent uselessness, and the untenability of
the term Calvinism to accurately reflect what Reformed Protestantism
should actually be called. The terms in this lexicon indicate at the same
time that in the middle of the eighteenth century the so-called Calvinists
had not yet succeeded in shedding this name and its associated image. It
was no less evident that reference worksexercising their own enormous
influence via lexica in shaping images and judgmentswere still permit-
ting themselves to be guided by stereotypes supplied two hundred years
earlier, in which Luther was the norm and his doctrine of the Eucharist
was a shibboleth. Under this norm of Luther, a standard whereby people
other than Luther himself initially determined what was and was not from
Luther, and whereby it was determined that Luther and the Reformation
were actually synonymous terms, Melanchthon was the first of many
victims.2
1Johann Heinrich Zedler, Grosses vollstndiges Universal-Lexicon Aller Wissenschafften

und Knste, Supplement (1754), 1290.
2nec stare posse Lutherum, nisi prostrato Melanchthone, putarent. (Luther can
only stand, if Melanchthon lies prostrated), in Georg Sohn, Theses de plerisque locis
theologicis, in Academiis Marpurgensi et Heidelbergensi ad disputandum propositae
(Herborn, 1609).
724 herman selderhuis
Just as the term Lutheran originated as an insult from the side of

the Roman Catholicsused particularly by Eck and Erasmusand was
applied to Luthers followers, so too the term Calvinism originated as an
insult from the side of Lutherans and was applied to Reformed Protestants,
in order to make clear that they wished to distinguish themselves emphat-
ically from the Reformed view of the Eucharist as not being Lutheran and
thus non-Reformational.3 On the basis of this viewpoint Calvinists were
depicted in the sixteenth century in brochures and illustrations as danger-
ous heretics, unbiblical rationalists, and unreliable in their church polity,4
so that henceforth from this context Calvinism could be identified only
negatively, especially in the gnesio-Lutheran tradition. The opinion was
widely held that Calvinism was more dangerous than Islam, so it is under-
standable that the Calvinists preferred not to be called by that name.
Just like Luther objected to the name Lutheran,5 Calvin did so with
regard to the name Calvinism,6 and those who were called Calvinists
followed him on that score. Already in 1555 the ministers of Lausanne pro-
tested against the term Calvinists.7 The so-called Calvinists, especially
those in the Palatinate, always emphatically called themselves Reformed.8
This is how Daniel Tossanus speaks about orthodox churches who are
called Calvinistic by malicious people.9 Tossanus speaks about his own
churches as evangelical churches. Others, however, he says, call us
Calvinist churches.10 In his writings Tossanus speaks continually about
3See among others, Heinrich Heppe, Ursprung und Geschichte der Bezeichnungen
reformirte und lutherische Kirche (Gotha, 1859); Uwe Plath, Zur Entstehungsgeschichte
des Wortes Calvinist, AR 66 (1976): 213223.
4Hellmut Zschoch, Das Bild des Calvinisten, Zur polemischen Publizistik im konfes-
sionellen Zeitalter, in Reformierter Protestantismus vor den Herausforderungen der Neuzeit,
ed. Kuhnand and Ulrichs (Wuppertal: Foedus, 2008), 1946.
5Man wolle meines Namens geschweigen und sich nicht lutherisch, sondern Christen
heien. Was ist Luther? Ist doch die Lehre nicht mein. So bin ich auch fr niemand
gekreuzigt.Wie kme denn ich armer, stinkender Madensack dazu, dass man die Kinder
Christi sollte mit meinem heillosen Namen nennen? Nicht also, liebe Freunde, lasst uns
tilgen die parteiischen Namen (WA 8:685).
6See Calvins Secunda Defensio in CO 9:41.
7CO 15:588 (br.2195), 15:837 (br.2331).
8So, e.g., the delegates of the church of Antwerp, who in 1566 signed a letter to the
count of Saxony with: Antwerpiae Ecclesiae iuxta Evangelium Christi reformatae cited
in Guido Marnef, Calvinism in Antwerp 15581585, in Calvinism in Europe 15401620, ed.
Pettegree et al. (Cambridge: CUP, 1994), 151n42.
9De ea parte praedestinationis divinae, quam reprobationem vocant. Theses Apologeticae
(Heidelberg, 1586).
10Ecclesias Evangelicas, quas Calvinianas vocant, Tossanus, Oratio De Ascensv
Domini Nostri Iesv Christi in Clum, quem Ascensum D. Augustinus non immerito Catholic
calvinism as reformed protestantism 725
the so-called Calvinists.11 Others call us Calvinists, but we are the catho-
lic evangelical church, said Tossanus.12 Moreover, we were not baptized in
the name of Luther, nor in the name of Calvin, but in the name of Christ.13
David Pareus complains about the Erwegung deren Theologen meynung,
die sich nicht schewen, Evangelische Herrschaften zu bereden, dass sie
lieber mit den Papisten, und dem Rmischen Antichrist, als mit den
Reformirten Evangelischen, die sie aus hass Calvinisch nenen, Gemein
schaft haben sollen.14 The fact that this resistance against the term came
especially from the Palatinate was related to the political need to make
clear that people there did not belong to one of the groups deviating from
Luther, who would thereby have fallen outside the religious pacification
of Augsburg and thus have been in fact illegal.
Perhaps these Reformed people themselves contributed to fortifying
the impression that they were deviating from the original Reformation,
in that they accused the Lutherans of appealing to Luther so heavily that
the impression arose that just as much authority could be ascribed to
Luthers word as to Gods Word. From the Reformed side, by republishing
De Servo Arbitrio,15 and thereby pitting Luther against the Lutherans,
and in this way claiming him for the position of the Reformed, it became
more difficult for the Lutherans to trust the so-called Calvinists. That peo-
ple chose for Luthers writing against Erasmus yielded the result that the
polemic unleashed about the differing view of the Eucharist expanded to
discussions concerning predestination, that other doctrine so characteris-
tic of the Reformed, and contributed strongly to the image that Calvinists,
also known as Reformed, belonged not to a second Reformation, but to an
altogether different Reformation.16
Fidei Confirmationem vocat. Habita Heidelbergae Pridie Ascensionis, An. 1586 (Neustadt:
Harnisch, [ca. 1586]), 37.
11der genannten Calvinisten. Tossanus, Drey christliche Predigten (Heidelberg
1591), 15.
12wider die genante Calvinianer/ das ist/ wider unsere Catholische Evangelische
Kirche, Tossanus, Warhaffter Bericht (Heidelberg, 1584), 16. Prediger der Catholischen
Evangelischen (so sie odiose Calvinisch nennen), Warhaffter Bericht, 101.
13Tossanus, Warhaffter Bericht 98.
14Title of a chapter in his Irenicum (Heidelberg, 1620).
15De servo arbitrio Martini Lutheri, ad D. Erasmum Roterodamum, Liber illustris:
Desideratis iampridem exemplaribus, contra veteres & novos Pelagianos, in usum studiose
iuventutis, & propagandae veritatis ergo; Nunc denuo, cum praefatione ad Lectorem, editus
(Neustadt 1591).
16On Reformed reception of Luthers De Servo Arbitrio, see Robert Kolb, Bound Choice,
Election, and Wittenberg Theological Method (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 173179;
Herman J. Selderhuis, Luther Totus Noster Est: the reception of Luthers Thought at the
Reformed as the Alternative
In 1556 Elector Frederick III testified to the emperor at the Diet of Augsburg
that he did not know what was meant by the term Calvinism: And because
I never read Calvins books, as I may bear witness to God and my Christian
conscience, thus I can know so very little about what is meant by
Calvinism.17 Because not only he, but many after him as well, did not
know precisely what was meant by the term, people have tried for a long
time to avoid the term Calvinism and to speak instead of Reformed
Protestantism. These attempts arose principally in Switzerland, where
more than anywhere else the fear existed that the tradition of Zwingli,
particularly that of Heinrich Bullinger, would disappear behind the name
of the Frenchman who had been famous in Geneva. Attempts made at a
later date can also be explained on the basis of the thought of yet another
Swiss theologian. Despite the influences of Calvin on Karl Barth, it is
awkward to label Barth as a Calvinist if that term is understood to mean
the above-mentioned imbalance and reduction of Calvinism, and he
would fit better under the term Reformed Protestantism despite the fact
that precisely among Reformed theologians the complaint was expressed
that Barths theology was unreformed on fundamental points. Not only
Switzerland, but also Germany had an interest in the term Reformed
Protestantism, as will become evident below with the discussion of
the term Deutschreformiertentum. And in the Netherlands, Calvinism
seemed to have had a lot less to do with Calvin than generally was
accepted.18
Consequently, the term Calvinism provided much confusion for cen-
turies, and there is great need to clarify what it actually means. For several
decades now, however, the insight has emerged that it is of interest to
investigate whether this term is being used theologically, politically, cul-
turally, or sociologically, for with each of these categories Calvinism
obtains a different overtone, and within each of these categories there are
unique discussions about the value and meaning of this term. In line with
talking about reformations, some are inclined to speak not of Calvinism,
Heidelberg Theological Faculty 15831622, MAJT 17 (2006): 101119, at 116117; and

Raymond Blacketers The Man in the Black Hat in this volume.
17Cited in Burkhard Gotthelf Struve, Ausfhrlicher Bericht von der Pfltzischen Kirchen-
Historie (Frankfurt am Main: Hartung, 1721), 189.
18See William den Boer, Calvijn en het Nederlandse calvinisme (Apeldoorn: Theologische
Universiteit, 2010).
but of Calvinisms, whose connecting thread amid this diversity would

consist of rejecting the theology of Trent. F.W. Graf supplies this defini-
tion, for example:
Calvinism is that social form of modern Christianity in which the counter
proposal to tridentine Catholicism was developed with momentous conse-
quences, in terms of theological doctrine, church polity, practical ethics, and
the ideal political order, and was lived in continually new pious activity.19
As interesting as this attempted definition may be, its problem is that
what is stated here applies not simply to Calvinism, but to Anabaptism as
well, to non-tridentine Catholicism, and even to Lutheranism. Moreover,
this definition says so little of substance that the obscurity of the term
is not removed. A third objection against this definition is that here
Calvinism is viewed as being exclusively reactionary, namely, freighted as
a counter proposal (Gegenentwurf). Defining Calvinism requires more
than one lengthy sentence.
If this obscurity generates the questionwhich must arisewhether
the term is useful at all, Graf claims that Calvinism is indispensable as a
confessional-typological term, arguing that it is very useful as an ideal
type alongside two other early modern confessional cultures, namely,
Lutheranism and tridentine Catholicism.20
As understandable as this argument is, the question remains whether
in view of recent detailed studies we can continue to speak with such
conviction about three confessional cultures as though these were so
distinct at that time, let alone easily recognizable. Even if that had been
the case, some would argue that the term Calvinism is not indispensable
and couldpotentially mustbe replaced with the term Reformed
Protestantism. This solution of the problem is understandable, in view
already of the many very valuable studies, completed during the last
twenty years under the rubric of confessionalizing paradigms, which have
resulted in a rather undifferentiated and occasionally confusing use of the
term Calvinistic.
The problem with the term Calvinism, finally, originated through its
more recent use, namely, as an explicit self-identifier (Selbstbezeichnung).
I am referring primarily to the manner in which Abraham Kuyper
articulatedand to an important degree realizedhis vision as being
19Friedrich Wilhelm Graf, Vorherbestimmt zu Freiheitsaktivismus. Transformationen

des globalen Calvinismus, in Calvinismus: Die Reformierten in Deutschland und Europa
(Berlin: Sandstein, 2009), 391.
20Graf, Vorherbestimmt, 384.
Calvinism. According to him, Calvinismwhich is dubbed neo-Calvinism

in the literatureis a universal life- and world-view with especially cul-
tural and political outworking. From this Kuyper developed a program
of action in which he combined Calvinian principles and nineteenth-
century idealism. More recently, especially in the English-speaking world,
Calvinism has been reduced to a summary of the Canons of Dordt in terms
of the five points. This identifies Calvinism almost exclusively in terms
of election and sanctification, resulting not only in a restriction of Calvin
ism to theology, but within theology, a restriction to the God-humanity
relationship. In response to these claims of Kuyperian and five-point
Calvinists, repeated attention needs to be drawn to the fact that Calvinism
is not identical with Calvinian, and that within Calvinism a wide variety
exists, implying that it is dubious whether the term is suitable.21 Never
theless, the term Calvinism can no longer be avoided, and is even from a
grammatical point of view employed more easily than the term Reformed
Protestantism, for which reason the danger recurs of talking about
Calvinistic when from a historical viewpoint the term Reformed would
be more suitable.22
Heidelberg, Emden, and Dordrecht
The names of these cities represent the complexity and unity of Reformed
Protestantism, and at the same time they are all related to Calvinism and
can be viewed as stations along the route Calvinism has traveled, even
though Calvin was never in any of these cities and his books were read in
those cities less widely than might have been expected.
21Van Schelven, who himself makes a plea for the use of the term Calvinism although
he is aware of the objections to be made against this use, refers to a work published in 1598
in which a differentiation is made between German, Dutch and Swiss Calvinism, and to a
Roman-catholic author who lists in 1611 also various sorts of Calvinists. A.A. van Schelven,
Het Calvinisme gedurende zijn bloeitijd (Amsterdam: Ten Have, 1943), 11n12. On problems
with five-point Calvinism, see Richard A. Muller, How Many Points? CTJ 28.2 (1993):
425433; and Muller, Calvin and the Reformed Tradition: On the Work of Christ and the Order
of Salvation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012), 5169.
22The title (Christs Churches Purely Reformed) and subtitle (A Social History of
Calvinism) of Benedicts overview is remarkable. Whereas these give the impression that
Reformed and Calvinism are the same, in the book itself he claims that it is necessary to
distinguish carefully, because Reformed is thus for several reasons a more historically
accurate and less potentially misleading label than Calvinist to apply to these churches
and to the larger tradition to which they attached themselves, Philip Benedict, Christs
Churches Purely Reformed: A Social History of Calvinism (New Haven: Yale, 2004),
xxiixxiii.
Heidelberg is both the place where the most widely used catechism of
Reformed Protestantism originated in 1563, and the home of the univer-
sity that from 15831622 developed into one of the most important centers
of Reformed theology. Emden is known for the synod of 1571, which laid
the basis, in its decisions regarding the confessions and the church order,
for the Reformed church in the Netherlands and far beyond. Dordrecht is
known both for the Canons of Dordt and the church order, a polity that,
similar to Emdens, clearly shows the hand of Calvin.
On account of the special significance of Melanchthons students for
the content of the Heidelberg Catechism and for staffing the theological
faculty there, as well as on account of the urgency and political necessity
for German Reformed people, and in light of the stipulations of Augsburg,
which made the German Reformed insist on identifying themselves not
as Calvinists but rather as Reformed who were based upon Luther, it is
claimed that one can speak of an entirely unique German Reformed
identity (Deutschreformiertentum) and a German Reformed theology
distinct from that of Zrich and Geneva.23
This labeling is not entirely incorrect, but if it is intended to distance
the German Reformed from Calvin, it is difficult to maintain. As far as the
Catechism is concerned, it is remarkable that within Calvinism this has
become the most widespread catechism and confession, and by means of
weekly preaching and catechesis, this catechism determines the doctrine
and life in orthodox Reformed churches that have remained close to
Calvin in terms of doctrine. Within Calvinism people have never viewed
this document as something un-Calvinian or un-Calvinistic. People serving
on the theological faculty refused to be called Calvinists and at a certain
point preferred Melanchthons Loci to Calvins Institutes, but there was
never an attempt to construct a unique identity in order to distinguish
themselves from Calvin or even to dismiss him. So it is no surprise that the
delegates from Heidelberg took with them to the Synod of Dordt the man-
date to keep together the Remonstrants and the contra-Remonstrants, but
that if this did not succeed they were supposed to side clearly with
the party holding to the Calvinian doctrine of predestination, which they
23Ernst Koch, Das konfessionelle Zeitalter- Katholizismus, Luthertum, Calvinismus (1563

1675) (Leipzig 2000), 273276. For an overview of the current state of the discussion,
see Harm Klueting, Die Reformierten im Deutschland des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts und
die Konfessionalisierungsdebatte der deutschen Geschichtswissenschaft seite ca. 1980,
in Profile des reformierten Protestantismus aus vier Jahrhunderten, ed. Freudenberg
(Wuppertal: Foedus, 1999), 1747.
ultimately did.24 In this way, the so-called Deutschreformiertentum and

the majority of the Melanchthon students identified with Calvinism.
An element that served to tie together Heidelberg, Emden, and Dordt
was discipline, an element Melanchthon early on wanted to have included
in the Reformation, one that Calvin was able to realize partially in Stras
burg and Geneva, and one that would become an essential characteristic
of Calvinism, in both its ecclesiastical and its political-societal forms.
Ecclesiastically when Reformed church orders are taken into consider-
ation, it is obvious that discipline would constitute an essential part of
congregational life. The question whether Calvin wanted to identify disci-
pline as one of the marks of the church is irrelevant at this point, since his
inclusion of the pure administration of the sacraments as one of the marks
implied that discipline would be exercised. The emphasis on discipline
goes back to the assessment of the law, within the New Testament as well,
as the norm for personal and public life, the so-called tertius usus. It also
arises from giving attention to the person and the work of the Holy Spirit
in the process of sanctification, concerning which the Calvinian or
Reformed tradition talked more than the Lutheran tradition, though it
talked about it less often and quite differently than did the Anabaptist
tradition.
Viewed politically, people also employ discipline, although the disci-
pline of nation and society was pursued by both Catholic and Lutheran
princes. Nevertheless, there are many examples of both Catholic and
Lutheran princes who chose self-consciously for the Reformed religion.25
One can speak of a confessional change occurring in thirty-three regions,26
although the various German territories often did not correspond to the
profile of either Lutheranism or Calvinism. Frequently this alteration is
identified as a choice for Calvinism, and people even speak of a Calvinizing
that occurred. During recent decades interesting studies have appeared
that deal with this connection between confession and politics, nearly all
of which show that the princes and governments in view were led by their
confessional change as well as by religious and socio-political arguments.
They were led by religious arguments, because the majority of princes
24See Herman J. Selderhuis, Melanchthon und die Niederlande im 16. und 17.
Jahrhundert, in Melanchthon und Europa, vol. 6/2 (Stuttgart: Thorbecke, 2002), 303324.
25On this, see among others, Andrew Pettegree, et al, ed, Calvinism in Europe.
26See the overview in J.F. Gerhard Goeters, Genesis, Formen und Hauptthemen des
reformierten Bekenntnisses in Deutschland. Eine bersicht, in Die reformierte
Konfessionalisierung in Deutschland-Das Problem der Zweiten Reformation, ed. Schilling
(Gtersloh: G. Mohn, 1986), 4647.
who made this choice wanted to base it on Scripture and therefore thought
that the Reformed view of the Eucharist, particularly Calvins, together
with the accompanying liturgy, remained the closest to the Bible as the
Word of God.27 Added to this was the attractiveness of Calvinism as a
modern and progressive movement, one that interested princes who
wanted to work for renewal, because of the place that its theology ascribed
to the government and its two-kingdoms doctrine that saw these realms
more as partners than as independent entities, let alone competitors. The
choice for Calvinism occurred not because it was such a useful tool for
bringing discipline to the nation. Moreover, copious investigation shows
that there was hardly any so-called Calvinizing, because people inside
and outside the church hardly ever did what the pastors wanted. Never
theless the programmatic and idealistic character of Calvinism was most
prominent, precisely because the theology of Calvin formed the most
suitable basis.28
We find a consideration of the matter of discipline, and teaching about
the need for discipline, in the Heidelberg Catechism as well, which
appeared in Calvinistic Emden in Dutch translation in the same year
(1563) as the German and Latin versions appeared.29 A mere eight years
later, the synod that was held there, which would form the basis of the
Reformed church in the Calvinist Netherlands, would prescribe that cate-
chism as mandatory and binding. Calvinism in Emden was manifested in
connection with this synod in its original and continuing diversity, as we
see from the theological biographies of different delegates.30
It is especially the theology of Dordt that is tied to Calvinism, whereby
Dordt refers to the doctrine of predestination as taught in the Canons of
Dordt. In the unnuanced and unfounded discussion of double predesti-
nation it is suggested that here the theology of Calvin has reached its cen-
tral point and its epitome, or as others think, its lowest point. Most people
overlook the fact that between the final edition of Calvins Institutes and
27For an overview of German princes, see Koch, Das konfessionele Zeitalter, 261273.
28Compare as well the judgment of Schilling, who claims that it was Calvin who der
institutionell und theologisch die tragfhigste Basis fr eine umfassende Beeinflussung der
Gesellschaft im Geiste des neuzeitlichen Konfessionalismus und seiner Denk-, und
Verhaltensnormen gelegt hat. Schilling, Luther, Loyola, Calvin und die europische
Neuzeit, AR 85 (1994): 24.
29For the spread of the Heidelberg Catechism see: Karla Apperloo-Boersma and
Herman J. Selderhuis, ed, Power and Faith: 450 Years of the Heidelberg Catechism (Gttingen:
V&R, 2013).
30W. vant Spijker, Stromingen onder de reformatorisch gezinden in Emden, in De
synode van Emden-oktober 1571, ed. Nauta et al. (Kampen: Kok, 1971), 5074.
the formulation of the Canons, sixty years passed, years of theological,

philosophical, and ecclesiastical discussion. They also generally overlook
the fact that Calvins discussion of election in a refugee context differs
from that of Dordt, where people faced an agenda determined by the
Remonstrants and a synod that was politically highly charged. Calvin, in
fact, exercised only an indirect and moderate influence on the Canons.31
Some have argued for a German Reformational identity on the basis of the
fact that the Heidelberg Catechism is Melanchthonian, and is supposedly
silent regarding what according to the long outdated thesis was the cen-
tral doctrine of Calvin, namely, predestination, but this is an argument
without basis. For in fact the Heidelberger does present a solid discussion
of election, but it does not do so polemically, because this catechism is
polemically oriented primarily against Rome, and in addition, in 1563 pre-
destination was not a central point of discussion in Protestantism.32
Moreover, Calvin was also virtually silent about election in his sermons
and catechisms.33 Apart from that, it could be added that the Belgic
Confession, written on the basis of the French Confession de Foy that
went back to Calvin, is also quite limited in its discussion of election in
Article 16.
It is very interesting to correlate this historical context and these devel-
opments with the answer to our question. In the period before Dordt,
there was such variation within Reformed theology that Calvinism was
one form thereof, perhaps a very prominent form, but nonetheless
certainly not the only form. Arminius, who had studied in Geneva with
Beza, understood himself as belonging to the Reformed tradition and even
to Calvinism. So it is incorrect to begin making distinctions during this
stage between liberal Protestants and orthodox Calvinists.34 Arminius
did not view himself as liberal, but as belonging to the orthodox
Calvinists. Only when Dordt had defined what orthodox Calvinism
held regarding election did the view of Arminius come to fall officially out-
side orthodoxy, but by that time he had been dead for almost ten years
31Donald W. Sinnema, Calvin and the Canons of Dordt (1619), CHRC 91.12 (2011):
87103.
32Cf. Lyle D. Bierma, The Sources and Theological Orientation of the Heidelberg
Catechism, in An Introduction to the Heidelberg Catechism: Sources, History, and Theology,
ed. Bierma, et al. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), 75102, at 9496.
33See: Wilhelm H. Neuser, Predestination, in Calvin Handbook, ed. Selderhuis (Grand
34Willem Frijhoff, Strategies for Religious Survival Outside the Public Church in the
United Provinces: Towards a Research Agenda, in Wege der NeuzeitFestschrift fr Heinz
Schilling zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Ehrenpreis et al. (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2007), 188.
already.35 After Dordt, matters came to be understood differently, surely

because the Synod of Dordt was not merely a national event and came to
exert significant confessional influence internationally. This was strength-
ened by the fact that the decision of Dordt became normative for the
church of that country which in the seventeenth century would exercise
its influence in many parts of the world, and would establish churches
with this foundation in many regions overseas. The cities of Heidelberg,
Emden, and Dordrecht represent a process leading to a situation in which
Calvinism and Reformed Protestantism are virtually synonymous.
Calvinism as Reformed Protestantism
Calvinism cannot be equated with Reformed Protestantism if Calvinism is

understood to refer to only the theology of Calvin, and even less if people
ascribe to Calvinism those characteristics that already for centuries have
come along with the term and for a long time have been shown to be
unfounded caricatures. If Calvinism is not tied too closely to Calvin, how-
ever, and is seen more as issue de Calvin, in many cases the term can be
used synonymously for Reformed Protestantism, as long as that is refer-
ring to the entire movement that proceeded from Calvin. That identifica-
tion must include Reformed confessions and Reformed churches, if only
because of the fact that no Calvinistic confessions exist and there is no
church in the world that calls itself a Calvinistic church. It must include
Reformed confessions because not all of these go back to Calvin or his
influence either directly or indirectly, like the Heidelberg Catechism and
the Second Helvetic Confession. For example, although with Calvin the
idea of the covenant did not appear very emphatically in the foreground,
that idea is present to such an extent that the so-called covenant theology
that is identified as characteristic of Reformed Protestantism can appeal
to Calvin for its basis. At the same time, it is clear by now that the heart of
Bullingers theology does not lie in the covenant but in the communio cum
Christo, which again is a principle that binds together all of Reformational
theology.
Calvinism is the most pregnant form of Reformed Protestantism, and
after a variety of theological developments and ecclesiastical decisions, it
35Although, as Richard Muller argues, by documentable theological conviction,

Arminius placed himself outside the Reformed understanding of the confessions of the
Dutch Reformed churches that were already well established. See his Arminius and the
Reformed Tradition, WTJ 70 (2008): 1948, at 47.
has obtained a position that has made it synonymous with Reformed

Protestantism, as can be seen in the development that the doctrine of
election has undergone, a doctrine going back to Luther and later to
Calvin, but one that has obtained more precision as a result of the discus-
sions occurring first between Lutherans and Reformed, and then between
Remonstrants and contra-Remonstrants. The transition of many from the
school of Melanchthon to Calvinism implies a simultaneous expansion of
Calvinism as well as a confirmation that Reformed Protestantism and
Calvinism are terms that can be used virtually synonymously. Anyone sur-
veying the developments of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries can
observe that the breadth of Reformed Protestantism, as that came into
existence especially from Zrich and Geneva, gradually grew into that
Calvinism that did not want to be called by that term, a Calvinism that was
and wished to be Reformed, and yet has come to wear this name that has
gradually changed from a name of mockery to a title of honor. All of this
fits with the central role that came to be ascribed to Calvin. Although
Bullinger and A Lasco were very important ecclesiastically, it was espe-
cially Calvin whose advice was sought throughout all of Europe, and his
opinion was considered in most cases to be decisive. Although Bullingers
Decades and Vermiglis Loci were used intensively and saw more reprints
than Calvins Institutes,36 Calvins magnum opus, initially a book for cate-
chesis, has become and remained down through the centuries until today
the standard work for Reformed theology. It is sometimes claimed that in
the period of Reformed orthodoxy the presence of Calvin declined,37 but
it is clear that where his works were used less, his influence became stron-
ger through the work of others.
The question can be asked where Martin Bucer, Wolfgang Musculus,
Heinrich Bullinger, and Petrus Martyr Vermigli must be classified when
the non-Lutheran group is called Calvinistic. Would they not be more suit-
ably described by the term Reformed Protestantism? The question comes
down to whether Bucer, Musculus, Bullinger, and Vermigli should be clas-
sified at all. That our classifications do not always fit the people of that era
is due to our classifications, but these individuals do fit under the term
Reformed, and it would be anachronistic to call them Calvinistic, just as
caution must be exercised in labeling theologians before the 1586 Book of
36For Bullinger see A. Pettegree, Printing and the Reformation: the English Exception,
in Beginnings of English Protestantism, ed. Marshall and Ryrie (Cambridge: CUP, 2002), 172.
37O. Fatio, Prsence de Calvin lpoque de lOrthodoxie rforme, in Calvinus
Ecclesiae Doctor, ed. Neuser (Kampen: Kok, 1980), 171207.
Concord as Lutheran. The distinction lies in the period of time. Calvin is a

second-generation reformer and therefore had the opportunity to adopt
and independently process elements from Lutheran Protestantism,
Zwinglian Protestantism, and Reformed Protestantism.
Conclusion
If Calvinism is viewed as a vision for church, theology, politics, art, and

culture that flows from it, then in this term one possesses the full scope of
the original Reformed Protestantism, in fact, of all Protestantism. But,
once again, all of this must avoid sixteenth-century caricatures, along with
recent modern imbalances. This is possible because the term Calvinism
has virtually lost its polemical connotation and in most studies38 is used
particularly as a synonym for Reformed, with which Calvinism is a coordi-
nate term, though people continue to speak of a Reformed church and
Reformed or reformational theology.39
Those in other countries within and outside of Europe who study
Calvinism will encounter wide variety, and at the same time they will find
unity in diversity,40 both of which belong to Calvins theology that picked
up valuable elements from church fathers, medieval theologians, and
direct predecessors and contemporaries. In short, if Calvinism is not iden-
tified with Calvin, then the term can be used extremely well as a synonym,
or better still, as a replacement, for the term Reformed Protestantism.
38E.W. Zeeden, Calvinismus, in Lexikon fr Theologie und Kirche (Freiburg, 1958),

2:891. Cf. Reformierte Kirchen, TRE 7:592.
39So also Alasdair I.C. Heron, Calvinismus in Evangelisches Kirchenlexikon (Gttingen:
V&R, 1986), 1:616621.
40For a survey, see W. Stanford Reid, ed., John Calvin: His Influence in the Western World
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982).
RECONSIDERING THE PLATONISM OF SIR JOSHUA
REYNOLDS (17231792) AND ITS ROLE IN HIS THOUGHT ON THE
EDUCATION OF ARTISTS
Nathan A. Jacobs
I first met Richard Muller when I was a doctoral student in his research
methodology course. He distributed for our consideration discourse II of
Sir Joshua Reynolds Discourses on Art.1 Though the piece was meant to
illustrate an important point of research methodologyhighlighting
Reynolds seemingly odd use of the word pencilthe discourse served a
more significant purpose in my relationship with Richard, bringing to
light our mutual love for painting. This led to a long trail of conversations
about various aspects of the discipline that continues to this day. For the
sake of this Festschrift, it seems only appropriate to focus on the most
unique feature of my relationship with Richard (viz., art), and to do so by
looking again at the discourses that initiated it.
In this essay, I reconsider the claim, now out of fashion, that Sir Joshua
Reynolds held to a form of Platonism. I argue that the challenges to this
view are thin, being based on (i) an ambiguity concerning what consti-
tutes Platonism, (ii) a false dichotomy of either Platonic idealism or
Lockean empiricism, and (iii) a historically untenable take on what
Platonism entails and excludes. My claim is that Reynolds shows clear
signs of affirming Platonic idealism, but holds to the later Neo- and
Christian Platonist syntheses of Plato with Aristotelian epistemology and
substance metaphysics. I then flesh out how this metaphysic informs
Reynolds view of art education.
The Platonic reading of Sir Joshua Reynolds has, in times past, enjoyed
favor from such individuals as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Louis
Bredvold.2 Yet this reading has steadily declined in prominence, now rep-
resenting a minority report in literature on Reynolds.3 It has become
1All references to the Discourses are embedded in the body of the essay and identify the
discourse number, followed by the pagination in Sir Joshua Reynolds, The Discourses of Sir
Joshua Reynolds (London: J. Carpenter, 1842). All quotations are taken from this volume.
2Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Philosophical Lectures, ed. Kathleen Coburn (New York:
Pilot, 1949), 194; Louis I. Bredvold, The Tendency Toward Platonism in Neo-Classical
Esthetics, A Journal of English Literary History 1.2 (1934): 91119.
3Rare exceptions to the contemporary anti-Platonist thrust include Christine Mitchell
Havelock, The Aphrodite of Knidos and Her Successors: A Historical Review of the Review of
738 nathan a. jacobs
common fare to acknowledge that Reynolds sounds like a Platonist at

times, and to likewise acknowledge the mistaken opinion of those in
times past who misread Reynolds in just this way. However, such errors
are quickly remedied by a quotation from Reynolds discourse III, which
demonstrates, to the minds of such interpreters, that Reynolds was an
empiricist. The passage reads as follows:
Experience is all in all; but it is not every one who profits by experience; and
most people err, not so much from want of capacity to find their object, as
from not knowing what object to pursue. This great ideal perfection and
beauty are not [to] be sought in the heavens, but upon the earth. They are
about us, and upon every side of us. (III.40)
From this passage, many argue that Reynolds denied the two central
tenets of Platonism: (i) that there are archetypal Ideas in the heavens;
and (ii) that the souls knowledge of Ideas is innate and thus drawn from
recollection, not experience.4
In a number of writers, the assessment, and subsequent dismissal, of
Reynolds alleged Platonism is as straightforward as what I have just
described. Hoyt Towbridge, Elder Olson, and Meyer Adams take the whole
of Reynolds apparent Platonism to vanish in the face of this single proof-
text, and in the case of Towbridge, the passage suffices to establish in its
stead Reynolds Lockean empiricism.5
Richard Woodfield attempts a more robust version of the argument by
looking at a trichotomy of aesthetic schools in Reynolds dayanti-
classicist empiricism, classicist idealism, and classicist empiricism.6 The
first of these schools is easily dismissed, since Reynolds was a classicist. As
for idealist classicism, Woodfield, like Towbridge, Olson, and Adams, sim-
ply quotes discourse III. Thus classicist empiricism is all that remains.7
the Female Nude in Greek Art (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2008), 52; and (perhaps)
Hazard Adams, Revisiting Reynolds Discourses and Blakes Annotations, in Blake in His
Time, ed. Essick and Pearch (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1978), 131, though Adams
final assessment is unclear.
4Platos theory of the Forms is most famously espoused in The Republic, 506d-521b. The
doctrine of recollection can be found in Plato, Meno, 80d-86c.
5Hoyt Trowbridge, Platonism and Sir Joshua Reynolds, English Studies 21 (1939): 3;
Elder Olson, Introduction, in Longinus On the Sublime and Reynolds Discourses on Art,
trans. [of Longinus] Einarson (Chicago: Packard, 1945), xvixvii; Meyer H. Adams, The
Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition (Oxford: OUP, 1971), 45.
6Richard Woodfield, Introduction in Sir Joshua Reynolds, Seven Discourses (Menston:
Solar, 1971), vi.
7Woodfield, Introduction, vvi.
reconsidering the platonism of sir joshua reynolds 739
Where Woodfields case expands beyond what others offer is in his effort
to provide an intellectual genealogy for Reynolds empiricist classicism.
He notes two influences, Jonathan Richardson and Franciscus Junius (the
younger), both of whom he takes to be empiricist classicists. Regard
ing the former, Reynolds admits to being influenced in his youth by
Richardsons writings. As for the latter, Reynolds Discourses employ rhe-
torical principles that are discussed in Junius De pictura veterum, which,
to Woodfields mind, demonstrates that Reynolds read and embraced De
pictura.8 Such influences thus confirm what is self-evident from discourse
III, namely, that Reynolds is an empiricist.
More recently, Carolyn Korsmeyer has written in favor of Woodfields
analysis.9 Her own work focuses on Richardson and then by extension on
Reynolds. She notes Richardsons anxiety over our lack of access to things
as they are in themselves, an anxiety based on Lockes primary-secondary
qualities distinction, which relegates color to the mind only and thus
leaves the painter to wonder what precisely he is producing.10 In the face
of these epistemic limitations, Richardson sought to establish a normative
standard of aesthetics, which sounds Platonic at times, but the case is not
what it appears. Korsmeyer writes, [Richardsons] reasons for arguing
that the proper subject of painting is the ideal are as easily construed as
stemming from eighteenth-century unease about the problem of relativity
of perception and taste as from any residue of Platonism of earlier times.11
With this assessment in hand, she dismisses the Platonism of Reynolds in
like-manner.12
Despite the efforts of Woodfield and Korsmeyer, not all authors are
inclined to reinterpret Reynolds apparent Platonism as something other
than sympathy for idealism. Yet even these authors identify such sympa-
thy as antithetical to Reynolds empiricist commitments. Leo Damrosch,
for example, speaks of a tension, if not outright contradiction, in Reynolds
between idealism and empiricism. He writes, The Discourses (176990)
of Joshua Reynolds give sustained expression to these contradictions
8Woodfield, Introduction, vii.

9Carolyn Korsmeyer, The Eclipse of Truth in the Rise of Aesthetics, British Journal of
Aesthetics 29.4 (1989), n26; and Carolyn Korsmeyers Making Sense of Taste: Food and
Philosophy (Ithaca: Cornell, 1999), 157n21.
10Korsmeyer, Eclipse, 298299. Cf. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human
Understanding, ed. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), II.viii.815.
11Korsmeyer, Eclipse, 299.
12Korsmeyer, Eclipse, 299; n26. Cf. Olson, Introduction, xvii; and M.H. Abrams, The
Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition (Oxford: OUP, 1971), 45.
[between idealism and empiricism], which are so vexed and entangled as

to deserve the name of antinomies, since incommensurable positions are
felt to be somehow equally true.13 Damrosch resolves the tension in favor
of Lockean empiricism, suggesting that Reynolds uses ideas in an empir-
icist sense and abstraction in a Lockean sensethough he offers no evi-
dence for this suggestion. The divergence from Locke comes only in
Reynolds claim that the artist should idealize nature, removing blemishes
and flaws. Locke, Damrosch notes, would [not] equate particularity
with deformity and abstraction with perfection.14 But aside from this
caveat, we may rightly label Reynolds a Lockean.
In sum, the trajectory of current literature on Reynolds is decidedly
negative in its assessment of his supposed Platonism. The case, in essence,
is that Reynolds plainly points the artist toward experience, not toward
memory, and advises the artist to find the ideal there, not in the heavens.
Though there are idealist/empiricist tensions in Reynolds writings, we
can be confident that these resolve in favor of the latter. All apparent
echoes of Platonism can be dismissed as either an empiricist search for
normativity, following Richardson, or as classicist empiricism, following
Junius. In either case, the results are the same: the Platonic reading of
Reynolds is best abandoned.
The current discussion of Reynolds Platonism suffers from several
intertwined deficiencies. Three stand out that are in need of correction if
we are to arrive at a cogent assessment of Reynolds. The first deficiency is
one of definition. What precisely is meant by Platonism is rarely stated
in literature on Reynolds. We are thus left to grope inductively after how
any given author is using the word.
Speaking inductively, we can say that the current literature on Reynolds
tends to define Platonism as (a) the view that there are archetypal Ideas
in the heavens, or the world of the Forms, and (b) a view that entails the
doctrine of recollection, which means the ideal should be sought within
the memory of the soul, not in the material approximations of Ideas in the
empirical world. For this reason, Reynolds claim in discourse III that the
form is to be sought on earth and not in heaven (contra [a]) and that we
gain an increasingly refined understanding of form by experience (contra
[b]) strike a definitive blow against the Platonic reading of Reynolds.
13Leo Damrosch, Generality and Particularity, in The Cambridge History of Literary

Criticisms, ed. Nisbet and Rawson (Cambridge: CUP, 2005), 4:387.
14Damrosch, Generality and Particularity, 388. This assessment of Reynolds echoes in
Barrell, Political Theory of Painting, 8694.
The second deficiency is that the discussion employs a rigid dichotomy

between extreme realism ( la Plato) and nominalist empiricism ( la
Locke). Thus if Reynolds rejects Platos Forms and doctrine of recollec-
tion, then he must be a Lockean empiricist. The discussion proceeds as if
there is no middle ground between these two extremes.
The third deficiency in the discussion is an extension of the first two. By
presuming a narrow definition of Platonism and an either-Plato-or-Locke
dichotomy, the discussion fails to consider the historical dynamism of
realism generally and of Platonic realism specifically. Aristotles moderate
realism, for example, is presently absent from the conversation about
Reynolds,15 but it is a form of realism (contra Locke) that understands form
to be immanently present in particulars16 (contra Platos Forms)17 and to
be discerned by experience of particulars (contra recollection).18 This is
noteworthy since the revisions of the Neo-Platonists after Plato include
appropriations of Aristotelian insights. Albinus and Proclus both show
affinities for Aristotles categories,19 and the Alexandrian Neo-Platonists
employ an explicitly Aristotelian understanding of individuals.20 This
synthesis of philosophical systems is arguably more prominent in Chris
tian Platonism. For though we may speak of Christian Aristotelians,21
15Three possible exceptions are James Douglas, On the Philosophy of Mind (Edinburgh:
Black, 1839); John Barrell, The Political Theory of Painting from Reynolds to Hazlitt: The body of
the Politic (New Haven: YUP, 1995); and James A.W. Heffernan, Byron and Sculpture, in The
Romantic Imagination, ed. Burwick and Klein (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996). However, the final
assessment of Reynolds by these respective authors is unclear. All three speak of Reynolds
notion of central form. In some instances, the results sound Aristotelian (e.g., Douglas, 142;
and Heffernan, 290); in other instances, the results sound Lockean (e.g., Barell, 8689).
16Aristotle, On the Soul, 412a1414a28; Physics 192b8193b21; 194b2629; Metaphysics,
1013a261013a28; 1017b141017b16; 1017b211017b23; 1028b331029a33.
17Aristotle, Metaphysics, 987a29988a17; 990a34993a27.
18Aristotle, Metaphysics, 980a21983a3; On the Soul, 429a10429a29; 429b22430a25;
431a16431a17; On Memory and Reminiscence, 449b24450a14; 451a15451a25; 453a5453a14.
19Dillon, Middle Platonists, 279; John Dillon, The Great Tradition: Further Studies in the
Development of Platonism and Early Christianity (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997), XVII, 35. See
also C.F. Hermanns edition of Plato (Leipzig, 19211936), 6:159, 35.
20A.C. Lloyd, The Anatomy of Neoplatonism (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990), 94.
21E.g., Leo Elders, The Aristotelian Commentaries of St. Thomas Aquinas, Review of
Metaphysics 63 (2009): 2953; Pierre Conway, Metaphysics of Aquinas: A Summary
of Aquinas Exposition of Aristotles Metaphysics, ed. Spangler (Lanham: University Press of
America, 1996); Edward Mahoney, Aristotle and Some Late Medieval and Renaissance
Philosophers, in The Impact of Aristotelianism on Modern Philosophy, ed. Pozzo
(Washington: CUAP, 2004), 134; Juan Belda-Plans, Cayetano y la Controversia sobre la
Immortalidad del Alma Humana, Scripta Theologica 16.12 (1984): 417422; Joshua
Hochschild, Words, Concepts, and Things: Cajetan on the Subject of Categories,
Dionysius 19 (2001): 159166.
Platonists,22 or Stoics,23 such labels are never fully accurate, since the
various appropriations of these philosophies are never pure. These labels
identify an influence, and perhaps a dominant one, but the Christian
plundering of Athens always involves selective modification. The fact that
these philosophies are merged with Christian theology throughout the
first millennium and a half should suffice to prove the point! Thus, if the
question of a given writers Platonism, be it Reynolds or Gregory of Nyssa,
is taken in the strict sense of following Plato to the letter, then we
can safely conclude that the history of ideas is void of Platonists, save one
perhapsPlato himself.
Now, to be fair, the current discussion regarding Reynolds does not
insist that he follow Plato on all matters, but only on the doctrines of the
Forms and recollection. However, it is not clear that either doctrine is
sacred to Platonic authors.
The view that the Forms have independent existence as substances is
arguably abandoned by the Neo-Platonists who, in answer to the third-
man problem and other Aristotelian objections,24 locate the Ideas in the
intellectual realm of the Nous, which emanates from God, not in a second
world of ideal substances.25 This revised doctrine of Ideas was not only
less controversial, but would also become less distinctively Platonic, as
22E.g., Enrico Peroli, Gregory of Nyssa and the Neoplatonic Doctrine of the Soul,
Vigilae Christianae 51.2 (1997): 117139; Kevin Corrigan, Solitary Mysticism in Plotinus,
Proclus, Gregory of Nyssa, Journal of Religion 76.1 (1996): 2842; Stephen Gersh, The
First Principles of Latin Neoplatonism: Augustine, Macrobius, Boethius, Vivarium 50.2
(2012): 113138; Thomas A. Wassmer, The Trinitarian Theology of Augustine and His Debt
to Plotinus, HThR 53.4 (1960): 261268; Adriana Neacsu, Un Neoplatonisme Chretien
dans le XIIIe Siecle: Bonaventure et ses Disciples, Filosofie 26.2 (2011): 2636; Tenzan,
Place as Exemplarism: The Phenomenology of Place and Bonventures The Souls
Journey into God, International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society 1.2 (2011):
103114.
23E.g., David G. Robertson, Stoic and Aristotelian Notions of Substance in Basil of
Caesarea, Vigilae Christianae 52.4 (1998): 393417; Reinhard M. Hbner, Gregor von Nyssa
als Verfasser der sog. ep. 38 des Basilius. Zum unterschiedlichen Verstndnis der bei
den kappadokischen Brdern, in Epektasis. Mlanges patristiques offerts Jean Danilou,
ed. Fontaine and Kannengiesser (Paris: Beauchesne, 1972), 463490; Stephen M.
Hildebrand, The Trinitarian Theology of Basil of Caesarea: A Synthesis of Greek Thought and
Biblical Truth (Washington: CUAP, 2007), 47ff.
24Aristotle, Metaphysics, 990b15990b17, 1039a21039a3, 1079a131079a15; Sophistical
Refutations 178b36179a4.
25See, e.g., Plotinus, Enneads 3.5; 3.8; 3.12; 6.7.76.7.14; Jerome Schiller, Plotinus and
Greek Rationalism, Apeiron 12 (1978): 3750; Proclus, Elements of Theology 2021, 34, 57,
65; Christos Terezis and Elias Tempelis, Proclus Ontological Arguments Concerning the
Objective Existence of the Forms, Philosophy Study 1.3 (2011): 180188.
both Christian Platonists26 and Christian Aristotelians affirm Ideas in

this sense.27
As for the doctrine of recollection, this too seems a strange litmus test
for Platonism, given that the doctrine presumes the pre-existence of the
soul, a doctrine anathematized by the Christian Church at Constantinople
II (anathema I). For orthodox Christian Platonists (as opposed to the
Origenists, for example), the doctrine was therefore dispensable. Hence,
Christian Platonists, such as Bonaventure, employ an Aristotelian episte-
mology (viz., understanding form by experience of particulars) amid a
Platonic metaphysic.28
In light of the foregoing, the case against Reynolds Platonism fails on
a number of fronts. First, its implicit definition of Platonism employs cri-
teria that are historically problematic, as they fail to recognize the dyna-
mism of Platonism, both Neo- and Christian. Second, even granting this
unduly acute definition of Platonism, the subsequent either-Plato-or-
Locke dichotomy ignores the spectrum of philosophies between these
two extremes. One may well reject Platos Forms and doctrine of recollec-
tion without rejecting realism or even all versions of Neo- or Christian
Platonism. Thus Reynolds claim in discourse III does not establish what
Towbridge, Olson, Adams, et al. claim. It suffices to show that Reynolds
believes that the ideal is to be discerned through experience. However,
this neither establishes that Reynolds is a nominalist, since Aristotle
asserts the same, nor does it establish that Reynolds denies archetypal
Ideas in the mind of God, since Christian Platonists saw no conflict
between Aristotelian epistemology and such archetypes.
Outside of discourse III, the only remaining evidence of Reynolds
empiricism is the respective influences of Richardson and Junius. Regard
ing the former, the case is problematic. It is unclear precisely how signifi-
cant this influence is on Reynolds thought or what the results of this
influence would be. For Korsmeyer admits that Richardson, too, shows
26E.g., Origen, On First Principles 1.2.21.2.3; Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis
5.15.33, 8.26.48; Maximus the Confessor, Ambiguum 7; Bonaventure, Commentaria in
Quatuor Libros Sententiarum I, dist. 35.1, q.1, q.4.
27E.g., Aquinas, ST, Ia.15; De Veritate, q. 3. Given that certain Neo-Platonic works, such
as De Mundo, were attributed to Aristotle (W.L. Lorimer, The Text-Tradition of Pseudo-
Aristotle De Mundo, Together with an Appendix Containing the Text of the Medieval Latin
Version (London: Milford, 1942)), the synthesis of Neo-Platonic and Aristotelian doctrines
was inevitable, even if not always intentional.
28See Andreas Speer, Illumination and Certitude: The Foundation of Knowledge in
Bonaventure, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 85.1 (2011): 127141.
idealist sympathies.29 Simply because Richardsons idealism can be read

as subjective, rather than Platonic, does not demonstrate (i) that the sub-
jective reading is correct, (ii) that Reynolds read Richardson in this way, or
(iii) that, granting (i) and (ii), Reynolds embraced subjective idealism.
As for the influence of Junius, Woodfields case is suspect on two fronts.
First, the case that De pictura influenced Reynolds is thin, since the only
evidence offered by Woodfield is (a) its general prominence in Reynolds
day and (b) Reynolds use of certain rhetorical principles discussed by
Junius.30 Neither establishes a strong tie with Reynolds. Second, granting
Junius influence, the empiricist reading of Junius is questionable. For his
father, Franciscus Junius (15451602), like other Reformed orthodox theo-
logians, employs Aristotelian categories and distinctions, including form,
matter, essence, accident, efficient causality, and the likeall of which
presumes realism.31 And Junius (the younger), also Reformed clergy, can
be read in this same way in his talk of the nature of things, of perfections,
and of the properties of beauty.32
Finally, it is noteworthy that the empiricist reading of Reynolds is
the one that results in tensions, antinomies, and even contradictions, as
Damrosch admits.33 Yet no such tensions are present if we read Reynolds
as one who couples Platonic idealism with Aristotelian epistemology and
substance metaphysics. The empiricist reading can account for much of
what falls to the latter, but not for the former. In this light, the lesson to be
learned from the status quaestionis is that neither the pure Platonist read-
ing nor the pure empiricist reading of Reynolds accounts for the whole of
his claims. Thus the truth is likely between these two extremes.
Platonic sentiment resonates in several features of Reynolds Discourses,
as even anti-Platonic readers are compelled to admit. This fact was also
recognized by those who knew Reynolds. Edmund Burke, who had a deep
love for Reynolds, speaks of his Platonizing tendency, and traces its source
to the influence of Zachariah Mudge: I believe his [i.e., Reynolds]acquain
tance with Mr. Mudge of Exeter, a very learned and thinking man, and
much inclined to philosophize in the spirit of the Platonists disposed
29Korsmeyer, Eclipse, 299.

30Woodfield, Introduction, vii.
31E.g., Franciscus Junius, Praelectiones in Geneseos, in Opera Theologica (Geneva,
1613), 1:5 and 1:18.
32E.g., Franciscus Junius (the younger), The Painting of the Ancients, trans. Junius (the
younger) (London: Hodgkinsonne, 1638), 4, 5, 7, 910.
33Damrosch, Generality and Particularity, 387.
him to this habit.34 I will note three examples of Reynolds Platonic

disposition.
First, Reynolds regularly speaks of perfect beauty (III.44), the idea of
beauty (III.50), and even Ideal beauty (III.41). This Ideal beauty is some-
thing that, according to Reynolds, is before the mind of the artist, and is
something after which the artist strives, but is also something the artist
can never reach (I.8; I.9; III.36). Moreover, Reynolds is clear that the inabil-
ity of the artist to reach this Ideal is not due to an inadequacy on the part
of the artist, but due to the fact that no member of a given species can
encompass this Ideal (III.37). Reynolds even employs a shadow/substance
analogy, identifying the Ideal as the substance and particulars and their
accidents as shadows (I.1213).
Second, Reynolds has a realist understanding of beauty generally. He
speaks of beauty as having properties, such as symmetry and proportion
(III.44). He juxtaposes the genuine habits of Nature from those of fash-
ion, the latter being a human invention (III.44). Moreover, his under-
standing of beauty often has a tacit divine component to it, for he speaks
of the beauty of nature as the eternal invariable idea of Nature (III.47).
One could infer that this idea can be invariable and eternal only if it is
an Idea in the divine mind, and such an inference finds support in
Reynolds claim that Ideal beauty reveals the will and intention of the
Creator (III.42).
Third, Reynolds seems to presume some form of innate ideas. He speaks
of the oddity that art students universally, without being instructed to do
so, replace the model before them with their idea of what the model
ought to be (I.15). Now, Reynolds believes this tendency needs to be cor-
rected.But Reynolds believes this because until the student has learned
exactitudethat is, to accurately represent what is before himhe can-
not accurately represent his idea of beauty (III.15). We will return to this
point momentarily, but for now suffice it to say that Reynolds does not
turn his students toward the empirical because Ideal beauty is empiri-
calit is not (III.37). Rather, he turns them to experience so that they may
learn exactitude and in turn successfully idealize nature (I.1516; III.40).
The case for Reynolds Platonism is not as straightforward as it might
appear on first blush, however. As anti-Platonist readers note, Reynolds
places an emphasis on experience in discourse III.40. How are we to
34Edmund Burke, Letter written to Mr. Malone in 1797, in The Literary Works of Sir
Joshua Reynolds, 3 vols., 5th ed. (London: Cadell and Davies, 1819), 1:xcviii, n.*.
account for this? The foregoing creates serious difficulties for a Lockean
interpretation. More likely is that Reynolds Platonism is closer to the
Neo- or Christian Platonism that merged Plato with Aristotle.
We see these Aristotelian elements in Reynolds discussion of central
form (e.g., III.4142). By the term he means the perfect beauty in any spe-
cies which combine[s] all the characters which are beautiful in that spe-
cies (III.44). Reynolds can give the impression that central form is a
human constructhence the readings of Damrosch and Woodfield.35
The problem with this reading, however, is that it ignores Reynolds dis-
tinction between constructive concepts of beauty, such as fashion, and
the normative beauty of Nature (III.4344). Reynolds insists that the
former is invented, while the latter is eternal [and] invariable (III.47); it
has properties and rules (III.4344); and these properties determine
both beauty (conformity) and deformity (deviation) (III.42). Moreover,
Reynolds is clear that, despite variations between beautiful persons, there
is one general form, whichbelongs to the human kind (III.43), and thus
distinguishes the real form of the species from its accidents (III.45). Such
an account is plainly realist in the Aristotelian sense.
These Platonic and Aristotelian elements are easily reconciled, as such
pairings can be found in Neo- and Christian Platonists before Reynolds
(see above). Reynolds rejects the view of Plato that we should seek Ideal
beauty in recollection, for the artist examines his own mind, and per-
ceives there nothing of that divine inspiration (III.39). The young artist
must look outward (III.40). Reynolds insists that it is from observing a
great many models that one discerns the central form of a species (I.1516;
II.20; II. 3135; III.4345). Yet Reynolds is no empiricist. Quite the contrary,
the goal of such observation is to discern the difference between essential
and accidental properties. The danger Reynolds sees in using only a few
models is that a select group of models may share certain accidents, which
may cause one to idealize an imperfection, or mistake deformity for
beauty (I.16). Thus it is only after an artist has completed his thorough
investigation of the central form that he is equipped to remove blemishes
and deformities and idealize his subjects (I.1516; III.4344).
In short, the mingling of Plato and Aristotle we find in Reynolds is this:
He affirms a broadly Platonic view of beauty that is ideal, eternal, invari-
able, and within the mind of God. Yet, his view of substance and episte-
mology is broadly Aristotelian. Every species bears a central form that is
35Damrosch, Generality and Particularity, 388; and Woodfield, Introduction, vii.

the measure of its beauty and deformity. Each member of a species bears
both essential and accidental properties, and it is only by experience that
we come to understand what belongs to the central form and what is
accidental.
This metaphysic informs Reynolds understanding of the education of
artistsboth its stages and aims. He identifies three stages through which
the artist moves. The first stage involves learning the basic rudiments of the
disciplinecolor, composition, and so on (II.1718). This is the stage at
which the student learns exactitude (II.18), copying what is before him (I.15).
Once the student has learned to express himself with some degree of
correctness (II.18), he moves to the second stage in which he must then
endeavor to collect subjects for expression (II.18). This is the stage in
which the student learns to discern the central form by studying a great
many models (II.20; II.23; II.3135). Notice that Reynolds believes that the
task of the artists investigation is the same as the philosopher: He will
permit the lower painter to exhibit the minute discriminations, which
distinguish one object of the same species from another; while he, like the
philosopher, will consider Nature in the abstract, and represent in every
one of his figures the character of its species (II.48).
The third and final stage emancipates the Student from subjection to
any authority, but what he shall himself judge to be supported by reason
(II.1819). The emphasis on reason is significant. For the task of the artist
has been to focus not on shadows but on substance. Unlike the novice
who must be pointed toward experience to learn exactitude, the artist
now understands Ideal beauty and the properties to which modes of
beauty owe their origin (II.19). He has discerned the difference between
the essential and accidental. And by applying reason to his craft, he is able
to both reproduce and idealize that which is before him.
We have seen that the case against Reynolds Platonism is thin, employ-
ing a historically untenable definition of Platonism and a false dichotomy
of either Plato or Locke. By reexamining Reynolds in light of a more
dynamic and historically defensible understanding of Platonism, and by
keeping before us the spectrum of realist philosophies between Plato and
Locke, we see that Reynolds views are not only realist in orientation, but
echo the types of claims found among Neo- and Christian Platonists who
wed Platonic idealism with Aristotelian substance metaphysics and epis-
temology. Moreover, we have seen that this metaphysic plays a crucial
role in Reynolds talk of beauty, his notion of central form, his understand-
ing of the aim of artistic observation, and ultimately of the transition of
the artist from student to master.
THE BRISTOL ACADEMY AND THE EDUCATION OF MINISTERS IN
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND (17581791)
Jeongmo Yoo
Introduction
The Bristol Academy was the first theological institution for the education
of Particular Baptist ministers. Since its establishment in the late seven-
teenth century, the Bristol Academy played an important role in the
growth of the Particular Baptists by producing a number of great
ministers, and it was soon widely recognized as a preeminent place
of theological study by the leaders of the denomination throughout
England.1 In fact, the education of ministers at the Bristol Academy later
became a key factor in the tremendous growth the Baptists experienced
in the nineteenth century.2 Certainly, the foundation of the Bristol
Academy is a highly significant event in the history of the Baptist churches.
In spite of this central role in the growth of the Particular Baptist
churches, however, modern scholarship has not paid proper attention to
the Baptist Academy at Bristol. That is, Baptists theological education in
the Bristol Academy has gained less attention by modern scholars than
other issues or events in Baptist history. Consequently, this lack of interest
has created a gap in the understanding of how the education of Baptist
ministers developed in the post-Reformation era.3 In particular, the neglect
1Olin C. Robison, The Particular Baptists in England, 17601820 (DPhil diss., Oxford
University, 1963), 184; Stephen Albert Swaine, Faithful Men; or, Memorials of Bristol Baptist
College, and Some of Its Most Distinguished Alumni (London: Alexander & Shepheard,
1884), 70; An Account of the Bristol Education Society: Begun Anno 1770 (Bristol, 1776), 11
[hereafter Account]; Norman S. Moon, Education for Ministry. Bristol Baptist College, 1679
1979 (Bristol: Bristol Baptist College, 1979), 9.
2Michael A.G. Haykin, John Ryland, Jr. (17531825) and Theological Education, NAKG
70 (1990): 191. See also, Robison, Particular Baptists, 184.
3Some works on the history of the Dissenting Academies deal with Bristol Academy.
For instance, H. McLachlan, English Education under the Test Acts (Manchester: University
of Manchester, 1931), 91101; Alan P.F. Sell, Philosophy, Dissent and Nonconformity
(Cambridge: James Clarke, 2004), passim. However, they tend just to provide a brief sketch
of the history of the institution without any substantial analysis of the idea of Particular
Baptist theological education. In the present day, however, we encounter increasing
discussions on the topic: Henry Foreman, The Early Separatists, the Baptists, and
Education, 15801780: with special reference of the clergy, (Ph.D. diss., University of Leeds,
750 jeongmo yoo
of the Baptist academy at Bristol led not only to the ignorance of the
Baptists theological education in the late seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
turies but also to the common misunderstanding that Eighteenth century
Particular Baptist are obscurantist, ill-educated hyper-Calvinists.4
This study will deal with the theological education of Particular Baptists
in the eighteenth century, with a particular focus on the Bristol Academy
under the leadership of Hugh Evans (17121781) and Caleb Evans (1731
1791) in order to illustrate the way Particular Baptists approached theo-
logical education during that era.5 The Bristol Academy during the
presidencies of Hugh and Caleb Evans (17581781 and 17811791, respec-
tively) is one of the ideal places to study the development of Baptists
ideas of theological education because significant writings concerning
theological education were produced6 and the Bristol Academy experi-
enced a huge growth while these two men served as both tutors and presi-
dents for several decades in the eighteenth century.7
The main purpose of this study is first to contribute to an understand-
ing of Baptists view and practice of theological education and, second, to
offer an evaluation regarding the validity of previous scholarship pertain-
ing to the issue.8 In pursuing these goals, this study will particularly show
1976); Roger Hayden, Evangelical Calvinism among Eighteenth-Century British Baptists:

with particular reference to Bernard Foskett, Hugh and Caleb Evans and the Bristol Baptist
Academy, 16901791 (PhD diss., University of Keele, 1991), published as Continuity and
Change: Evangelical Calvinism among eighteenth-century Baptist ministers trained at Bristol
Academy, 16901791 (Milton under Wychwood: Nigel Lynn, 2006); Haykin, John Ryland;
Moon, Education. Even though we find such positive recent scholarly works that try to fill
this gap, they are still not great enough contributions considering the broader scope and
spectrum of the development of the Bristol Academy in seventeenth- and eighteenth-
century Baptist history.
4Hayden, Evangelical Calvinism, iv. For example, Peter Toon states that as the eigh-
teenth century passed by, High Calvinism became in the main the faith of the poorly edu-
cated Independents and Baptists. Toon, The Emergence of Hyper-Calvinism in English
Nonconformity (London: The Olive Tree, 1967), 146. This general assessment is shared by
Henry W. Clark, History of English Nonconformity (London: Chapman and Hall, 1913),
2:250251, and also by Duncan Coomer, English dissent under the early Hanoverians
(London: Epworth, 1946), 2325.
5For the detailed information of Hugh and Caleb Evans life and ministry at the Bristol
Academy, see Swaine, Faithful Men, 70177, passim; Moon, Education, 1026; Moon, Caleb
Evans, Founder of The Bristol Education Society, The Baptist Quarterly, 24 (19711972):
175190; John Rippon, A Brief Essay towards an History of the Baptist Academy at Bristol
(London: Dilly and Button, 1796), 2931, 4147.
6For example, each year, from 1773 onwards, a sermon was preached at the annual
meeting of the Bristol Education Society by a minister elected by the Society. The sermons
were later published, and they often discussed highly provocative and important issues of
theological education.
7Concerning this, see Moon, Education, 1026; Foreman, Early Separatists, 265288.
8This study focuses only on theological education. Thus, secular education is beyond
the scope of this study. Also, this study will not attempt to do any comparison between
the bristol academy in 18th century england 751
three things in detail. First, in spite of the persisting suspicion of ministe-

rial education among many Baptists in the eighteenth century, the Bristol
Academy was convinced of the necessity of formal theological education
for the preparation of ministers. Second, even though it stressed the
academic learning for the ministerial candidates, the Baptist Academy
at Bristol regarded the cultivation of Christian piety as the students
first and leading priority. Third, the Bristol Academys evangelistic prac-
tice and fervor indicates that the criticism of the eighteenth century
Particular Baptists as poorly educated Hyper-Calvinists cannot be war-
ranted at all.
The Bristol Academy and the View of the

Education of Ministers
In seventeenth-century England, Particular Baptists were by and large

opposed to the theological education of ministers. Advocating for the suf-
ficiency of the Holy Spirits teaching and ministerial gifts, they regarded
human learning in the ministry as fundamentally dishonoring to the Holy
Spirit. Nevertheless, the following years after the Restoration witnessed a
gradually increasing interest in the need for well-educated ministers
among Particular Baptists.9 As a result, the first Baptist academy had been
founded at Bristol by the late seventeenth century and its fame as a theo-
logical institute rapidly spread among the Particular Baptists in England.
Notwithstanding the foundation and development of the Bristol Academy,
however, the eighteenth-century British Particular Baptists were still
divided as to the question of the place of human learning in the prepara-
tion for pastoral ministry.10 A number of Baptists still insisted on the com-
plete sufficiency of the Holy Spirit to the exclusion of intellectual effort in
ministerial education.11
Against this hostile attitude toward human learning, the Bristol
Academy strongly advocated for the necessity of an educated ministry.
This is most evidently found in Hugh Evans sermon, The Able Minister,
which was preached before the Bristol Education Society in 1773.12 In this
sermon, Evans presents five arguments for the defense of human learning
the Bristol Academy and other academies, which cannot be dealt with in such a limited
space.
9Foreman, Early Separatists, 252.
12Hugh Evans, The Able Minister (Bristol: W. Pine, 1773). Hereafter AM.
752 jeongmo yoo
in ministerial education. First, he claims that in the present age, the Holy
Spirit equips men for ministry through the ordinary educational means of
acquiring knowledge. The supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit were tem-
porarily given in the Apostolic Age, and the days of inspiration have now
ceased.13 Thus, Evans claims, If a man therefore would be wise and know-
ing, he must read and study.14 Second, he argues that the nature and
extent of the work of the minister requires human learning in ministerial
preparation. That is, since the Bible embraces all kinds of knowledge
including not only theological or religious but also natural, historical,
moral, civil knowledge and the like, the minister cannot understand the
truths of Scripture and deliver them to others without a considerable
extent of knowledge and learning.15 Third, Evans insists that the works of
wise and good men to establish the educational institutions throughout
human history clearly indicates the need for the education of ministerial
candidates. In particular, he uses biblical examples such as the schools of
the prophets and the story of Jesus in the temple as a boy, meeting teach-
ers, in defense of his argument. Fourth, Evans asserts the importance of
human learning based on the beneficial outcomes of academic study
when sanctified in Gods service. For example, he states that had it
not been for human learning, the existence of the English Bible and other
valuable works such as learned commentaries and apologies for
Christianity would never have come into being.16 Fifth, Evans claims that
while some men had been good ministers without the advantages of
human learning, those men confessed that had they possessed more
knowledge, they would have been much better ministers. Thus, the
acknowledgements of those men who had not had such learning show the
significance of human learning for the preparation of ministers.17
These arguments are also commonly found in the works of Caleb Evans
and the alumni of the Bristol Academy such as John Ash (17241779).18 As
with Hugh Evans, who advocates that God uses human learning as a
means of ministerial training, they all firmly argue for the significance of
formal theological education for ministerial preparation. Caleb Evans
13AM, 10. Cf. Caleb Evans, The Kingdom of God (Bristol: W. Pine, 1775), 22.
14AM, 10.
15AM, 1315. Cf. Robert Robinson, The Kingdom of Christ Not of This World (Bristol:
W. Pine, 1781), 9; 14; Evans, Kingdom, 2223.
16AM, 1518.
17AM, 2123.
18For example, see John Ash, The Perfecting of the Saints for the Work of the Ministry
(Bristol: W. Pine, 1778).
underscores the necessity of continuing study even after leaving the acad-
emy and starting the ministry.19 Nevertheless, in spite of its conviction
regarding the Holy Spirits use of academic learning, the Bristol Academy
did not consider formal academic education as an absolutely necessary
prerequisite for pastoral ministry. For instance, admitting that there were
those who had been destitute of the advantages of learning, but had been
very able, laborious and successful ministers of the gospel, Hugh and
Caleb Evans assert that academic training could not be made an absolute
requirement for ministry.20 Instead, they argue that in preparing men for
the Christian ministry, the starting point must be the regeneration of the
candidates,21 and the endowment of divine and supernatural gifts is abso-
lutely necessary to being a good minister.22 Thus, they state, If a man be
not truly religious, and furnished with talents or spiritual gifts adapted to
the work of the ministry, let him have as much learning as he will, he will
never be an acceptable and truly spiritual, evangelical minister.23
Moreover, the Bristol Academy acknowledged that the provision of
ministers for churches is primarily and ultimately Gods work, not human
work. Namely, formal education alone would not make ministers after the
New Testament pattern,24 but It is God, and he alone, who makes men
able ministers of the new testament [sic].25 In this regard, Evans clearly
states that human learning at the Bristol Academy is only an instrument
that God uses for the purpose of training ministers:
Nor is it, I would further observe, the design of this institution, to be a sup-
plement to the spirit of Gods teachings, as though he was not sufficient to
qualify me for the ministry, without the assistance of his creatures. We know
he is. But we also know he usually works by means, and such means as are
suited to the end, and that we may hope therefore to be made use of, as
instruments in his hand, to promote and carry on his great and important
designs.26
In sum, the Bristol Academy highly appreciated the value of formal theo-
logical education and viewed it as an avenue by which the Holy Spirit
19Caleb Evans, A Charge and Sermon; delivered at the ordination of Rev. Thomas
Dunscombe (Bristol: W. Pine, 1773), 5.
20Account, vii.
21Evans, AM, 26, 4142; Account, iv. Cf. John Ryland, The Wise Student and Christian
Preacher (Bristol: W. Pine, 1780), 78.
22Evans, AM, 25; Account, iv.
23Account, iv.
24Account, iv.
25Evans, AM, 36.
26AM, 42.
754 jeongmo yoo
could prepare ministerial candidates. However, it willingly conceded that

formal theological training might not be the route for every potential min-
ister. Also, the academy was forthright in its belief that mere academic
learning without the reliance on the Holy Spirit was of no use in produc-
ing an able minister of the New Testament. Consequently, the Bristol
Academy opted for neither the complete ignorance of the formal theologi-
cal education nor the blind idolization of it in ministerial preparation.
Instead, the Bristol Academy highly appreciated the role of academic
learning; on the other hand, however, it did not elevate human learning to
the extent that it would be considered as the absolutely necessary and suf-
ficient condition to produce an able minister.
The Curriculum and the Direction of

Study at the Bristol Academy
In order to understand the nature of ministerial education at the Bristol

Academy, we now need to turn to examine closely the curriculum of the
academy at the time of Hugh and Caleb Evans. The eighteenth century
was a time of great intellectual ferment, and significant development
had been made in the study of subjects such as science, astronomy, medi-
cine, and geography.27 A great advance in knowledge, consequently, led to
the significant expansion of the horizons of the human mind in this era.28
The Baptist Academy at Bristol also saw these intellectual changes and
could not afford to ignore the benefit of studying those subjects.29 Thus,
for example, in a statement issued by Hugh and Caleb Evans at the time of
the founding of the Bristol Education Society in 1770, they noted, The
importance of a liberal education, more especially to candidates for the
Christian ministry, is so exceedingly obvious, that one might almost think
it impossible that any considerate, intelligent person should not be con-
vinced of it.30 Regarding this, Caleb Evans more specifically comments as
follows:
There is scarcely any branch of knowledge but may be useful to a minister:
whatever hath a tendency to enlarge our ideas of the divine perfections, to
give use a clearer view of the meaning of Scripture and the evidence of its
authenticity, or to enable us to speak and write our thoughts with propriety,
27Haykin, John Ryland, 173.

28Moon, Caleb Evans, 83.
29Moon, Education, 14.
30Account, iii.
perspicuity, and energy, is certainly well worth the attention of every candi-
date for the ministry.31
Here, Evans does not limit the scope of ministerial education to branches
of Divinity. Instead, he clearly argues that the whole scope of knowledge
could be profitable for the servant of the Lord.32 Hence, it is not surprising
to see that the curriculum of the Bristol Academy in the eighteenth cen-
tury embraced the various fields of the academic disciplines of the day.
For example, the courses commended by The Account of the Bristol
Education Society include, along with Systematic Divinity, English, Greek
and Hebrew, Logic, Geography, Astronomy and Natural Philosophy in
general; Moral Philosophy, the Evidence of Christianity, Jewish Antiquities,
Chronology, and Ecclesiastical History.33 The Account particularly elabo-
rates the reasons for studying these areas. First, linguistic study such as
English grammar and other learned languages enables the students to
examine Scriptural passages in the original languages. Second, logic helps
them express their ideas and thoughts clearly. Third, Oratory makes it
possible for the students to express their ideas in the most suitable lan-
guage, and to deliver them in the most striking and acceptable manner.
Fourth, divinity students should study Geography, Astronomy, and
Natural Philosophy in general in order to enlarge and elevate their con-
ceptions of the works of God, and His great and glorious perfections.
Finally, the rest of subjects such as Moral Philosophy and Chronology
enable the students to improve their faith and morals, and to teach others
by doctrine and example.34 How this plan of the Bristol Education
Society worked out in practice can be seen in detail from the letters of
John Sutcliff of Olney (17521814) and Joseph Kinghorn of Norwich (1766
1832), who studied at the Bristol Academy under the guidance of Hugh
and Caleb Evans.35 Clearly, The Account of the Bristol Education Society
and the letters of the students show that the education which was pro-
vided at the Bristol Academy was not just narrowly theological. Rather, as
long as they were considered to be helpful to equip candidates for the
31Caleb Evans, Advice to Students Having in view Christian Ministry addressed to them at
the Academy in Bristol (Bristol, 1770), 4.
32Cf. Sell, Philosophy, Dissent and Nonconformity, 1012.
33The original version of The Account that was available to me does not include a sec-
tion on the curriculum. However, the version which is included in Faithful Men contains
the part. Swaine, Faithful Men, 7879.
34Swaine, Faithful Men, 7879.
35Michael Haykin, One Heart and One Soul: John Sutcliff of Oliney, his friends and his
times (Durham: Evangelical Press, 1994), 5355; Martin H. Wilkin, Joseph Kinghorn, of
Norwich (London: Arthur Hall, 1855), 7172.
756 jeongmo yoo
service of the gospel, any branch of human knowledge was taken as the
sources of education.36
Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the Scriptures and theology still
formed the core of the students studies at the Bristol Academy.37
Especially, for the study of the Scriptures, the academy put a considerable
emphasis on language study. For instance, placing the ability to read the
Scriptures in the original Hebrew and Greek at the head of this list of the
academys training goals, the Evanses reason as follows:
if he is taught to read the Scriptures in the languages in which they were
written, that he may be able the better to enter into the genuine spirit and
meaning of the sacred writers, and judge for himself of the propriety and
force of any Scripture criticisms.38
Moreover, Evans maintains that this ability enables the students to avoid
the problem of reading the Scriptures through the medium of fallible and
varying translations.39 As shown in the Evanses statements, the Baptist
academy at Bristol clearly recognized the benefits of the knowledge of the
languages in which the Scriptures were originally written and, not surpris-
ingly, linguistic work comprised a significant part of students studies.40
Two clear examples of this are found in Joseph Kinghorns letter to his
parents (1784) and the list of books which John Sutcliff studied and trans-
lated as a student at Bristol. A close look at these sources reveals that the
student at Bristol spent a significant extent of time studying classical
and ecclesiastical Latin and classical and New Testament Greek as well
as Hebrew.
When all is considered, the Bristol Academy appears to expect high
academic standards and achievements from its students, and thus the
daily life of the student at Bristol in this period seems to have been full.
Specifically how the students lived their daily lives at the academy is seen
from the diaries and letters of the students. The information gained from
such resources indicates that the students undertook an enormous
36The curriculum at the period of Hugh and Caleb Evans is basically similar to the cur-
riculum of Bernard Foskett (16851758) in the early eighteenth century. John Collett
Rylands (17231792) diary provides detailed information on the curriculum studied at
Bristol and the daily life of a student during the 1740s under Foskett. John Collett Ryland,
A Students Programme in 1774, The Baptist Quarterly 2 (19241925): 249252; H. Wheeler
Robinson, A Baptist Student-John Collett Ryland, The Baptist Quarterly 3 (19261927):
2533.
37Cf. Haykin, John Ryland, 187188.
38Account, vi. Cf. Evans, AM, 12.
39AM, 12.
40Haykin, One Heart, 5354; Wilkin, Joseph Kinghorn, of Norwich, 7172.
amount of studying, reading, and writing.41 In particular, Caleb Evans fol-

lowing advice to the student would imply the busy schedule of the student
at Bristol: Think of the worth of time-take [sic] note of the things most
apt to rob you of your time Never allow yourselves more than six hours
sleep.42
Finally, concerning the nature of education at the Bristol Academy, it
needs to be mentioned that even though the curriculum of the Academy
had been broadened to include a wide range of subjects, their theology
faithfully continued to be Calvinistic. This is easily observed in the writ-
ings of individual students and faculty involved in the Bristol Academy
and the Bristol Education Society. Furthermore, what the students were
expected to study and read at the academy particularly indicates the
Calvinistic features of the education at Bristol. For instance, around the
time when Sutcliff studied at Bristol, the academy used John Gills A Body
of Doctrinal Divinity (1769) as the main textbook in dogmatic theology.43
As another example, according to Kinghorns letter, students were sup-
posed to read a part of Matthew Henrys Exposition of the Old and New
Testaments (17081710) for the daily prayer meeting in the library.44 From
these cases, the residing influence of Reformed orthodox theology on the
Bristol Academy is clearly displayed. Interestingly enough, however, since
the late eighteenth century, the Bristol Academy came across the writings
of the American theologian, Jonathan Edwards (17031758), and some of
these writings, especially The Freedom of the Will (1754), began to influ-
ence the associates of the Bristol Academy such as Caleb Evans.45 Thus,
for example, in A Catalogue of a few useful Books (1773), Caleb Evans highly
recommends Edwards The Freedom of the Will, Original Sin (1758),
Religious Affections (1746), and The Nature of True Virtue (1765).46 This may
41Wilkin, Joseph Kinghorn, of Norwich, 7172. Cf. John Corrett Rylands diary in
A Students Programme in 1774.
42Evans, Advice, 6.
43Haykin, One Heart, 55. Regarding the evaluation of Gill as a Reformed orthodox theo-
logian, see Richard A. Muller, John Gill and the Reformed Tradition: A Study in the
Reception of Protestant Orthodoxy in the Eighteenth Century, in The Life and Thought of
John Gill (16971771): A Tercentennial Appreciation, ed. Michael A.G. Haykin (Leiden: Brill,
1997), 5168.
44Wilkin, Joseph Kinghorn, of Norwich, 71.
45Concerning this, see E.A. Payne, The Evangelical Revival and the Beginning of the
Modem Missionary Movement, Congregational Quarterly 21 (1943): 223236; Robison,
Particular Baptists, 162170; Michael Watts, The Dissenters (Oxford: Clarendon, 1978),
456461; Hayden, Evangelical Calvinism, 218221.
46The Baptist Annual Register (London, 17911793), 1:253256. Concerning the devia-
tion of Edwards theology from Reformed orthodoxy, see Richard A. Muller, Jonathan
758 jeongmo yoo
imply the Edwardsean influence on the theological education of the stu-

dents at Bristol. Nevertheless, there is no specific evidence that Edwards
theology itself was taught in class at the time of Caleb Evans principal-
ship. Moreover, despite this recommendation of Edwards writings, in
A Catalogue Evans still strongly recommends many Reformed orthodox
theologians works such as those of John Gill, and used them as textbooks
in theology.47 Consequently, to what extent Jonathan Edwards influenced
Bristol education in the late eighteenth century may be open to further
debate.
Integration of Academic Learning and

Piety at the Bristol Academy
The Bristol Academy, as examined in the previous sections of this study,

emphasized the academic preparation for ministry, and reflecting this
aim, the curriculum of the Bristol Academy was highly academic. However,
it was always suspicious of theological training for its own sake.
Recognizing the possibility that such studies could have a merely aca-
demic quality, the Bristol Academy always aimed the goal of education at
meeting the need of the local church by providing a well-informed and
well-trained minister for the service of the gospel. Evans outlined this
basic goal of studying at Bristol in a sermon which he preached before the
Bristol Education Society:
The intention of this society is to improve the minds of those pious persons
who are recommended by the churches to its patronage, by proper cultiva-
tion, reading, study and conversation. To instruct them into the knowledge
of the language in which the scriptures were written, to give them a just view
of language in general, and of their own in particular, to teach them to
express themselves with propriety upon whatever subject they discourse of,
and to lead them into an acquaintance with those several branches of litera-
ture in general, which may be serviceable to them, with the blessing of God,
in the exercise of their ministry. In a word, the design of this institution is to
contribute what we can, towards the church and worlds having able minis-
ters of the new testament.48
Edwards and the Absence of Free Choice: A Parting of Ways in the Reformed Tradition,
Jonathan Edwards Studies 1.1 (2011): 122.
47For example, highly recommending John Gills The Cause of God and Truth (1735
1738) and his nine-volume Expositions of the Old and New Testaments (17461766), he states
that Gill is touchstone of orthodoxy, with many. The Baptist Annual Register, 1:254.
48AM, 43.
The Evanses elsewhere also state as follows:

To accomplish this design, it is proposed to assist pious young men of prom-
ising abilities for the ministry, in such a course of preparatory study as may
enable them with the blessing of God, to exercise their ministerial talents
with general acceptance and usefulness. The principal design of this soci-
ety is to supply destitute congregations, if it pleases God to succeed the insti-
tution, with a succession of able and evangelical ministers.49
As these statements show, the primary goal of the academy was not to
produce an academic scholar but to supply the Particular Baptist churches
with able and evangelical ministers.50 In particular, faculty and alumni
involved in the Bristol Academy and the Bristol Education Society were
commonly aware that the cultivation of Christian piety is essential and
fundamental to achieve this purpose. Namely, they were convinced that
mere academic study alone never produces such an able and evangelical
minister. For example, in his Advice to Students, Caleb Evans candidly
asserts at the very beginning of the address that in order to become a
good and useful Preacher, the student most of all should learn to be a
zealous lover of Christ.51 As a means of pursuing this goal, Evans advises
the student to exercise reading the word of God with other practical and
experimental writings, meditation, self-examination and prayer. He fur-
ther specifically recommends that One hour at least will be devoted every
morning and evening to these exercises. Indeed, Evans believed that
while academic learning is essential, it alone will not make an able evan-
gelical minister unless it is coupled with a spiritual vitality which is the
outcome of ones own walk with God. Thus, in his thought, the cultivation
of vital piety should be the students first and leading priority.52
A similar idea is found in John Ashs sermon delivered at the Bristol
Education Society in 1778. Here, he urges the students of the academy to
make a diligent and fervent effort to develop their ministerial talents and
abilities, and Ash claims that they are improved in general, by devotion
and study.53 Thus, he advises the students to engage not only in study but
also in extended times of private devotion, self-examination, meditation
and reading.54 However, Ash firmly argues that the exercises of devotion
49Account, 9. Cf. John Tommas, Serious Advice to Students and Young Ministers (Bristol:
W. Pine, 1774), 45.
50Account, 9.
51Evans, Advice, 1.
52Evans, Advice, 2.
53Ash, Perfecting, 16.
54Ash, Perfecting, 14. Cf. Samuel Stennett, The Utility of Learning to A Christian Minister
(Bristol: W. Pine, 1783), 16.
760 jeongmo yoo
should always take the lead.55 That is, if there were a conflict between
spending time in the spiritual exercises and studying academic disci-
plines, the latter should take second place.
In a similar vein to Evans and Ash, in a sermon which he preached to
the students in 1770, John Ryland Jr. (17531825) also forthrightly declared
the indispensability of prayer in theological study:
My dear young students, nothing can be done without prayer; no vital reli-
gion in the soul can prosper without prayer, no studies in divinity can flour-
ish without prayer. Not even the study and attainment of human sciences
can be happily prosecuted without prayer. Dr. Doddridge used frequently to
observe, that he never advanced well in human learning without prayer, and
that he always made the most proficiency in his studies when he prayed
with the greatest frequency and fervour. Depend upon it, my friends, there
never was, there never will be, a useful and honourable minister of the gos-
pel without constant fervent prayer.56
In this way, faculty, students, and alumni involved in the Bristol Academy
and the Bristol Education Society shared a common belief that piety is
ultimately of more fundamental and essential import in ministerial prepa-
ration than academic learning. Alongside the formal study, consequently,
there was a considerable emphasis placed on the inculcation of Christian
spirituality at Bristol. For example, the family prayer meetings which
took place regularly in the morning in advance of daily academic study
indicate that the Bristol Academy was more than a place where intellec-
tual knowledge and ministerial skills were imparted.57 Rather, it shows
that the Bristol Academy was also a place of piety where personal piety
was cultivated and where the students experienced spiritual growth.
Surely, despite its strong belief in the need for academic preparation for
ministry, the Bristol Academy did not lapse into the cold intellectualism
of the eighteenth century.
Evangelistic Fervor at the Bristol Academy
Along with making personal devotion a priority for ministerial candidates,

there was also a significant emphasis at Bristol on practice in preaching
and itinerant evangelism.58 In fact, the curriculum of the Bristol Academy
55Ash, Perfecting, 14.

56John Ryland Jr., The Wise Student and Christian Preacher (Bristol: W. Pine, 1780), 12.
57Wilkin, Joseph Kinghorn, of Norwich, 7172.
58Deryck W. Lovegrove, Established Church, Sectarian People: Itinerancy and the Trans
formation of English Dissent, 17801830 (Cambridge: CUP, 1988), 6869, 7879.
makes no mention of courses such as homiletics and evangelism. Thus, at

first glance, one might misunderstand that there was little interest in
training men for pastoral ministry. However, it would be a gross mistake
to consider this as a proof that those practical subjects were not a prime
concern of the academy. Indirect sources such as biographies and con-
temporary periodicals convincingly demonstrate that students at Baptist
academies during the Evanses time actively engaged in practical work
and training, especially in preaching and itinerant evangelism.59
Regarding this, the Bristol Academys involvement in evangelism
deserves a particular attention. In general, following the classic Reformed
tradition, the academy taught the sovereignty of divine grace in human
salvation. However, unlike the Hyper-Calvinists of the day, the outlook of
the academys ministerial education was genuinely evangelistic. Notably,
the Evanses had successfully maintained their Calvinistic theology with
an evangelistic zeal. Thus, for example, concerning the aim of the Bristol
Academy, Caleb Evans states that The education of pious candidates for
the ministry is the first object of the Institution, the encouragement of
missionaries to preach the Gospel wherever providence open a dooris
the next.60 As this statement makes clear, a significant part of the declared
objective of the academy was to encourage evangelistic work in the
churches, especially in areas where there was no means of supporting a
full-time ministry.61 Thus, it is not difficult to assume that even if no
separate course such as evangelism was offered at Bristol during that time,
the Evanses and other faculty presumably advised and challenged each
incoming class of students with the task of evangelism and this would
have provided a powerful incentive to evangelism for the students.
Consequently, armed with such evangelistic motivation, the students
of divinity at Bristol actively promoted itinerant evangelism.62 One such
clear example is an itinerant mission to Cornwall undertaken in 1773.
A number of students such as John Geard (1749-l838), supported finan-
cially by the Bristol Education Society, spent a good deal of the summer of
1773 preaching the gospel throughout Cornwall.63 Similarly, the Bristol
59Lovegrove, Established Church, 6687; idem, Particular Baptist Itinerant Preachers

during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, The Baptist Quarterly 28 (19791980):
130132.
60Evans, Kingdom, 21, 24.
62Lovegrove, Established Church, 79.
63Haykin, One Heart, 57. Cf. As long as its finances permitted, the Bristol Education
Society maintained a budget for mission and evangelism since 1773. Account, 10. For the
specific cases, see Hayden, Evangelical Calvinism, 223.
762 jeongmo yoo
students itinerant evangelism to North Wales under the guidance of

Thomas Llewelyn in 1776 also exemplifies the evangelistic effort of the
Bristol Academy.64 Certainly, as evidenced in several Bristol alumni like
Benjamin Francis, John Ash, and John Sutcliff, such training and experi-
ence helped the students maintain evangelistic zeal and effort in their
lives and ministries even after leaving the academy.65
Later, the Bristol Academys evangelistic fervor was in full bloom when
the Baptist Missionary Society was founded in 1792. Among the thirteen
who met at Kettering in 1792 to found the society, four men were ministers
who were educated at the Bristol Academy: John Sutcliff, Samuel Pearce,
Thomas Blundel, and William Staughton.66 This implies that the Baptist
Academy at Bristol played a significant role in the development of the
overseas mission efforts of the Particular Baptists in the following years.
When everything is considered, finally, the previous assessment of
the eighteenth-century Particular Baptists as poorly educated Hyper-
Calvinists cannot be warranted at all. As already fully examined, the
Bristol Academy provided a high quality of theological education.
Moreover, standing firmly in continuity with the classic Reformed tradi-
tion, especially in the matter of human salvation, it continued to encour-
age the evangelistic zeal and efforts of the students. Thus, the Bristol
Academy should be distinguished from the Hyper-Calvinist view which
blunted the cutting edge of evangelism.67
Concluding Remarks
The examination of ministerial education at the Bristol Academy at the

time of Hugh and Caleb Evans and the analysis of the writings of faculty
and students of the academy during the era permit some conclusions
concerning the Particular Baptists view of theological education in
eighteenth-century England. First, even though the Particular Baptists
were still divided on the matter of ministerial education, the Baptist
Academy at Bristol firmly maintained its belief in the need for academic
64Thomas M. Bassett, The Welsh Baptists (Swansea: Ilston House, 1977), 100106.
67Since it is beyond the scope of this project, this study does not attempt to do any
doctrinal comparison between Hyper-Calvinism and the Bristol Academy. Nevertheless, in
general, the doctrinal analysis of the writings of the Bristol Academys faculty and students
also show that the academy during the time of Hugh and Caleb Evans had nothing to do
with Hyper-Calvinistic ideas of the era.
preparation for pastoral ministry. Second, in spite of its strong emphasis

on academic study, it viewed the inculcation of a vital spirituality as the
more significant and fundamental element for the preparation for minis-
try. Third, the ministerial education at Bristol was intimately allied with
evangelistic efforts such as itinerant evangelism.
Finally, given the chief conclusions of this study, the Bristol Academys
significance in the history of Baptists is twofold. First, the Bristol Acad
emy maintained a balance of three elements in ministerial education:
academic excellence, cultivation of piety, and evangelistic practice.
Consequently, the combination of all these characteristics in theological
education made it possible for the academy to produce excellent minis-
ters and preachers who played a significant role in the remarkable growth
of the denomination in later years. In this regard, the Bristol Academy cer-
tainly made a significant contribution to the stabilization and develop-
ment of the Particular Baptists denomination in the following centuries.68
Second, even in an era when Christianity tended to move towards theo-
logical extremes, the Bristol Academy by and large retained a commit-
ment to classic Reformed theology without losing a passion for evangelism.
Thus, previous scholarships overgeneralization of the eighteenth-century
Particular Baptists as uneducated Hyper-Calvinists cannot be validated
at all.
68Cf. James Hinton, a former student of the Bristol Academy who became minister at
New Road, Oxford, wrote to a friend: Our denomination is clearly indebted more to that
Academy than to anyone source of benefit besides. If I had 10,000 to found a public good,
one fourth should certainly go thither at once.
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Compiled by
Paul W. Fields and Andrew M. McGinnis
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Christ and the Decree: Christology and Predestination in Reformed Theology from
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2000
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1991
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1996
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The Debate Over the Vowel Points and the Crisis in Orthodox Hermeneutics.
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1981
Christ in the Eschaton: Calvin and Moltmann on the Duration of the Munus
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The Spirit and the Covenant: John Gills Critique of the Pactum Salutis.
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1982
The Federal Motif in Seventeenth Century Arminian Theology. Nederlands
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1983
Christthe Revelation or the Revealer? Brunner and Reformed Orthodoxy on
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1986
Emanuel V. Gerhart on the Christ-Idea as Fundamental Principle. Westminster
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What I Havent Learned from Barth. Reformed Journal 37.3 (1987): 1618.
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Arminius and the Scholastic Tradition. Calvin Theological Journal 24.2 (1989):
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The Importance of History. Theology News & Notes 36.1 (1989): 1417, 26.
Karl Barth and the Path of Theology into the Twentieth Century: Historical
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1990
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T.Sheppard, 1137. Cleveland: Pilgrim, 1991.
The Role of Church History in the Study of Systematic Theology. In Doing

Theology in Todays World: Essays in Honor of Kenneth S. Kantzer, edited by John
D. Woodbridge and Thomas Edward McComiskey, 7797. Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1991.
William Perkins and the Protestant Exegetical Tradition: Interpretation, Style

and Method. In A Commentary on Hebrews 11 (1609 Edition), by William Perkins,
edited by John H. Augustine, 7194. New York: Pilgrim, 1991.
1993
Calvin, Beza, and the Exegetical History of Romans 13:17. In Calvin and the
State, edited by Peter De Klerk, 139170. Papers of the 1989 and 1991 Calvin
Studies Colloquia. Grand Rapids: Calvin Studies Society, 1993.
Response to Discourse and Doctrine: The Covenant Concept in the Middle Ages,
by Derk Visser. In Calvin and the State, edited by Peter De Klerk, 1519. Papers
of the 1989 and 1991 Calvin Studies Society Colloquia. Grand Rapids: Calvin
Studies Society, 1993.
1994
God, Predestination, and the Integrity of the Created Order: A Note on Patterns
in Arminius Theology. In Later Calvinism: International Perspectives, edited
by W. Fred Graham, 431446. Kirksville: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers,

1994.
1995
Grace, Election, and Contingent Choice: Arminiuss Gambit and the Reformed
Response. In The Grace of God, the Bondage of the Will, vol. 2, Historical and
Theological Perspectives on Calvinism, edited by Thomas R. Schreiner and Bruce
A. Ware, 251278. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995.
1996
Biblical Interpretation in the Era of the Reformation: The View from the Middle
Ages. In Biblical Interpretation in the Era of the Reformation, edited by Richard
A. Muller and John L. Thompson, 322. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996.
The Era of Protestant Orthodoxy. In Theological Education in the Evangelical

Tradition, edited by D.G. Hart and R. Albert Mohler Jr., 103128. Grand Rapids:
Baker, 1996.
The Only Way of Mans Salvation: Scripture in the Westminster Confession. In

Calvin Studies VIII: The Westminster Confession in Current Thought, edited by
John H. Leith, 1433. Colloquium on Calvin Studies. [Davidson: Davidson
College, 1996].
Muller, Richard A., and John L. Thompson. The Significance of Precritical

Exegesis: Retrospect and Prospect. In Biblical Interpretation in the Era of the
Reformation, edited by Richard A. Muller and John L. Thompson, 335345.
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996.
1997
John Gill and the Reformed Tradition: A Study in the Reception of Protestant
Orthodoxy in the Eighteenth Century. In The Life and Thought of John Gill
(16971771): A Tercentennial Appreciation, edited by Michael A.G. Haykin, 5168.
Leiden: Brill, 1997.
Scholasticism in Calvin: A Question of Relation and Disjunction. In Calvinus

sincerioris religionis vindex = Calvin as Protector of the Purer Religion, edited by
Wilhelm H. Neuser and Brian G. Armstrong, 247265. Kirksville: Sixteenth
Century Journal Publishers, 1997.
Scimus enim quod lex spiritualis est: Melanchthon and Calvin on the
Interpretation of Romans 7.1423. In Philip Melanchthon (14971560) and the
Commentary, edited by Timothy J. Wengert and M. Patrick Graham, 216237.

Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997.
1998
Calvin, Beza, and the Exegetical History of Romans 13:17. In The Identity of
Geneva: The Christian Commonwealth, 15641864, edited by John B. Roney and
Martin I. Klauber, 3956. Westport: Greenwood, 1998.
Directions in Current Calvin Research. In Calvin Studies IX, edited by John H.

Leith and Robert A. Johnson, 7087. Colloquium on Calvin Studies. [Davidson:
Davidson College, 1998].
1999
Ordo docendi: Melanchthon and the Organization of Calvins Institutes, 1536
1543. In Melanchthon in Europe: His Work and Influence beyond Wittenberg,
edited by Karin Maag, 123140. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999.
The Use and Abuse of a Document: Bezas Tabula Praedestinationis, the Bolsec
Controversy, and the Origins of Reformed Orthodoxy. In Protestant
Scholasticism: Essays in Reassessment, edited by Carl R. Trueman and R. Scott
Clark, 3361. Carlisle: Paternoster, 1999.
2000
Sources of Reformed Orthodoxy: The Symmetrical Unity of Exegesis and
Synthesis. In A Confessing Theology for Postmodern Times, edited by Michael S.
Horton, 4362. Wheaton: Crossway, 2000.
2001
The Problem of Protestant ScholasticismA Review and Definition. In
Reformation and Scholasticism: An Ecumenical Enterprise, edited by Willem J.
van Asselt and Eef Dekker, 4564. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001.
2002
Theodore Beza (15191605). In The Reformation Theologians: An Introduction to
Theology in the Early Modern Period, edited by Carter Lindberg, 213224. Oxford:
Blackwell, 2002.
2006
To Grant this Grace to All People and Nations: Calvin on Apostolicity and
Mission. In For God so Loved the World: Missiological Reflections in Honour of
Roger S. Greenway, edited by Arie C. Leder, 211232. Belleville: Essence, 2006.
2009
Reflections on Persistent Whiggism and Its Antidotes in the Study of Sixteenth-
and Seventeenth-Century Intellectual History. In Seeing Things Their Way:
Intellectual History and the Return of Religion, edited by Alister Chapman, John
Coffey, and Brad S. Gregory, 134153. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame
Press, 2009.
2010
God as Absolute and Relative, Necessary, Free, and Contingent: The Ad Intra-Ad
Extra Movement of Seventeenth-Century Reformed Language about God. In
Always Reformed: Essays in Honor of W. Robert Godfrey, edited by R. Scott Clark
and Joel E. Kim, 5673. Escondido: Westminster Seminary California, 2010.
Mylius, R.A. [Richard A. Muller]. In the Steps of Voetius: Synchronic Contingency

and the Significance of Cornelis Elleboogius Disputationes de Tetragrammato
to the Analysis of His Life and Work. In Scholasticism Reformed: Essays in
Honour of Willem J. van Asselt, edited by Maarten Wisse, Marcel Sarot, and
Willemien Otten, 92102. Leiden: Brill, 2010.
Philip Doddridge and the Formulation of Calvinistic Theology in an Era of

Rationalism and Deconfessionalization. In Religion, Politics and Dissent, 1660
1832: Essays in Honour of James E. Bradley, edited by Robert D. Cornwall and
William Gibson, 6584. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010.
Thomas Barlow on the Liabilities of New Philosophy: Perceptions of a Rebellious

Ancilla in the Era of Protestant Orthodoxy. In Scholasticism Reformed, edited by
Maarten Wisse, Marcel Sarot, and Willemien Otten, 179195. Leiden: Brill, 2010.
2011
Demoting Calvin: The Issue of Calvin and the Reformed Tradition. In John
Calvin, Myth and Reality: Images and Impact of Genevas Reformer, edited by
Amy Nelson Burnett, 317. Papers of the 2009 Calvin Studies Society Colloquium.
Eugene: Cascade, 2011.
Diversity in the Reformed Tradition: A Historiographical Introduction. In Drawn

into Controversie: Reformed Theological Diversity and Debates Within
Seventeenth-Century British Puritanism, edited by Michael A.G. Haykin and
Mark Jones, 1130. Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011.
Reception and Response: Referencing and Understanding Calvin in Seventeenth-

Century Calvinism. In Calvin and His Influence, 15092009, edited by Irena
Backus and Philip Benedict, 182201. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
2012
God and Design in the Thought of Robert Boyle. In The Persistence of the Sacred
in Modern Thought, edited by Chris L. Firestone and Nathan A. Jacobs, 87111.
Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012.
VI.Dictionary and Encyclopedia Entries
1988
Resurrection. In The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, vol. 4, edited by
Geoffrey W. Bromiley, et al., 145150. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988.
Sanctification. In The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, vol. 4, edited by

World. In The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, vol. 4, edited by

1990
Soul. In Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counseling, edited by Rodney J. Hunter,
et al., 12011203. Nashville: Abingdon, 1990. Reprinted in Hunter, et al., ed.,
Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counseling, expanded ed. (2005): 12011203; and
in Glenn H. Asquith Jr., ed., The Concise Dictionary of Pastoral Care and
Counseling (Nashville: Abingdon, 2010), 3034.
1992
Aristotle. In Great Thinkers of the Western World, edited by Ian P. McGreal, 3035.
New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
Benedict Spinoza. In Great Thinkers of the Western World, edited by Ian P.

McGreal, 217221. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
Freedom. In Encyclopedia of the Reformed Faith, edited by Donald K. McKim,

144146. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1992.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. In Great Thinkers of the Western World, edited by Ian
P. McGreal, 237242. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
Justification. In Encyclopedia of the Reformed Faith, edited by Donald K. McKim,

201203. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1992.
Musculus, Wolfgang (14971563). In Encyclopedia of the Reformed Faith, edited

by Donald K. McKim, 248. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1992.
Myconius, Oswald (14881552). In Encyclopedia of the Reformed Faith, edited by

Donald K. McKim, 248. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1992.
Orthodoxy, Reformed. In Encyclopedia of the Reformed Faith, edited by Donald

K. McKim, 266269. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1992.
Parmenides. In Great Thinkers of the Western World, edited by Ian P. McGreal,

36. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
Saint Thomas Aquinas. In Great Thinkers of the Western World, edited by Ian P.
McGreal, 107113. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
1996
Predestination. In The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, vol. 3, edited by
Hans J. Hillerbrand, 332338. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Scripture. In The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, vol. 4, edited by Hans

J. Hillerbrand, 3639. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
1998
Biblical Interpretation in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. In Historical
Handbook of Major Biblical Interpreters, edited by Donald K. McKim, 123152.
Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1998. Reprinted in McKim, ed., Dictionary of
Major Biblical Interpreters (2007): 2244.
John Lightfoot (16021675). In Historical Handbook of Major Biblical Interpreters,

edited by Donald K. McKim, 208212. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1998.
Reprinted in McKim, ed., Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters (2007):
657661.
1999
Beza, Theodore. In The Encyclopedia of Christianity, vol. 1, edited by Erwin
Fahlbusch, et al., English edition translated and edited by Geoffrey W. Bromiley,
231232. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Leiden: Brill, 1999.
Reformation, Augustinianism in the. In Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclo

pedia, edited by Allan D. Fitzgerald, 705707. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999.
2000
Arminius and Arminianism. In The Dictionary of Historical Theology, edited by
Trevor A. Hart, 3335. Carlisle: Paternoster; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000.
Reformed Confessions and Catechisms. In The Dictionary of Historical Theology,

edited by Trevor A. Hart, 466485. Carlisle: Paternoster; Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2000.
2003
Orthodoxy: 2. Reformed Orthodoxy. In The Encyclopedia of Christianity, vol. 3,
edited by Erwin Fahlbusch, et al., English edition translated and edited by
Geoffrey W. Bromiley, 878882. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Leiden: Brill, 2003.
2004
John Calvin and Later Calvinism: The Identity of the Reformed Tradition. In The
Cambridge Companion to Reformation Theology, edited by David Bagchi and
David C. Steinmetz, 130149. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
VII.Published Lectures
1995
Scholasticism and Orthodoxy in the Reformed Tradition: An Attempt at Definition.
Inaugural Address, Calvin Seminary Chapel, 7 September 1995. Grand Rapids:
Calvin Theological Seminary, 1995.
1999
Ad fontes argumentorum: The Sources of Reformed Theology in the 17th Century.
Inaugural lecture, Faculty of Theology of Utrecht University, 11 May 1999.
Utrecht: Faculteit der Godgeleerdheid van de Universiteit Utrecht, 1999.
2011
Was Calvin a Calvinist? In Back to the Bible: Life, Gospel, and Church, edited by
the Society for Reformed Life Theology [sic] and Korea Evangelical Society,
237. International Joint Conference Commemorating the 35th Anniversary of
Baekseok Schools. Cheonan, Korea: Society for Reformed Life Theology and
Korea Evangelical Theological Society, 2011.
VIII.Forewords and Prefaces
1995
Foreword to The Theater of His Glory: Nature and the Natural Order in the Thought
of John Calvin, by Susan E. Schreiner, ix-x. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995.
1996
Preface to Systematic Theology, new ed., by Louis Berkhof, v-viii. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1996.
1997
Foreword to John Calvin and the Will: A Critique and Corrective, by Dewey J.
Hoitenga Jr., 511. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997.
2000
Foreword to Sermons on Melchizedek & Abraham: Justification, Faith & Obedience,
by John Calvin, translated by Thomas Stocker. Willow Street: Old Paths, 2000.
2011
Foreword to Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism, by Willem J. van Asselt, et al.,
ixx. Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2011.
2012
Foreword to Unity and Continuity in Covenantal Thought: A Study in the Reformed
Tradition to the Westminster Assembly, by Andrew A. Woolsey, viixi. Grand
Rapids: RHB, 2012.
IX.Translations
1987
Ellul, Jacques. Theological Pluralism and the Unity of the Spirit. Translated
byRichard A. Muller. In Church, Word, and Spirit, edited by James E. Bradley
and Richard A. Muller, 215227. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987.
X.Book Reviews
1977
Review of The Church, by G.C. Berkouwer, translated by James E. Davison.
Westminster Theological Journal 39.2 (1977): 397399.
1978
Review of Calvin and Classical Philosophy, by Charles Partee. Sixteenth Century
Journal 9.2 (1978): 125126.
Review of Mthode et thologie: Lambert Daneau et les dbuts de la scolastique

rforme, by Olivier Fatio. Westminster Theological Journal 41.1 (1978): 215217.
Review of The Prism of Scripture: Studies on History and Historicity in the Work of
Jonathan Edwards, by Karl Dietrich Pfisterer. Westminster Theological Journal
40.2 (1978): 364366.
1979
Review of Reformed Dogmatics Set Out and Illustrated from the Sources, by
Heinrich Heppe, revised and edited by Ernst Bizer, translated by G.T. Thomson.
Church History 48.3 (1979): 355356.
1980
Review of The History of Interpretation, by Frederic W. Farrar. Reformed Journal
30.9 (1980): 31.
Review of Rhtorique et thologique: Calvin, Le Commentaire de lptre aux

Romains, by Benoit Girardin. Church History 49.3 (1980): 354.
1981
Review of Calvin and the Reformation: Four Studies by Emile Doumergue, August
Lang, Herman Bavinck, and Benjamin B. Warfield, edited by William Park
Armstrong. Church History 50.4 (1981): 477.
Understanding Covenant Theology Today. Review of The Christ of the Covenants,

by O. Palmer Robertson, and Gospel & Law: Contrast or Continuum? The
Hermeneutics of Dispensationalism and Covenant Theology, by Daniel P. Fuller.
Reformed Journal 31.11 (1981): 2324.
1982
How Scripture Works. Review of The Scope and Authority of the Bible, by James
Barr. Reformed Journal 32.1 (1982): 2627.
Reformed and Contemporary. Review of An Introduction to Reformed Dogmatics,

by Auguste Lecerf, translated by Andr Schlemmer. Reformed Journal 32.8
(1982): 2728.
Review of Calvin and the Anabaptist Radicals, by Willem Balke, translated by

William J. Heynen. Westminster Theological Journal 44.2 (1982): 376378.
Review of The Divine Community: Trinity, Church, and Ethics in Reformation

Theologies, by John R. Loeschen. Renaissance Quarterly 35.4 (1982): 618620.
Review of Introduction to Systematic Theology, by Louis Berkhof. Reformed Journal

32.3 (1982): 27.
Review of Theology and Revolution in the Scottish Reformation: Studies in the

Thought of John Knox, by Richard L. Greaves. Journal of the American Academy
of Religion 50.3 (1982): 481.
Systematic Theologies: First and Last. Review of The Evangelical Faith, vol. 3,
Theology of the Spirit, by Helmut Thielicke, translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley,
and Foundations of Dogmatics, vol. 1, by Otto Weber, translated by Darrell L.
Guder. Reformed Journal 32.10 (1982): 28, 30.
1983
The Limits of General Revelation. Review of General Revelation and Contemporary
Issues, by Bruce A. Demarest. Reformed Journal 33.7 (1983): 3031.
Review of Calvin and the Anabaptist Radicals, by Willem Balke, translated by

William J. Heynen. Church History 52.4 (1983): 533534.
Review of Reformed Thought and Scholasticism: The Arguments for the Existence of
God in Dutch Theology, 15751650, by John Platt. Renaissance Quarterly 36.3
(1983): 438439.
1984
Defending Theology. Review of In Defense of Theology, by Gordon H. Clark.
Reformed Journal 34.10 (1984): 2830.
Review of Calvins Doctrine of the Atonement, by Robert A. Peterson. Church

History 53.4 (1984): 553554.
Review of Eerdmans Handbook to Christian Belief, edited by Robin Keeley. TSF

Bulletin 7.5 (1984): 22.
Review of Here Am I! A Christian Reflection on God, by Adrio Knig. Westminster

Review of Martini Buceri Opera Latina, vol. 1, by Martin Bucer, edited by Cornelis
Augustijn, Pierre Fraenkel, and Marc Lienhard. Church History 53.1 (1984):
136137.
Review of The Puritan Moment: The Coming of Revolution in an English County,

byWilliam Hunt. Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church 53.2
(1984): 131132.
Review of Schriften, vol. 1, by Philipp Jakob Spener, edited by Erich Beyreuther

and Dietrich Blaufuss. The Eighteenth Century: A Current Bibliography, n.s., 6
for 1980 (1984): 578579.
1985
Review of Creeds, Councils, and Christ, by Gerald Bray. TSF Bulletin 8.4 (1985): 25.
Review of Jonathan Edwardss Moral Thought and Its British Context, by Norman
Fiering. The Eighteenth Century: A Current Bibliography, n.s., 7for 1981 (1985):
449450.
Review of Justification and Sanctification, by Peter Toon. TSF Bulletin 8.3 (1985):
28.
Review of Transformation and Convergence in the Frame of Knowledge: Explorations

in the Interrelations of Scientific and Theological Enterprise, by Thomas
F.Torrance. Westminster Theological Journal 47.1 (1985): 136140.
1986
Directions in the Study of Barths Christology. Review of Christ in Perspective:
Christological Perspectives in the Theology of Karl Barth, by John Thompson, and
Karl Barths Christology: Its Basic Alexandrian Character, by Charles T. Waldrop.
Review of Christian Dogmatics, edited by Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson.

TSF Bulletin, 10.1 (1986): 3536.
Review of John Toland and the Deist Controversy: A Study in Adaptations, by Robert
E. Sullivan. The Eighteenth Century: A Current Bibliography, n.s., 8for 1982
(1986): 224225.
Review of Pascal: Adversary and Advocate, by Robert J. Nelson. Historical Magazine

of the Protestant Episcopal Church 55.4 (1986): 343344.
1987
Heaven and Hell. Review of Heaven and Hell: A Biblical and Theological Overview,
by Peter Toon. Reformed Journal 37.4 (1987): 2829.
God Only Wise. Review of Predestination & Free Will: Four Views of Divine
Sovereignty & Human Freedom, by John Feinberg, et al., edited by David
Basinger and Randall Basinger. Reformed Journal 37.5 (1987): 3134.
Review of Arminius: A Study in the Dutch Reformation, 2nd ed., by Carl Bangs.
Pneuma 9.12 (1987): 198199.
Review of The History of Christian Theology, vol. 1, The Science of Theology, by

G.R. Evans, Alister E. McGrath, and Allan D. Galloway. Consensus 13.1 (1987):
114115.
Review of John Calvin on the Diaconate and Liturgical Almsgiving, by Elsie Anne
McKee. Zeitschrift fr Kirchengeschichte 98.1 (1987): 125126.
Review of The Living God, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, by Thomas C. Oden.

Consensus 13.2 (1987): 99100.
Review of Reformed Theology in America: A History of Its Modern Development,

edited by David F. Wells. Anglican and Episcopal History 56.2 (1987):
213216.
Review of The Spiritual Espousals and Other Works, by Jan van Ruusbroec, trans-
lated and introduced by James A. Wiseman. Pneuma 9.12 (1987): 197.
Review of The Use of the Bible in Theology: Evangelical Options, edited by Robert
K.Johnston. Theology Today 44.2 (1987): 284285.
Sins of Omission. Review of Karl Barth, a Theological Legacy, by Eberhard

Jngel, translated by Garrett E. Paul. Reformed Journal 37.10 (1987): 28,
3031.
1988
Competent but Flawed. Review of Born Again: A Biblical and Theological Study
of Regeneration, by Peter Toon. Reformed Journal 38.4 (1988): 2829.
The Place and Importance of Karl Barth in the Twentieth Century: A Review
Essay. Review of How Karl Barth Changed My Mind, edited by Donald
K. McKim; Karl Barth, a Theological Legacy, by Eberhard Jngel, translated
by Garrett E. Paul; Theology Beyond Christendom: Essays on the Centenary of the
Birth of Karl Barth, May 10, 1886, edited by John Thompson; and The Way of
Theology in Karl Barth: Essays and Comments, edited by H. Martin Rumscheidt.
Review of The Calov Bible of J. S. Bach, by Johann Sebastian Bach, edited by Howard
H. Cox. Consensus 14.1 (1988): 116118.
Review of The Covenant of Grace in Puritan Thought, by John von Rohr. Sixteenth
Century Journal 19.3 (1988): 508509.
Review of The Historical Argument for the Resurrection of Jesus During the Deist
Controversy, by William Lane Craig. Church History 57.3 (1988): 379380.
Soteriological Christology. Review of The Anonymous Christ: Jesus as Savior in

Modern Theology, by Lee E. Snook. Reformed Journal 38.11 (1988): 3031.
1989
Once More Into the Breach. Review of Chosen for Life: An Introductory Guide to
the Doctrine of Divine Election, by C. Samuel Storms. Reformed Journal 39.1
(1989): 3031.
Review of The Authority of the Bible and the Rise of the Modern World, by Henning
Graf Reventlow, translated by John Bowden. The Eighteenth Century: A Current
Bibliography, n.s., 10for 1984 (1989): 284286.
Review of De falsa et vera Unius Dei Patris, Filii et Spiritus Sancti cognitione libri duo
(Albae Iuliae, 1568), introduced by Antal Pirnt. Sixteenth Century Journal 20.4
(1989): 710711.
Review of John Toland: His Methods, Manners, and Mind, by Stephen H. Daniel.
The Eighteenth Century: A Current Bibliography, n.s., 10for 1984 (1989):
241243.
Review of Ramism in William Perkins Theology, by Donald K. McKim. Sixteenth

Century Journal 20.1 (1989): 125126.
Review of Renaissance Dialectic and Renaissance Piety: Benet of Canfields Rule of

Perfection: A Translation and Study, by Benit de Canfield, translated by Kent
Emery Jr. Sixteenth Century Journal 20.1 (1989): 131.
Review of Sacred Rhetoric: The Christian Grand Style in the English Renaissance,
byDebora K. Shuger. Sixteenth Century Journal 20.4 (1989): 687688.
1990
Review of Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-
Dualism Debate, by John W. Cooper. Theology Today 47.2 (1990): 228.
Review of Meletius, sive, De iis quae inter Christianos conveniunt epistola, by Hugo
Grotius, translated by G.H.M. Posthumus Meyjes. Consensus 16.1 (1990):
121122.
Review of The Reformed Imperative: What the Church Has to Say that No One Else
Can Say, by John H. Leith. Journal of Religion 70.4 (1990): 647.
1992
Review of The Emanuel Hirsch and Paul Tillich Debate: A Study in the Political
Ramifications of Theology, by A. James Reimer. Consensus 18.1 (1992): 144145.
Review of Loci Theologici, by Martin Chemnitz, translated by J.A.O. Preus.

Consensus 18.1 (1992): 136139.
Review of The Origins of the Federal Theology in Sixteenth-Century Reformation

Thought, by David A. Weir. Journal of Religion 72.4 (1992): 597598.
Review of Theology of the Reformers, by Timothy George. Calvin Theological

Journal 27.1 (1992): 109111.
Review of The Word of Life, Systematic Theology, vol. 2, by Thomas C. Oden.

Consensus 18.1 (1992): 140141.
1993
Review of Assurance of Faith: Calvin, English Puritanism, and the Dutch Second
Reformation, by Joel R. Beeke. Sixteenth Century Journal 24.3 (1993): 745747.
Review of Calvin et la dynamique de la parole: Etude de rhtorique rforme,

byOlivier Millet. Sixteenth Century Journal 24.3 (1993): 747749.
Review of Doctrine and Practice in the Early Church, by Stuart G. Hall. Calvin
Review of Dogma and Mysticism in Early Christianity: Epiphanius of Cyprus and

the Legacy of Origen, by Jon F. Dechow. Consensus 19.2 (1993): 150.
Review of The History of the Covenant Concept from the Bible to Johannes
Cloppenburg: De Foedere Dei, by David N.J. Poole. Calvin Theological Journal 28.1
(1993): 217218.
Review of Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 1, First Through Tenth Topics, by

Francis Turretin, translated by George Musgrave Giger, edited by James
T.Dennison Jr. Calvin Theological Journal 28.2 (1993): 520522.
Review of Paganism and Christianity, 100425 c.e.: A Sourcebook, edited by Ramsay

MacMullen and Eugene N. Lane. Calvin Theological Journal 28.2 (1993):
544545.
Review of Regnum Caelorum: Patterns of Future Hope in Early Christianity, by

Charles E. Hill. Westminster Theological Journal 55.2 (1993): 359360.
Review of The Religion of the Heart: A Study of European Religious Life in the
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, by Ted A. Campbell. Journal of Religion
73.2 (1993): 261262.
Review of The Theater of His Glory: Nature and the Natural Order in the Thought of
John Calvin, by Susan E. Schreiner. Calvin Theological Journal 28.1 (1993): 190191.
Review of The Westminster Confession of Faith: An Authentic Modern Version, by

Douglas F. Kelly, Hugh McClure, and Philip Rollinson, and A Guide: The
Westminster Confession of Faith: Commentary, by John H. Gerstner, Douglas F.

Kelly, and Philip Rollinson. Calvin Theological Journal 28.1 (1993): 222223.
Review of The Word Became Flesh: A Contemporary Incarnational Christology, by

Millard J. Erickson. Calvin Theological Journal 28.1 (1993): 182184.
1994
Barths Gttingen Dogmatics (192426): A Review and Assessment of Volume
One. Review of The Gttingen Dogmatics: Instruction in the Christian Religion,
vol. 1, by Karl Barth, edited by Hannelotte Reiffen, translated by Geoffrey W.
Bromiley. Westminster Theological Journal 56.1 (1994): 115132.
Review of The Apostolic Fathers, 2nd ed., translated by J.B. Lightfoot and J.R.Harmer,
edited by Michael W. Holmes. Calvin Theological Journal 29.1 (1994): 311312.
Review of At the Origins of Modern Atheism, by Michael J. Buckley. The Eighteenth

Century: A Current Bibliography, n.s., 13for 1987 (1994): 149151.
Review of Biblical Interpretation Then and Now: Contemporary Hermeneutics in

theLight of the Early Church, by David S. Dockery. Calvin Theological Journal
29.1 (1994): 260261.
Review of The Bolsec Controversy on Predestination, From 1551 to 1555, vol. 1, pts. 12,
by Philip C. Holtrop. Calvin Theological Journal 29.2 (1994): 581589.
Review of Calvins Preaching, by T.H.L. Parker. Journal of Religion 74.3 (1994):

395396.
Review of Christianity 101: Your Guide to Eight Basic Christian Beliefs, by Gilbert
Bilezikian. Calvin Theological Journal 29.2 (1994): 571573.
Review of Commentary on the Larger Catechism; Previously Titled A Body of

Divinity: Wherein the Doctrines of the Christian Religion Are Explained and
Defended, Being the Substance of Several Lectures on the Assemblys Larger
Catechism, by Thomas Ridgley, revised with notes by John M. Wilson. Calvin
Review of Fountainhead of Federalism: Heinrich Bullinger and the Covenantal

Tradition, by Charles S. McCoy and J. Wayne Baker, with a translation of De
testamento seu foedere Dei unico et aeterno, by Heinrich Bullinger. Anglican and
Episcopal History 63.1 (1994): 8991.
Review of Heresy and Criticism: The Search for Authenticity in Early Christian
Literature, by Robert M. Grant. Calvin Theological Journal 29.1 (1994): 317318.
Review of Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a
New English Translation, with Notes and Introduction, translated and edited by
Brian P. Copenhaver. Calvin Theological Journal 29.2 (1994): 624625.
Review of Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 2, Eleventh Through Seventeenth
Topics, by Francis Turretin, translated by George Musgrave Giger, edited by
James T. Dennison Jr. Calvin Theological Journal 29.2 (1994): 614615.
Review of Ioannis Calvini opera exegetica, vol. 16, Commentarii in Pauli epistolas ad
Galatas, ad Ephesios, ad Philippenses, ad Colossenses, by John Calvin, edited by
Helmut Feld. Sixteenth Century Journal 25.2 (1994): 476478.
Review of Life in the Spirit, Systematic Theology, vol. 3, by Thomas C. Oden.
Consensus 20.1 (1994): 133134.
Review of A Theology of Word and Spirit: Authority and Method in Theology, by
Donald G. Bloesch. Calvin Theological Journal 29.1 (1994): 307.
Review of What Christians Believe: A Biblical and Historical Summary, by Alan F.
Johnson and Robert Webber. Calvin Theological Journal 29.2 (1994): 523525.
Review of Whos Who in Theology: From the First Century to the Present, by John
Bowden. Calvin Theological Journal 29.1 (1994): 308.
1995
Review of Calvinus Sacrae Scripturae Professor = Calvin as Confessor of Holy
Scripture, edited by Wilhelm H. Neuser. Sixteenth Century Journal 26.2 (1995):
478480.
Review of An Exposition of Ezekiel, Geneva Series Commentary, by William
Greenhill. Calvin Theological Journal 30.2 (1995): 563565.
Review of Ezekiel I: Chapters 112, Calvins Old Testament Commentaries, vol. 18,
by John Calvin, translated by D. Foxgrover and D. Martin, and Daniel I: Chapters
16, Calvins Old Testament Commentaries, vol. 20, by John Calvin, translated
by T.H.L. Parker. Sixteenth Century Journal 26.4 (1995): 10321033.
Review of Grace and Gratitude: The Eucharistic Theology of John Calvin, by
B.A.Gerrish. Journal of Religion 75.1 (1995): 119121.
Review of Mozart: Traces of Transcendence, by Hans Kng, translated by John
Bowden. Consensus 21.2 (1995): 129130.
Review of Peter Martyr Vermigli, 14991562: Renaissance Man, Reformation Master,
by Mariano Di Gangi. Calvin Theological Journal 30.1 (1995): 308309.
Review of Prophecy in Carthage: Perpetua, Tertullian, and Cyprian, by Cecil
M.Robeck Jr. Calvin Theological Journal 30.2 (1995): 499501.
1996
Review of Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church: An Historical Introduction to
Patristic Exegesis, by Manlio Simonetti. Calvin Theological Journal 31.1 (1996):
310311.
Review of Calvin and the Rhetoric of Piety, by Serene Jones. Calvin Theological
Journal 31.2 (1996): 582583.
Review of Calvin: An Introduction to His Thought, by T.H.L. Parker. Calvin

Review of The Early Church: An Annotated Bibliography of Literature in English,

byThomas A. Robinson. Calvin Theological Journal 31.2 (1996): 623.
Review of The Emergence of Christian Theology, by Eric Osborn. Calvin Theological

Journal 31.2 (1996): 622623.
Review of Jesus Christ and Creation in the Theology of John Calvin, by Peter Wyatt.
Calvin Theological Journal 31.2 (1996): 618620.
Review of Jesus Christ in the Preaching of Calvin and Schleiermacher, by Dawn

DeVries. Calvin Theological Journal 31.2 (1996): 603607.
Review of The Knowledge of God in Calvins Theology, expanded ed., by Edward

A.Dowey Jr. Lutheran Quarterly, n.s., 10.2 (1996): 201202.
Review of Peter Lombard, by Marcia L. Colish. Calvin Theological Journal 31.2

(1996): 547548.
Review of The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism, vol. 1,

TheFoundations of Mysticism, by Bernard McGinn. Calvin Theological Journal
31.1 (1996): 212213.
Review of A Scripture Index to the Works of St. Augustine in English Translation, by

James W. Wiles. Calvin Theological Journal 31.1 (1996): 301302.
1997
Review of Anticlericalism in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, by Peter
A.Dykema and Heiko A. Oberman. Zwingliana 24 (1997): 153155.
Review of Christian Doctrine, revised ed., by Shirley C. Guthrie. Consensus 23.1

(1997): 8384.
Review of Correspondance de Thodore de Bze, vol. 17, 1576, and vol. 18, 1577,
collected by Hippolyte Aubert, edited by Alain Dufour, Batrice Nicollier, and
Reinhard Bodenmann. Church History 66.1 (1997): 116117.
Review of De doctrina christiana: A Classic of Western Culture, edited by Duane

W.H. Arnold, and Reading and Wisdom: The De doctrina christiana of Augustine
in the Middle Ages, edited by Edward D. English. Calvin Theological Journal 32.1
(1997): 214.
Review of A Hot Pepper Corn: Richard Baxters Doctrine of Justification in Its 17th-
Century Context of Controversy, by Hans Boersma. Calvin Theological Journal
32.1 (1997): 175176.
Review of Sermons on Galatians, by John Calvin, foreword by W. Robert Godfrey;

Sermons on Election & Reprobation, by John Calvin, foreword by David
C. Engelsma; and Sermons on Psalm 119, by John Calvin, foreword by James
M.Boice. Calvin Theological Journal 32.1 (1997): 153157.
Review of Systematic Theology: Biblical, Historical, and Evangelical, vol. 2, by James

Leo Garrett Jr. Consensus 23.1 (1997): 8485.
1998
Review of The Claims of Truth: John Owens Trinitarian Theology, by Carl
R.Trueman. Calvin Theological Journal 33.2 (1998): 522524.
Review of A Commentary on the Old and New Testaments, by John Trapp. Calvin
Review of History of Theology, vol. 1, The Patristic Period, edited by Angelo Di

Berardino and Basil Studer. Calvin Theological Journal 33.2 (1998): 565566.
Review of Humanists and Reformers: A History of the Renaissance and Reformation,

by Bard Thompson. Journal of Religion 78.1 (1998): 118119.
Review of Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 3, Eighteenth Through Twentieth

Topics, by Francis Turretin, translated by George Musgrave Giger, edited by
James T. Dennison Jr. Calvin Theological Journal 33.2 (1998): 525526.
Review of Luthers Heirs Define His Legacy: Studies in Lutheran Confessionalization,

by Robert Kolb. Calvin Theological Journal 33.2 (1998): 567568.
Review of The Reception of the Church Fathers in the West: From the Carolingians to the
Maurists, edited by Irena Backus. Calvin Theological Journal 33.2 (1998): 487488.
Review of Registres du Consistoire de Genve au temps de Calvin, vol. 1, 15421544,

edited by Robert M. Kingdon, Thomas A. Lambert, Isabella M. Watt, and Jeffrey
R. Watt. Calvin Theological Journal 33.2 (1998): 512513.
Review of Sermons on Galatians, by John Calvin, translated by Kathy Childress,

and The Deity of Christ and Other Sermons, by John Calvin, translated by Leroy
Nixon. Calvin Theological Journal 33.2 (1998): 483484.
Review of The Theology of John Calvin, by Karl Barth, translated by Geoffrey

W.Bromiley. Lutheran Quarterly, n.s., 12.2 (1998): 226228.
Review of The Westminster Standards: An Original Facsimile, foreword by William

S. Barker. Calvin Theological Journal 33.2 (1998): 489490.
2000
Review of The Federal Theology of Thomas Boston, by A.T.B. McGowan. Calvin
Review of A History of the Synoptic Problem: The Canon, the Text, the Composition,
and the Interpretation of the Gospels, by David Laird Dungan. Calvin Theological
Journal 35.1 (2000): 163.
Review of Jean Gerson: Early Works, translated by Brian Patrick McGuire. Calvin
Review of Luther and German Humanism, by Lewis W. Spitz, and The Reformation:
Education and History, by Lewis W. Spitz. Calvin Theological Journal 35.2 (2000):
363364.
Review of Renaissance Transformations of Late Medieval Thought, by Charles
Trinkaus. Calvin Theological Journal 35.2 (2000): 364365.
Review of Richard Sibbes: Puritanism and Calvinism in Late Elizabethan and Early
Stuart England, by Mark E. Dever. Calvin Theological Journal 35.2 (2000):
344345.
Review of Rijker dan Midas: Vrijheid, genade en predestinatie in de theologie van
Jacobus Arminius (15591609), by Eef Dekker. Calvin Theological Journal 35.2
(2000): 343344.
Review of Thomas Aquinas, Theologian, by Thomas F. OMeara. Calvin Theological
Journal 35.1 (2000): 176.
2001
Review of Alsted and Leibniz: On God, the Magistrate, and the Millennium, edited
by Maria Rosa Antognazza and Howard Hotson. Calvin Theological Journal 36.2
(2001): 389390.
Review of A Commentary on Revelation, by James Durham, introduction by David
C. Lachman. Calvin Theological Journal 36.2 (2001): 383384.
Review of Ioannis Calvini scripta ecclesiastica, vol. 1, De aeterna Dei praedestina-
tione / De la predestination eternelle, by John Calvin, edited by Wilhelm
H.Neuser and Olivier Fatio. Calvin Theological Journal 36.2 (2001): 390391.
Review of Johann Heinrich Alsted, 15881638: Between Renaissance, Reformation,

and Universal Reform, by Howard Hotson. Calvin Theological Journal 36.2 (2001):
399400.
Review of The Legacy of John Calvin: Papers Presented at the Twelfth Colloquium of
the Calvin Studies Society, edited by David Foxgrover. Calvin Theological Journal
36.2 (2001): 395.
The Starting Point of Calvins Theology: An Essay-Review. Review of The Starting
Point of Calvins Theology, by George H. Tavard. Calvin Theological Journal 36.2
(2001): 314341.
2003
Review of The Collected Writings of John Gill [CD-ROM], by John Gill. Calvin
Review of The Federal Theology of Johannes Cocceius (16031669), by Willem J. van
Asselt, translated by Raymond A. Blacketer. Nederlands Theologisch Tijdschrift
57.2 (2003): 164165.
Review of God Calls Us to His Service: The Relation Between God and His Audience
in Calvins Sermons on Acts, by Wilhelmus H.Th. Moehn. Calvin Theological
Journal 38.2 (2003): 396397.
Review of The Systematic Theology of John Brown of Haddington, by John Brown,
introduction by Joel R. Beeke and Randall J. Pederson. Calvin Theological
Journal 38.2 (2003): 362364.
2008
Review of Commonplace Learning: Ramism and Its German Ramifications
1 5431630, by Howard Hotson. Renaissance Quarterly 61.1 (2008): 241242.
Review of English Hypothetical Universalism: John Preston and the Softening of Reformed
Theology, by Jonathan D. Moore. Calvin Theological Journal 43.1 (2008): 149150.
2009
Review of From Judaism to Calvinism: The Life and Writings of Immanuel Tremellius
(c. 15101580), by Kenneth Austin. Religious Studies Review 35.4 (2009): 292.
Review of The Restoration of Christianity: An English Translation of the Christianismi

restitutio, 1553, by Michael Servetus, translated by Christopher A. Hoffman and
Marian Hillar, notes by Marian Hillar. Catholic Historical Review 95.2 (2009):
387388.
Review of Trinitarian Spirituality: John Owen and the Doctrine of God in Western
Devotion, by Brian Kay. Journal of Ecclesiastical History 60.2 (2009): 395396.
2010
Review of Lutheran Ecclesiastical Culture, 15501675, edited by Robert Kolb.
Lutheran Quarterly, n.s., 24.3 (2010): 343346.
XI.Bibliographies
2009
Stanglin, Keith D., and Richard A. Muller. Bibliographia Arminiana: A Compre
hensive, Annotated Bibliography of the Works of Arminius. In Arminius,
Arminianism, and Europe: Jacob Arminius (1559/601609), edited by Th. Marius
van Leeuwen, Keith D. Stanglin, and Marijke Tolsma, 263290. Leiden: Brill, 2009.
XII.Other Works
1990
Editor. Religion: Serials, Periodicals, and Multi-Volume Sets. Leiden: IDC, 1990.
Microfiche.
1999
Series general editor. Texts and Studies in Reformation and Post-Reformation
Thought. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1999-.
2000
Collaborator. Report of the Committee to Study the Materials from the Reformed
Churches of Australia re: Christs Descent into Hell. In Agenda for Synod, June
1017, 2000, by the Christian Reformed Church in North America, 212228.
Grand Rapids: Board of Publications of the Christian Reformed Church, 2000.
2003
Advisor. The Reformation in Heidelberg, edited by Charles Gunnoe. Leiden: IDC,
2003. Microfiche.
2010
Advisor. The Reformation in Heidelberg II, edited by Charles Gunnoe. Leiden: IDC,
2010. Microfiche.
Series collaborative editor. Reformed Historical Theology, vols. 8, 9, 1320, edited

by Herman J. Selderhuis. Gttingen: V&R, 2010-.
INDEX
Abelard, Pierre14 Barret, William324

Brackel, Wilhelmus651 Bartas, Guillaume du615
Abbot, George430 Barth, Karl227228
Aepinus, Johannes27, 30, 32 Basel, University of257, 260, 283
Affections471488 Bastingius, Jeremias352
Alsted, Johann Heinrich283293, 418, Baxter, Richard319, 476, 665677
446, 482 Bayle, Pierre710
Alting, Heinrich295 Bedell, William330
Amerbach, Boniface48 Beeke, Joel642
Ames, William327, 387400, 416, 425, Bellarmine, Robert398
428433 Berkhof, Louis308
Amsdorff, Nicholas von19 Bernard of Clairvaux367
Amyraut, Mose229, 231, 583, 667, 699 Bersuire, Pierre368
Anabaptist221, 317, 386, 580 Bertius, Petrus362
Andreae, Jakob271 Beza, Theodore159, 166, 227241, 243244,
Anglican, see England, Church of 247, 259, 354, 395396, 679
Anselm622 Biel, Gabriel5354, 58, 62, 350, 357359
Anthropology202215, 289 Bilney, Thomas3
Apostles Creed75, 126128, 133, 280, Bomberg, Daniel325
297298, 489, 491 Book of Concord22, 315316
Aquinas, Thomas see Thomas Aquinas Boquin, Pierre258259
Aristotle, Aristotelian17, 35, 70, 86, 123, Borrius, Adrian374375
166, 183, 200202, 286, 466, 472474, Bradford, William162
480, 487, 587, 590595, 680, 737, 741, 746 Brandt, Caspar363
Arminianism, see Arminius, Jacob Braun, Johannes51
Arminius, Jacob319, 347359, 361372, Bray, John S.232240
374375, 420421, 665, 677, 705, 720 Brenz, Johannes256
Armstrong, Brian166, 234 Brethren of the Common Life50, 53
Arnoldi, Bartholomaeus53 Brionnet, Guillaume83
Ash, John759760 Bristol Academy749764
Asselt, Willem vanxxvii Brunner, Johannes260
Assertio Septem Sacramentum3 Bucer, Martin45, 119120, 146, 217, 312
Augsburg Confession4, 1921, 29, 33, 70, Bugenhagen, Johannes1920, 27, 30, 71
316 Bullinger, Heinrich99102, 108, 157, 228,
Augustine, Augustinian13, 23, 36, 56, 58, 258, 409, 726, 733734
69, 108, 111, 121, 182, 189190, 233, 238, Bunny, Edmund273, 281
356, 367, 387, 391392, 463, 467, 476, 480, Burgersdijck, Franco477, 481, 67
484488, 522 Burnet, Gilbert603
Augustinians (Canons Regular)217 Burnett, Amy Nelson84, 283284
Backus, Irena683 Cabeljau, Petrus515

Balbani, Niccol155, 157 Cajetan, Thomas47, 185
Bale, John4 Calov, Abraham343, 551, 555
Bancroft, Richard322 Calvin, Johnxxviii, xxix, 5, 84, 9798, 109,
Bandstra, Andrew309 111122, 123134, 136151, 156, 224,
Baez, Domingo185, 298 227230, 237, 243, 247, 259, 271282, 310,
Bangs, Carl363 312, 357, 382, 395396, 403, 473, 484,
Banking505520 486487, 489501, 516, 534, 700, 723, 733
Baptists749764 Calvinism227242, 343, 348, 534, 688,
Barlow, William334 723736
Baro, Peter323 Cambridge322324
796 index
Campanus, Johannes21 Dordtrecht, Synod of229, 235, 252,

Caracciolo, Galeazzo153164 353354, 357, 373386, 402, 405406,
Cartesianism, see Descartes, Ren 416, 420430, 446, 679, 699, 730
Cartwright, Thomas322 Dorp, Martin4546
Casaubon, Isaac243 Duker, A.C.506
Casimir, Johann261262, 316
Castellan of Belz236 East Indies489503
Castellio, Sebastien238, 382 Education1734, 51, 6780
Causality111112, 114, 121, 175, 177, 195, 230, Edward VI12, 217217, 222, 224
234, 238, 589, 676, 744 Edwards, John556
Chaderton, Laurence321337 Edwards, Jonathan471, 479, 711722
Charles V20 Egard, Paul446
Chauve, Jean246, 249 Egli, Raphael235
Chemnitz, Martin27 Ehem, Christoph258259
Chenu, M.-D.182 Eisenach49
Chouet, Jean-Robert583585, 591 Election, see Predestination
Christ and the Decreexxviii, 165, 228 Elizabeth, Queen224, 322, 335
Chubb, Thomas721 Emerson, Everett326
Chytraeus, David7278 Emmanuel College327328, 335, 337
Cloppenburg, Johannes515 Engammare, Max90
Cocceius, Johannes567582 England316, 160, 217, 597612,
Coletus, Michael343 749764
Colli Hippolyt von263 England, Church of316, 217, 224, 334,
Collinson, Patrick323 336, 430, 604
Cologne, Faculty of4243 Episcopus, Simon384385, 424, 720
Company of Pastors, Geneva245253 Erasmus35, 45, 54, 91, 114, 118, 468, 725
Conscience361372 Erastus, Thomas255, 258260, 262, 268
Constance, Council of39 Erfurt, University of51
Corinthians, First Letter to the215224 Eternal decrees, see Predestination
Cossee, Eric364 Ethics10, 203, 213
Covenant103104, 109, 145, 177, 238, 275, Eucharist4, 25, 73, 220, 258, 260, 298,
287, 296, 302305, 307310, 312, 348, 325, 508, 514
373387, 568, 576, 578580, 615, 618, Evans, Caleb751761
Covenant 668678, 733
Coverdale, Miles4 Fabricius, Jakub339, 342344
Cranmer, George331 Fabricius, Johann689
Cranmer, Thomas3, 11, 1314, 15, 216217 Faithxxix, 315, 60, 99, 199, 205, 213, 239
Crashaw, William158161 Farel, Guillaume84, 92
Cruciger, Caspar, Sr.19, 30, 71 Fatio, Olivier272273
Cunningham, William231 Fenner, Dudley331
Fenner, William478479
Dampmartin, Katherine217 Finnish Perspective9
Daneau, Lambert243, 526, 679 Flaminio, Marco Antonio158
Danzig339346 Forbes, John278
Delaune, Guillaume273 Formula of Concord7, 316
Dent, Arthur327 Fraenkel, Peter29
Dering, Edward322, 327, 331 Francis of Assisi8
Descartes, Rene479, 482, 538, 583, Franciscans167
589596, 630, 691 Franckenberger, Andreas341342
Diodati, Jean243254 Frecht, Martin256
Discipline, Church260261 Frederick II257
Disputations37, 52, 75, 8792, 256, 262 Frederick III258259, 261, 316, 726
Dissenters597612 Frederick IV261, 263
Donnelly, John Patrick166, 185 Frederick V263264
index797
Free choice/will see Will, human Holy Spirit5, 36, 49, 54, 6263, 70,
Froschauer, Chrisopher218 9293, 115, 124, 216, 219, 222, 239, 287,
298, 300303, 311, 327, 329, 333, 354,
Garcia, Mark A.309 356, 372, 377, 393, 401414, 449, 460,
Gardiner, Stephen4, 12, 15 702, 730
Gaussen, tienne583596 Hommius, Festus381, 430, 487
Geldennupf, Wiegand51 Hoogstraeten, Jakob41, 44
Geneva156, 245 Hooker, Richard331
Geneva, Academy of234237, 243254 Hooper, John326
Gerhard, Johann457470 Hoornbeek, Johannes448450, 452, 510,
Glorious Revolution162 571, 651
Goad, Thomas431 Hoppe, Johann341
Gomarus, Franciscus380 Horton, Michael309
Goodwin, John278 Hotman, Franois243
Goodwin, Thomas353 Hotson, Howard285
Gospel9, 10, 19, 20, 29, 61, 6970, 73, Hottinger, Johann Heinrich256, 264
127128, 199, 210, 239, 281, 298, 307320, Howe, John629632, 635639
394, 404414, 537, 572, 621, 701, 753 Humanism3547, 5556, 86, 257, 54344
Grace of God97109, 139, 238, 288, 293 Hunnius, Aegidius464
Graf, F.W.727 Hus, Jan39
Greenham, Richard322 Hyperius, Andreas417
Gregory of Rimini182 Hyperius, Andreas443
Grynaeus, Johann Jakob255, 262, 268
Grynaeus, Simon the Elder257 Image of God286288, 299, 411, 617
Grynaeus, Simon the younger260262 Isidore of Seville391, 394
Gutenberg, Johann71 Islam186187, 238
Gwalther, Rudolph235 Italy153155
Hall, Joseph689690 Jablonski, Daniel Ernst684689

Hampton Court Conference324325 James, Frank A. III186
Happiness207214, 521532 Jesuits485488
Hardenberg, Albert216 Jews, Jewish exegesis4143, 389390, 543,
Harvey, Gabriel323 569
Hasler, Johann261 John of Damascus75
Heckel, Matthew C.117 John the Steadfast18, 20
Heereboord, Adriaan481 Jonas, Justus19, 31, 71
Heidanus, Abraham570 Judex, Matthaeus72
Heidelberg Catechism259, 295306, 329, Junius, Franciscus263, 271, 354, 357,
402, 404, 411, 450, 516519, 526 387400
Heidelberg disputation256 Just war185198
Heidelberg, University of255269, Justification316, 32, 60, 127134, 273,
295, 729 276282, 307, 568, 573575, 666669,
Henry VIII3, 216 671677
Heppe, Heinrich643
Herborn271, 284, 417 Karlstadt, Andreas19
Heresy3638, 4243 Keckermann, Bartholomaeus291292,
Hermeneutics136151 339, 343, 345346, 670, 688, 691693
Hesselink, I. John309310 Kendall, George667677
Hesshusius, Tileman27, 72, 258 Kim, Myung Yong401
Hicks, John Mark348, 350 Kimedoncius, Jacobus263
Hildersam, Arthur327 Koelman, Jacobus644
Hobbs, Gerald90 Kraft, Adam85
Hoenderdaal, G.J.365 Kraye, Jill199
Holy Roman Empire255 Kuyper, Abraham727
798 index
Labadie, Jean de613 Methodologyxxviiixxx, 35, 191, 230,

Lake, Peter332 459, 533
Lambert, Franois19, 8193 Mildmay, Walter323
Lambeth Articles324 Miller, Perry471
Laplanche, Franois585 Mission403414, 489501
Latimer, Hugh3, 217, 222224 Mohammed, see Islam
Laurent, Gaspard245, 247 Molanus, Johannes417, 444
Lausanne Academy266 Moller, Henrich341
Law8, 275, 281, 290 Monastic life56
Le Faucheur, Michel249250 Montbliard263
Leibniz, G.W.679695 More, Thomas46
Leiden University415442 Moulin, Pierre du379, 425, 482
Leigh, Edward639 Muller, Richard A.xxviixxx, 18, 35, 81,
Leith, John309 123, 126, 153, 165, 172, 183, 186, 227230,
Leo X, Pope45 269, 284, 294, 305, 345, 347349,
Leydekker, Melchior450451 360361, 374, 402, 488, 505, 521, 540,
Lillback, Peter309 551, 567, 629, 631, 641, 651, 699, 737
Locke, John602 Mnster, Sebastian257
Lollards38 Musculus, Wolfgang102104, 108, 146,
Lombard, Peter19, 2627, 5859, 75, 186, 228, 259
357358, 467, 485, 716
Lords Supper, see Eucharist Nadere Reformatie372, 419420, 440,
Lubbertus, Sibrandus380 505, 519, 521, 532, 615, 619, 622, 627,
Ludwig V256 642646
Ludwig VI261, 317 Naples154, 156
Luther, Hans50, 65 Neo-Orthodoxy227228
Luther, Martinxxix, 333, 36, 4041, Nethanus, Matthew441
4548, 4966, 6779, 84, 91, 111, 113121, New England162
146, 186188, 237, 256, 264, 307308, 309, New Testament23
312313, 316, 393394, 458, 620 Nichols, James363
Lutheran1734, 262263, 308, 309, Nicodemism157, 160
457470, 724 Nominalism116117
Maassen, H.A.J.508 Oberman, Heiko21, 359, 488

Maccovius, Johannes515 Ochino, Bernardino154, 217
MacGavran, Donald401 Ockham, William67, 186, 357, 476
Mader, Timotheus261 Olevianus, Caspar271273, 281, 307320
Magdeburg50 Oomius, Simon641, 645652
Mainz, Archbishop of52 Origen389
Mainz, Theology Faculty44, 46 Osiander, Andreas11, 14, 24, 32
Marburg, University of29, 8193 Ostrorog, Nicholas236
Maresius, Samuel515516 Ottoman Empire186187
Mary, Queen322 Owen, John536, 539, 541, 578, 667
Mass, see Eucharist Oxford, University of168, 217218, 224
Mastricht, Petrus van272, 711, 713715, 720
Mather, Cotton162 Packer, J.I.677
Maximilian42 Padua, University of167, 185, 192
Mayer, John535 Palmer, Samuel601
McLelland, Joseph166, 201203 Pareus, David263, 271
McNair, Philip217 Paris3738, 40, 45, 48
Melanchthon, Philipxxviii, 7, 11, 1733, Parker, Mathew4
6871, 74, 84, 86, 124, 126127, 257, 296, Parker, Matthew322
312, 315316, 341, 458, 461, 484, 730 Parker, T.H.L.15
Merit174175 Parker, T.M.14
index799
Pelagius, Pelagianism54, 64, 100, 102, Roman Catholicism5, 14, 4966, 70, 156,
104106, 176, 182, 233, 238, 286, 294, 186, 216, 220, 278, 314, 318, 349, 398399,
307, 317, 349, 351, 356, 361, 700701 465, 507, 574, 704
Pellikan, Conrad258 Roman Inquisition156
Perkins, William327, 355, 368369, Roman Law43
400, 417418, 425, 535, 536, 717 Romans, Letter to the10, 19, 58, 60, 119,
Peter, Rudolph493 126, 177, 218, 237, 279, 307320,
Pfefferkorn, Johann41 333, 575
Philip of Hesse82, 89 Rummel, Erika35
Philosophy52, 54, 205214, 292293, Rupert of Deutz626
344, 597 Rupp, Gordon4
Pictet, Benedict482
Piety215224, 241, 302 Sacheverell601603
Pighius, Albert112 Salvation100, 106
Pinault, Jean245 Sancroft, William331
Pinckaers, Servais199 Sanctification8, 127, 133, 276
Pirckheimer, Willibald46 Saumur Academy583596, 699
Piscator, Johannes271282, 680 Schalbe, Heinrich51
Plato, Platonism292, 466, 480, 737747 Scheible, Heinz17, 24
Poland236237, 339346 Schmid, Johann Andreas689
Polanus, Amandus355 Scholasticism, Scholastic methodology48,
Polyander, Johannes380 53, 6263, 83, 8692, 111, 123, 166, 191, 197,
Poole, Matthew535 224, 229230, 233, 284, 521, 536542,
Poppi, Antonio167 580, 679
Possevino, Antionio445 Schurman, Anna Maria van613628
Practical Theology415442, 443456 Schweitzer, Alexander234
Praetorius, Peter343 Scots Confession403405
Predestination106, 111121, 123134, Scotus, Duns53, 116, 186, 415, 476, 527, 716
140142, 149, 165184, 232239, 287, 303, Scultetus, Abraham475, 478, 481
329, 332, 361, 378 Selderhuis, Herman125
Presbyterian330 Selnecker, Nikolaus72
Prost, Joseph585 Senensis, Bernardinus368
Providence112, 168170, 274 Sentences19
Psalms136151, 387400 Seymour, Edward217
Puckett, David395 Sheffield, Edmund159
Sibbes, Richard369
Ramus, Peter, Ramism400, 416 Simler, Josiah166, 183
Real Presence, see Eucharist Simon, Richard705
Reason, Rationalism199, 208, 293, Smetius, Henricus263
542543, 557 Smith, Richard217
Reformed Orthdoxyxxviii Socinus, Faustus, Socinianism551566,
Rehnman, Sebastian578579 567, 571, 573, 578, 580
Reid, Jonathan83 Spinoza, Baruch, Spinozism629640
Remonstrant362, 375378, 420, 424, 700, spirituali154, 156
720 Stanglin, Keith349350
Reprobation, see Predestination Staupitz, Johann von19, 57
Reuchlin, Johannes4048, 55 Steinmetz, David117, 227
Reuter, Quirinus263, 295 Strasbourg126
Reynolds, Edward475477, 483 Strauss, Gerald283
Reynolds, Joshua737748 Sturm, Erdmann296
Ridley, Nicholas5 Surez, Francisco347, 481, 670
Ritschl, Albrecht643 Swanenburg, Willem van362
Rivet, Andr613, 615, 623 Sylvester of Ferrara185
Rogers, Richard322 Synod of Homberg84, 89
800 index
Teelink, Willem419420 Virtue202, 207

Theodoret142 Vitringa, Campegius451452
theologia crucis5964 Vittoria, Francesco185
Theophil Mader of Thurgau263 Voetius, Gisbertus440441, 447448, 452,
Thirty Years War265 454455, 505520, 521532, 542, 547,
Thirty-Nine Articles1213, 15 568, 613, 615, 623
Thomas Aquinas, Thomism165184,
185197, 233, 347, 357, 387, 394395, 397, Wake, William707
398, 415, 471472, 479480, 482484, Walaeus, Antonius380, 425, 429
521532, 716 Wallis, John556
Thysius, Antonius380 Warneck, Gustav401
Til, Salomon van455 Weber, Max234
Timpler, Clemens292 Weemes, John475, 477488, 535,
Toledo, Francisco de292 546548
Tongern, Arnold von4142 Wendelin, Marcus Friedrich693695
Tossanus, Daniel262264, 724 Wengert, Timothy70
Travers, Walter322 Wesel, Johann Rucherat von39
Trebonius, John51 Wesley, Charles9
Tremellius, Immanuel263 Wesley, John712
Trent, Council of56, 13, 274, 320 Westminster Assemblyxxvix, 355
Trinity, Trinitarian618 Westminster Confession of Faith274, 324,
Trithemius, Johannes368 406
Tronchin, Thodore243254 White Horse Inn3, 11
Trutfetter, Jodocus5354 Whitefield, George712
Turretin, Francis552, 555, 699710, Wigand, Johannes72
713, 720 Will, human54, 111122, 288
Turretin, Jean-Alphonse699, 705710 Willet, Andrew486
William of St.-Thierry367
Udall, John331 Wilson, John535
Union with Christ79, 60, 63, 129, 133 Witgift, John323324
University18 Witsius, Herman452453
Ursinus, Zacharias261, 263, 269, 271, Witsius, Herman555
295305, 352, 487 Wittenberg1733, 67
Ussher, James353 Wittenberg, University of1733, 46, 55, 59,
Utrecht, University of505 6779, 89, 342
Uytenbogaert, Joannes362 Wollebius, Johannes355
Wright, William J.82, 85
Valla, Lorenzo119121 Wyclif, John39
Velzen, Cornelius van444, 453454
Vermigli, Peter Martyr45, 105108, Yale College718719
154155, 157, 165184, 185197, 199214,
215223, 259, 416, 474, 487, 734 Zanchi, Girolamo166, 185, 259, 271, 474,
Vernet, Jacob705 481, 680
Via antiqua53 Zepper, Wilhelm417
Via moderna5355, 59 Zwingli, Ulrich88, 112113, 260, 703

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Church and School in Early Modern Protestantism

Studies in the History of

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/shct

Studies in Honor of Richard A. Muller on the

Copyright 2013 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by KoninklijkeBrillNV

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Justification by Faith Alone: Martin Luther among the Early

Philip Melanchthon and Wittenbergs Reform of the

Academic Heresy, the Reuchlin Affair, and the Control of

Influences in Luthers Reforms 49

Pastoral Education in the Wittenberg Way 67

Franois Lambert dAvignon (ca. 14871530): Early Ecclesial

The Idea of a General Grace of God in Some Sixteenth-Century

Calvins Reception and Reformulation of the Necessitarian

The duplex gratia Dei and the Organization of Calvins Institutes:

Calvins Hermeneutics of the Imprecations of the Psalter135

The Italian Convert: Marquis Galeazzo Caracciolo and the

Confluence and Influence: Peter Martyr Vermigli and Thomas

Peter Martyr Vermigli, Scholasticism, and Aquinas Justice

Moral Philosophy and Moral Theology in Vermigli199

Word and Spirit in the Piety of Peter Martyr Vermigli as Seen

From Professors to Pastors: The Convoluted Careers of Jean

Swiss Students and Faculty at the University of Heidelberg,

The Attempt to Establish a Chair in Practical Theology at Leiden

Theologia practica: The Diverse Meanings of a Subject of

Lumina, non Numina: Patristic Authority According to Lutheran

The Logic of the Heart: Analyzing the Affections in Early Reformed

Reformed Education from Geneva through the Netherlands to

A Grievous Sin: Gisbertus Voetius (15891676) and His

Voetius on the Subject and Formal Act of HappinessA Scholastic

Revealing the Mind of God: Exegetical Method in the Seventeenth

Reason Run Amok? The Protestant Orthodox Charge of

Johannes Cocceius as Federal Polemicist: The Usefulness of the

A Smattering of the New Philosophy: tienne Gaussen

Nonconformist Schools, the Schism Act, and the Limits of

Piety, Theology, Exegesis, and Tradition: Anna Maria van

John Howe (16301705) on Divine Simplicity: A Debate over

Orthodoxy, Scholasticism, and Piety in the Seventeenth-Century

Mylius on Elleboogius: A Fatal Misinterpretation653

The Shape of Reformed Orthodoxy in the Seventeenth Century:

G.W. Leibniz and Protestant Scholasticism in the Years 16981704679

The Uniqueness of Christ in Post-Reformation Reformed

Jonathan Edwards (17031758) and the Nature of Theology711

Calvinism as Reformed Protestantism: Clarification of a Term723

Reconsidering the Platonism of Sir Joshua Reynolds (17231792)

The Bristol Academy and the Education of Ministers in

Bibliography of the Works of Richard A. Muller765

Fig. 1. Annual Number of Swiss Matriculants to the University of

ANF  Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James

Lombard, Sentences Peter Lombard, The Sentences, trans. Guilio Silano,

Vermigli, NE Peter Martyr Vermigli, Commentary on Aristotles

AAE  Arminius, Arminianism, and Europe: Jacobus Arminius

JRH Journal of Religious History

ADB Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie

Eerdmans William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

VI.Catechisms and Confessions

CA Augsburg Confession (format CA I.5)

Yuzo Adhinarta (Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is on the faculty at

Willem J. van Asselt (Ph.D., Utrecht University) is Senior Lecturer Emeritus

J. Mark Beach (Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is Professor of Ministerial

Andreas J. Beck (Ph.D., Utrecht University) is Dean and Professor of His

Joel R. Beeke (Ph.D., Westminster Theological Seminary) is President and

Influences in Luthers Reforms 49

Pastoral Education in the Wittenberg Way 67

Calvins Hermeneutics of the Imprecations of the Psalter135

Moral Philosophy and Moral Theology in Vermigli199

Mylius on Elleboogius: A Fatal Misinterpretation653

G.W. Leibniz and Protestant Scholasticism in the Years 16981704679

Jonathan Edwards (17031758) and the Nature of Theology711

Calvinism as Reformed Protestantism: Clarification of a Term723

Bibliography of the Works of Richard A. Muller765

Fig. 1. Annual Number of Swiss Matriculants to the University of

ANF Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James

Lombard, Sentences Peter Lombard, The Sentences, trans. Guilio Silano,

Vermigli, NE Peter Martyr Vermigli, Commentary on Aristotles

AAE Arminius, Arminianism, and Europe: Jacobus Arminius