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Calvin and Abraham: The Interpretation of Romans 4 in the Sixteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

David C. Steinmetz
David C. Steinmetz
Affiliation:
Mr. Steinmetz is Amos Ragan Kearns professor of the history of Christianity inthe Divinity School, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.
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Extract

It is possible to be so familiar with a subject that one no longer sees its peculiar features. Roger Fry, the English art critic, spoke of a specialization of vision that prevents us from observing familiar objects around us until artists awaken us to the distinctive reality of what we have overlooked by lending us their eyes. Historical discoveries are often very much like an aesthetic awakening. Only a relatively small percentage are prompted by the discovery of wholly new and previously unknown evidence. The great majority are stimulated by fresh insight into evidence so familiar that its significance has been underestimated or disregarded.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 57 , Issue 4 , December 1988 , pp. 443 - 455
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1988

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References

1. This essay was written with the assistance of a grant from the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, West Germany.

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12. Oecolampadius addresses the problem of justifying faith without a sure knowledge of Christ in Adnotationes, 40r; Hyperius argues that Abraham would never have believed the promise of God in Genesis 15 if he had not already believed the promise concerning Christ, the blessed seed, made earlier in Genesis 12 (Commentarii, p. 75).

13. Bucer, , Metaphrases, p. 218.Google Scholar

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20. Compare, for example, the relatively positive assessment of Oecolampadius with the relatively negative assessment of Beza: Oecolampadius, , Adnotationes, 38v;Google ScholarBeza, , Annotationes, p. 46.Google Scholar

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22. Bucer, , Metaphrases, p. 213.Google Scholar

23. Catherinus, , Commentaria, p. 46.Google Scholar

24. Bucer, , Metaphrases, p. 214.Google Scholar

25. An excellent discussion of the theological issues involved in a scholastic reading of Romans 4 is offered by the fifteenth-century commentator Denis the Carthusian in his In Omnes Beati Pauli Epistolas Commentaria (Cologne, 1545), 10v–11r.Google Scholar

26. Catherinus, , Commentaria, p. 46.Google Scholar

27. See especially Beilage 1 and 2 of Melanchthon, , Römerbrief, pp. 373–392.Google Scholar

28. Hemmingsen, , Commentarius, p. 125;Google Scholar Calvin mentions the same point in his treatment of Romans 4:23.

29. Calvin, , Commentarius, p. 80.Google Scholar

30. Ibid., pp. 86–87.

31. Ibid., pp. 86–87.

32. Erasmus Sarcerius finds twenty-two enthymemata in Romans 4; see his Scholia on Romans 4:1.

33. Calvin, , Commentarius, pp. 80–82.Google Scholar

34. Ibid., pp. 84–85.

35. Calvin, , Commentarius, p. 85;Google ScholarRomans, p. 87.

36. Calvin, , Commentarius, p. 85;Google ScholarRomans, p. 87.

37. Calvin, , Commentarius, p. 77;Google ScholarRomans, p. 79.

38. Melanchthon, , Römerbrief, pp. 127–128.Google Scholar

39. Calvin, , Commentarius, p. 81;Google ScholarRomans, p. 83.

40. Guilliaude, , Collatio, 25v.Google Scholar

41. Calvin, , Commentarius, pp. 96–97;Google ScholarRomans, p. 98.

42. Melanchthon, , Römerbrief, pp. 123–124.Google Scholar

43. Calvin, , Commentarius, pp. 80–81;Google ScholarRomans, pp. 83–84.

44. Calvin, , Commentarius, pp. 95–96.Google Scholar

45. Musculus outlines the various schools of interpretation on this question; Commentarii, p. 103.

46. Calvin, , Commentarius, pp. 95–96.Google Scholar In his commentary on Genesis 25:1 (1554) Calvin suggests that Abraham married Keturah before Sarah died, though he still believes in a miraculous restoration of Abraham's sexual vitality.

47. Calvin, , Commentarius, p. 84.Google Scholar

48. Ibid., pp. 88–89.

49. Ibid., p. 88.

50. Ibid., pp. 86–87.

51. Calvin first refers readers to his commentaries in the 1539 edition of the Institutes, prior to the publication of the first edition of the Romans commentary in 1540.