Editor ’ Sp Reface
Editor’s Preface
After publishing the first volume of Johann Gerhard’s monumental Theological Commonplaces, Concordia Publishing House charged me with the task of preparing the other volumes of Gerhard’s great work for publication. It was a great joy to work through the commonplaces on the nature of God and on the most holy mystery of the Trinity. Different as these two commonplaces are—the former making significant use of reason and philosophy, the latter relying almost exclusively on biblical exegesis—they are united in their opposition, above all, to the errors of the “Photinians,” the early modern Unitarians who are sometimes called “Socinians.” Lutherans and others called these Unitarians “Photinians” because they held beliefs similar to the ancient heresy of Photinus, who viewed Christ basically as a mere man and denied the personality of the Holy Spirit. Many of the rationalistic approaches to theology employed by the Photinians are perennial in Chris-tian thought since the Enlightenment. Thus Gerhard’s Commonplaces will have something to say even in today’s theological climate.
Gerhard makes much use of Scripture. The wording of the Scripture passages he gives often matches that of the Clementine Vulgate of 1592, but it deviates from this as well, following the biblical Hebrew and Greek, or possibly a different version of the Latin Bible.1 He also makes much use of philosophical terminology. To shed light on the meanings of these terms, I have consulted the following works:
Joannes Altenstaig and Joannes Tytz. Lexicon Theologicum. Cologne: Petrus Henningius, 1619; reprint, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1974.
Roy J. Deferrari. A Lexicon of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1948–49.
Balthasar Meisner. Philosophia sobria, Hoc est: Pia consideratio quaestionum philosophicarum, in controversiis theologicis, quas Calviniani moverunt Orthodoxis, subinde occurrentium. Wittenberg: Johannes Richter, 1614.
Johann Micraelius. Lexicon philosophicum terminorum philosophis usitatorum: Ordine alphabetico sic digestorum, ut inde facile liceat cognosse, praesertim si tam Latinus, quam Graecus index praemissus non negligatur. Editio Secunda ab ipso Authore correcta & aucta, cum novis novorum terminorum & vocabulorum indicibus. [Electronic edition]. Stetini: Mamphrasius, 1661. PURL: http://diglib.hab.de/drucke/201-29-quod/start.htm
Richard A. Muller. A Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985.
Johann Adam Scherzer. Vade mecum sive Manuale philosophicum. Leipzig: Christian Kirchner, 1675; reprint, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1996.
Ludwig Schütz. Thomas-Lexikon: Sammlung, Übersetzung und Erklärung der in sämtlichen Werken des h. Thomas von Aquin vorkommenden Kunstausdrücke und wissenschaftliche Aussprüche. 2d rev. ed. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1957.
Nuntio Signoriello. Lexicon peripateticum philosophico-theologicum, in quo scholasticorum distinctiones et effata praecipua explicantur. Editio novissima. Naples: Apud officinam Bibliothecae Catholicae Scriptorum, 1893.
There are four main editions of Gerhard’s Theological Commonplaces: the Jena edition of 1610 (the edition printed during Gerhard’s lifetime), the Frankfurt/Hamburg edition of 1657 (edited by Johann Ernst Gerhard, the author’s son), the Tübingen edition of 1762 (edited by Johann Friedrich Cotta), and the Berlin/Leipzig edition of 1863 (edited by Edward Preuss). Dr. Richard Dinda made his translation from the Preuss edition, and I have edited the text with an eye not only on Preuss but also on the Cotta edition, which was employed to correct the many typographical errors of Preuss’s edition (many of which were carried forward from the Frankfurt/Hamburg edition). On the top of each page of the Concordia edition, references are given to both the Cotta and Preuss editions. Thus “C3:44” means “Cotta edition, volume 3, page 44,” and “P1:143” means “Preuss edition, volume 1, page 143.”
In the preface to his edition, Preuss noted that he was reprinting the Jena edition of 1610. However, instead of including the original Commonplaces I–VI of the Jena edition, Preuss substituted the four commonplaces he found at the beginning of the Frankfurt/Hamburg edition. These were published in 1625, after Gerhard had finished his Theological Commonplaces, with the title “Exegesis, or a more copious explanation of certain articles of the Christian religion.” They were not meant to be a substitute for the 1610 Commonplaces I–VI but were intended as a supplement. It is these “Exegesis” Commonplaces that Preuss included, and it is the same that we present to our readers here. These “Exegesis” Commonplaces have been included with printings of Gerhard’s Theological Commonplaces since the Frankfurt/Hamburg edition; therefore they do belong in this series. Yet we hope to give our readers more clarity on what they are reading than Preuss gave to his readers.
The enumeration of the commonplaces has also presented difficulties. Both Preuss and Cotta presented different numbering systems than the seventeenth-century editions of the Theological Commonplaces. We have decided to follow the original enumeration as found in the Jena and Frankfurt/Hamburg editions. A comparison chart is included on p. xii.
In the Concordia edition, we refer to the commonplaces included both in the original Jena edition and in Preuss’s edition as, for example, “Commonplace XI.” We refer to the “Exegesis” commonplaces included in Preuss’s edition as “1625 Exegesis, Commonplace II.” And we refer to the original Commonplaces I–VI, which were not included in Preuss’s edition, as “1610 Loci Theologici, locus 5.” In the indices, reference is given first to the commonplace number, then to the section number. For example: “E3.34” means “1625 Exegesis, Commonplace III, § 34.” And “8.55” means “1610 Commonplace VIII, § 55.” This manner of indexing will allow the reader to refer to any edition of the Theological Commonplaces from the seventeenth century to the present.
Gerhard’s work is carefully laid out in an outline style, with arguments, counterarguments, and responses enumerated one after another. Yet in the Jena, Frankfurt/Hamburg, and Preuss editions this outline structure is easily overlooked because the levels of the outline are not distinguished from one another. Readers may become confused as they pass from point 1 to points 1 and 2 of a sublevel, only to return to point 2 of the top level of the outline. For the Concordia edition we have followed the outline numbering in Cotta, which we believe will make Gerhard’s work easier to follow.
Preuss’s edition and the Concordia edition occasionally surround sections of text with double asterisks (**). These sections are Gerhard’s marginal notes on his Theological Commonplaces that his son included in the Frankfurt/Hamburg edition.
A works cited list has been included in the Concordia edition. I have tried to cite the latest edition before 1625 (the year in which the Exegesis Commonplaces began to be published). Not all the works Gerhard cites could be located. I have not sought out the books and opened them to ensure that Gerhard was citing this or that particular edition or to ensure that he was quoting them correctly. Some of the entries in the list are printed in bold text. This means the book was in the Gerhard library. However, because this library was constructed not only by Johann Gerhard but also by his son Johann Ernst Gerhard, and because we do not know when he acquired these books or whether he preferred to use a borrowed book, care should be taken in drawing conclusions from this data. In addition, sometimes Gerhard does not give exact references to the sources he quotes. Sometimes he reproduces citations that have been quoted in the work of someone else. This seems to be the case, for example, when he quotes rabbis by name without more specific information. If no bibliographic information is included in the works cited list, the reader should check to see if Gerhard has mentioned a contemporary work in a previous paragraph. This may be the source of the quotation. Finally, this edition includes a Name Index and a Scripture Index. The Scripture Index will aid pastors and teachers in the preparation of sermons and Bible studies, as well as in other teaching and writing.
I would like to give public thanks to the Rev. Paul T. McCain, publisher and executive director of the Editorial Division of Concordia Publishing House, for his leadership in bringing about this publication, the first full translation of Gerhard’s Theological Commonplaces into any language. In addition, I would like to acknowledge the hard work expended by Dr. Richard Dinda, the translator; by Dawn Mirly Weinstock, production editor for the series; and by several experts in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and early modern philosophy, especially the Rev. Heath R. Curtis, Dr. Christopher Mitchell, and Dr. Richard A. Muller. May this English edition be to the glory of God the Holy Trinity and to the edification of His Church.
Benjamin T. G. Mayes
1 Gerhard’s library included eighteen different versions of the Bible in Latin. See Johann Anselm Steiger et al., eds., Bibliotheca Gerhardina: Rekonstruktion der Gelehrten- und Leihbibliothek Johann Gerhards (1582–1637) und seines Sohnes Johann Ernst Gerhard (1621–1668) (Stuttgart–Bad Cannstatt: Frommann–Holzboog, 2002), 1:41–42. Gerhard refers to many of these versions in the course of this volume.