Editions Of The Theological Commonplaces
EDITIONS OF THE THEOLOGICAL COMMONPLACES
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 (some 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-VII 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-VII 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. xviii.
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-VII, 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.
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.