THE PROVENANCE OF JOHN CALVIN'S EMPHASIS ON THE ...

placing loci into their commentaries after they had provided a running exegesis
of the text and his critique of Melanchthon for offering only the loci and not the
running commentary, the thrust of the two prefaces is not to disparage the work
of gathering loci as part of the process of biblical interpretation but rather [to]
promote the establishment of a proper division of labor. 495
Such a method, according to Muller, has, for Calvin, roots in both his humanist
training and the medieval tradition; its gestures are both classical and scholastic. On the
one hand, classical and humanist values are exhibited by his "strict observance of the
boundaries of literary genre," 496 by his penchant for "'perspicuous brevity' (perspicua
brevitas) and 'ease' or 'smoothness of exposition' (facilitas)," 497 and by a "Renaissance
modification of dialectic and rhetoric" in the use of the locus or topos, which
1971), 50-54. Calvin says of Bucer: "Bucer is too verbose to be read quickly by those who have other
matter to deal with, and too profound to be easily understood by less intelligent and attentive readers.
Whatever the subject with which he is dealing, so many subjects are suggested to him by his incredible
and vigorous fertility of mind, that he does not know how to stop writing" ("Dedication," The Epistles of
Paul the Apostle to the Romans and to the Thessalonians, trans. R. MacKenzie, CNTC 8:3).
495 Muller, Unaccommodated Calvin, 28; also 102ff, and 177. See also Steinmetz, Calvin in
Context, 13-14. So, as Elsie Anne McKee has demonstrated, most often the biblical references in the
Institutio ought to be taken as "cross-references" to Calvin's own commentaries, or, as Muller asserts,
perhaps "viewed as references to the exegetical tradition and not as 'proof-texts' . . . ." (respectively,
McKee, "Exegesis, Theology, and Development in Calvin's Institutio: A Methodological Suggestion,"
156; and Muller, Unaccommodated Calvin, 107, with reference to the discussion dicta probantia in
Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics. II. Holy Scripture: The Cognitive Foundation
of Theology [Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1993], 525-40. Elsewhere Muller asserts "Once it is
recognized that the Institututes must be read in a developmental relationship with Calvin's exegetical and
interpretive work, the issue of Calvin's relationship to the history of exegesis rises in importance as a key
to the understanding of his theology. As scholars like Steinmetz, Schriener, and Thompson have shown,
Calvin's exegetical theology frequently reflects the older tradition: Calvin not only studied the exegetical
works of contemporaries like Bucer, Bullinger, and Oecolampadius; he also read carefully in the
commentaries of fathers like Ambrose, Augustine, Chrysostom and quite possible of medieval exegetes
like Niclas of Lyra and Denis the Carthusian" [Muller, Unaccommodated Calvin, 116]).
496 Muller, Unaccommodated Calvin, 29.
497 Muller, Unaccommodated Calvin, 112, citing a letter of Calvin to Grynaeus (CO 10: 402-03).
In his note, Muller writes, "These often cited terms, brevitas and facilitas, must be understood, contra the
view of Battles and Gamble, as stylistic or rhetorical and methodological rather than as hermeneutical
principles" that rule out the 'allegorical' exegesis of Origen or Augustine." Muller cites one work of Ford
Lewis Battles, and three articles of Richard Gamble. Muller also notes that these values reflect those of
Lefèvre and his circle. See also Steinmetz, Calvin in Context, 14.
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