Schaff - History of the Christian Church Vol. 8 - Media Sabda Org

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ft781 “Der Schoepfer der aechten Exegese.” Diestel adds: “Johannes Calvin
ragt ebensowohl durch den Umfang seiner exegetischen Arbeiten wie
durch eine seltene Genialitat in der Auslegung hervor; unuebertroffen
in seinem Jahrhundert, bieten seine Exegesen fuer alle folgenden
Zeiten noch bis heute einen reichen Stoff der Schriftkenntniss dar.”
Geschichte des Alten Testaments in der christl. Kirche, Jena, 1869, p.
267. Dr. A. Merx of Heidelberg, another master in biblical philology,
fully agrees: “Calvin ist der groesste Exeget seiner Zeit ... der
Schoepfer der aechten Exegese” (on Joel, p. 428), and he ascribes to
him, besides the necessary learning, including Hebrew, the sagacity of
understanding and explaining the whole from the parts, and the parts
from the whole.
ft782 G. Wohlenberg, a Lutheran divine, begins a notice of the new edition
of Calvin’s Commentaries on the New Test. (in Luthardt’s, Theol. Lit.blatt,”
Oct. 9, 1891) with this remark: “Calvin’s Commentare zum N.
T. gehoeren zu den nie veraltenden Werken. Und so gut wie Bengel’s
‘Gnomon’ immer wieder gedruckt und gelesen werden wird, so lange
es eine gesunde und fromme Schrifterklaerung giebt, so werden auch
Calvin’s Commentare nie vergessen werden.”
ft783 “Calvinus miram in pervidenda apostoli mente subtilitatem, in
exponenda prespicuitatem probavit.” In the third ed. of his Com. on
the Ep. to the Galatians.
ft784 “Ignavus in grammatica est ignavus in theologia.” Postill. IV. 428.
ft785 Calvin himself fully acknowledged the exegetical merits of
Melanchthon, Bullinger, and Bucer, in their commentaries on Romans,
but modestly hints at their defects to justify his own commentary,
which is far superior. See his interesting dedication to Grynaeus,
written in 1539.
ft786 He wrote in 1523 that, ten years before (when priest at Glarus),
“operam dedi Graecianis literis, ut ex fontibus doctrinam Christi
haurire possem.”
ft787 De Modo legendi et intelligendi Hebraeum, written at Tuebingen or
Basel in 1501, first printed in the Margarita philosophica, at
Strassburg in 1504 (one or two years before Reuchlin’s Rudimenta
Linguae Hebr.), recently discovered and republished by Nestle,
Tuebingen, 1877.