Strangers to Sisters - Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary Library: Essays

Scripture. He was in short a Biblical theologian whose
motto was “simpliciter standum esse in verbo divino.”
Johnson was to become, like Thistedahl, a Biblical and
strongly confessional Lutheran theologian. 16
Johnson’s academic prowess and theological acumen were recognizable also to
the officials at the University of Christiania. Upon his graduation, he was offered a
position as professor of theology. Instead of starting service right away, Johnson opted
for a year of study in Germany. The year spent in Germany was fruitful on two accounts.
The first is that Johnson’s further study in Germany only confirmed his biblical,
confessional stance. While in Germany, Johnson came into contact with all the important
figures of the confessional revival. But perhaps of greater import was his meeting and
subsequent fraternal and professional relationship with a young linguist, theologian, and
church historian named Carl Paul Caspari. Their time as professors and lecturers at the
University of Christiania would eventually come to define the Norwegian Hermeneutic.
Carl Paul Caspari is one of the greatest linguists that the Lutheran Church has
ever known and yet sadly remains in relative obscurity to this day. To illustrate Caspari’s
gift for languages, Torald Teigen related the following story about Caspari,
Caspari was traveling incognito with some scholars who
were conversing in Latin. When Caspari entered into the
conversation in Latin, they switched to Greek; and still
trying to throw him off they switched to Hebrew and then
to several other less known languages, Caspari speaking the
others more fluently then they. Finally one of the travelers
said, “Either you are the devil himself or you are Professor
Caspari of Christiania.” 17
Caspari, born in 1814 in Dessau, Germany of Jewish parents, received his earliest
training in some of the Jewish schools around Dessau, but later matriculated through the
16 Langlais, 12.
17 Torald Teigen, “A Few Notes on Professor Carl Paul Caspari” Clergy Bulletin 15, no.7 (September
1955), 59.
16