Introduction

Calvin’s relation to Luther and Zwingli, and Calvin’s life and personality. Then in three shorter chapters I will deal with Calvin’s preaching, exegesis, and polemics. Finally, in a fifth and main chapter I will treat of Calvin's theological system on the basis of the /Institutes. In my view we must first prepare the way for an understanding of the Institutes by getting a picture of what Calvin said extemporaneously when addressing the congregation, when he read and expounded the Bible with no set purpose, and when he fought with opponents now on the one front and now on the other. Little work has been done in this field, and I cannot promise to cut a wide swath through this almost unexplored territory. But the last great book on Calvin, that of Wernle,!> has made it clear to me that I must at least venture to take this course.

I am quoting Calvin from the Corpus Reformatorum edition, vols. 29-87 (quoted as 1-59).!6 Tholuck has editions of the Institutes and the most important exegetical writings.!7 These editions may often be picked up, and I recommend you to buy them if you have the chance. E. E K. Miller of Erlangen edited a German translation of the Institutes and most of the exegetical works, and Rudolf Schwarz translated a selection of the letters.!8 These are aids for which we must be grateful now that almost all of us do not read Latin as readily as our parents and grandparents. Yet that does not mean that if we really want a thorough grasp of the subject we can do other than stick to the original text.

I will add further books for study as we come to each section.

15. PR Wernle, Der evangelische Glaube nach den Hauptschrifien der Reformatoren, vol. III, Calvin (Tiibingen, 1919).

16. See the editor’s preface above.

17. Johannis Calvini Institutio, ed. A. Tholuck (Berlin, 1834-35); and Johannes Calvini Commentarii in NT, ed. A. Tholuck (Berlin, 1831-34).

18. E. EK. Miiller, Johannes Calvin, Unterricht in der christlichen Religion (Neukirchen, 1909) (translation incomplete) and Johannes Calvins Auslegung der Heiligen Schrift in deutscher Ubersetzung, 14 vols. (Neukirchen, 1919ff.); R. Schwarz, Johannes Calvins Lebenswerk in seinen Briefen: Eine Auswahl von Briefen Calvins in deutscher Ubersetzung, 2 vols. (Tubingen, 1909; 2nd ed. in 3 vols., Neukirchen, 1961-62).

Zz I S

Reformation and Middle Ages

Loofs, Leitfaden, 4th ed., 601-62; Tschackert, Entstehung der lutherischen und der reformierten Kirchenlehre, 6-33; Seeberg, Dogmengeschichte, 2nd ed., IV, 1-55; Troeltsch, “Protestantisches Christentum und Kirche in der Neuzeit,” in Kultur der Gegenwart, 1/4, section 1; and on this Loofs, Luthers Stellung zum Mittelalter und zur Neuzeit (Halle, 1907); Troeltsch, Soziallehren der christlichen Kirchen und Gruppen, 427-512; Hermelink (in Kriiger’s Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte), 1-58. No matter what our evaluation of them, it will be seen that the works of Troeltsch had the greatest influence on early 20th-century discussion.

In the first instance Calvin’s theology naturally interests us in its historical context as an outstanding record of Reformation theology that historically and at times even legally has served as a basis of proclamation in modern Protestant churches. If it is of concern to us as Protestant theologians to be clear where we come from and where we are going as

1. E Loofs, Leitfaden zum Studium der Dogmengeschichte, 4th ed. (1906; enlarged 7th ed. by K. Aland; Tübingen, 1968 [page numbers given in parentheses]); P. Tschackert, Die Entstehung der lutherischen und der reformierten Kirchenlehre (Gottingen, 1910); R. Seeberg, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, vol. IV (Leipzig, 1917; 4th ed.), §73, Prolegomena; E. Troeltsch, “Protestantisches Christentum und Kirche in der Neuzeit,” in Die Kultur der Gegenwart (Berlin and Leipzig, 1906), 254-69; F. Loofs, Luthers Stellung zum Mittelalter und zur Neuzeit ... (Halle, 1907); E. Troeltsch, Die Soziallehren der christlichen Kirchen und Gruppen, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. I (Tubingen, 1912); H. Hermelink, Reformation und Gegenreformation, part 3 of Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte, ed. G. Kriiger (Tübingen, 1911). such, then we have every reason to turn again and again to the question how far what we are and think and say does truly, and not merely according to the claim made or displayed on Reformation Days or similar occasions, correspond to what the founders of Protestant theology were and to what they thought and said about God and the world and humanity. And if beyond that perhaps it is also necessary that we should consider the justification of ourselves from a deeper angle, namely, as a question of truth, then we really have cause to be concerned why it was that Protestant theology came into existence as a newborn child, and how in that early period it put to itself and answered the question of truth.

Before we turn to Calvin in particular, we would do well to take our bearings in a brief survey of the relation of the complex of events that we usually call the Reformation to the age which preceded it and also more generally of what this complex meant, as a symptom, for the human situation as a whole. Naturally in this compass I cannot unfold the problem of the Middle Ages and the Reformation in all its breadth. Use the literature on the subject, but with caution. For nowhere is it so obvious how much the historical position of the historian affects the picture given, as we see in the controversies regarding this problem over the last fifteen years.” Finally, even though our knowledge of the sources be modest, it is better to try to see with our own eyes than to follow one of the grandiose hypotheses now current, stimulating though these might be in detail. Since Calvin's theology is our theme, I will limit myself to showing how to get a basic grasp of the relation between Reformation theology and that of the Middle Ages which preceded it. When I compare the thinking of the reformers to that of medieval theologians so far as I know them both, the following picture emerges.