Editor’s Introduction
EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
In 1613, when these commonplaces On the Law of God and On the Ceremonial and Forensic Laws were published, Johann Gerhard had been a widower for two years. He was still serving (as he had since 1606) as superintendent of twenty-six parishes in the vicinity of Heldburg, about 22 km west of Coburg. Although his later fame as a professor at Jena often overshadows his pastoral experience, Gerhard was involved in pastoral ministry and episcopal oversight of congregations for a decade, from 1606 until 1616. His pastoral practice during this time was especially directed toward a second round of parish visitations, which as superintendent he conducted from July 22 to November 11, 1613. It was a strenuous and exhausting period that left Gerhard seriously ill and his fellow visitor dead.1 In the period from 1611 to 1613, Gerhard also brought out other publications, such as The Daily Exercise of Piety (1612)2 and his Postil of 1613 (sermons on the customary, annually recurring Gospel readings of the church year).3
The present volume, however, discusses the three kinds of divine laws, that is, the various commands revealed by God in Holy Scripture, of which only the moral Law is eternal and universal for all people, times, and places. The beginnings of these two commonplaces4 can be traced to Gerhard’s participation in formal disputations about five years earlier.5 Beginning on February 5, 1607, Gerhard held monthly disputations in Coburg on theological topics. In advance of each disputation, the list of theses was printed. The disputation on the Law was held on September 13, 1608. It appears that this disputation was put into print in a collection: Gerhard’s Succinct and Select Aphorisms.6 Since Gerhard apparently did not hold a disputation at this time on the ceremonial and forensic laws, the Succinct and Select Aphorisms likewise lacks that chapter. The Aphorisms on the Law are certainly a stage in the development of what would be included in Gerhard’s famous Theological Commonplaces. Most of the chapter on the Law in the Aphorisms deals with the impossibility of perfectly fulfilling it. There is no discussion of the Decalogue, except for the issue of images. Although the kinds of divine law are distinguished, the Aphorisms do not discuss the ceremonial and forensic laws.
Gerhard did not refer to his moral, ethical instruction as “ethics” or “moral theology.” He did, however, deal with this field of study, not only in the Theological Commonplaces but also in his five books of the Schola Pietatis (The School of Piety, 1622–23) and elsewhere.7 The Schola Pietatis expands upon the commonplace On the Law of God, fulfilling Gerhard’s plan mentioned in several places of On the Law of God:
At this point an extensive discussion about these virtues could be opened, namely, in regard to: (1) what each virtue includes, (2) what causes should urge us to each of them, (3) what promises are connected to each, and (4) by what examples the truth of the promises has been demonstrated. All of these examples can be sought out in rich supply from the sermons of the prophets, Christ, and the apostles. A diligent interpreter of Scripture should bring all of these to bear on this [commandment]. However, the plan we have established does not allow us to discuss it in this place. It is enough that we have pointed our finger at the sources.8
These commonplaces have attracted attention throughout the past 400 years. In the eighteenth century, the section on the Sabbath9 and especially on the ceremonial laws attracted extensive consideration. Johann Friedrich Cotta’s footnotes for the section on the ceremonial laws in his edition of the Theological Commonplaces are lengthier than Gerhard’s body text. In that era, there was significant interest in the Old Testament ceremonies as prophetic types pointing forward to Christ.10 In the nineteenth century, Gerhard’s teaching on images (First Commandment), the Sabbath (Third Commandment), the impossibility of perfectly keeping the Law in this life, and the necessity of the Law for believers (against antinomianism) received consideration.11 In the early twentieth century, Renatus Hupfeld emphasized Gerhard’s teaching that the moral Law reflects God’s essence and is spiritual and inward.12 Hupfeld apparently was uninterested in the specific moral precepts that Gerhard explicates on the basis of the Decalogue. He focused instead on the contours of Gerhard’s ethical system.
According to Hupfeld, Gerhard’s term for Christian ethics is pietas (“piety, godliness”). It is understood as “obedience to the whole Law of God, and even as the fount of that obedience that is pleasing to God, namely, true repentance, whose ‘soul,’ so to speak, is true faith in Christ.”13 The difference between Lutheran and Roman Catholic ethics lies chiefly in how the human heart is viewed. The “Papists” claim that those who are not reborn and renewed can nevertheless, from their natural powers, do good works and merit God’s grace by a “congruous merit,” whereas Lutherans claim that man must be made into a “good tree” before he can bring forth “good fruits” (Matt. 12:33).14 Thus the goal of human activity cannot be found in the inner harmony of the soul’s powers but in something that transcends the individual. Gerhard sees the goal as man’s directedness toward God,15 a goal that will not be attained in this life but only in the resurrection.16 The image of God and conformity with the moral Law are basically identical, since, for Gerhard, the moral Law is the revelation of God’s essence.17 The God who commanded perfect love is Himself love (1 John 4:8, 16). The kind of holiness that God commands is based on His own holiness. “You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy” (Lev. 19:2). Gerhard emphasizes that the Law requires not just external actions or refraining from sins, but much more: fear of God, trust in God, and love for God and neighbor. His exposition of all the Commandments comes back continually to this commandment of love (Deut. 6:5; 13:3; Matt. 22:37–39; Mark 12:30–31; Luke 10:27).18
Of course, most of this is standard fare for late Reformation and post-Reformation Lutheran theology. For much of the commonplace On the Law of God, Gerhard closely follows Martin Chemnitz’s Loci Theologici. Since this is so, it is worthwhile to read both authors together to see what parts are unique to Gerhard. By doing so, one can identify Gerhard’s individual contributions, and perhaps even his tacit corrections.