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General Introduction

III. CALVIN AS RENAISSANCE HUMANIST

I.Calvin's " Literalism"

Calvin's exegetical method and procedure were the product of a century of classical humanism, first in Italy, but later especially in Northern Europe. Humanists, such as Lorenzo Valla[31](1407-1457), Guillaume Budé[32](1467-1540) and Erasmus[33](1466-1536), had in common a zeal for recovering the literature of Greece and Rome, and for publishing reliable versions of the old classics. They loved the wisdom and style of the ancient writers, and drank up their sayings for new insight into a virtuous and happy life. These men, and many others like them, were fine linguists and critics, with whom it was axiomatic that the establishment of the best possible text of a writing was the first step toward understanding it. They compared manuscripts and authorities, and assumed the responsibility of producing their own editions of the classics. Calvin, who was trained in the humanistic method, and admired Budé and Erasmus greatly, took it for granted that before commenting on any passage in Scripture, he had to ascertain what the author of it actually said.

The so-called literalism of Calvin is directly related to the Renaissance scholars' desire to get at the original and " genuine" meaning of a text. Reformers, like Luther, Bucer, and Zwingli, as well as Calvin, who were all indebted to Erasmus and the humanistic method, agreed that thenaturalmeaning of a statement was to be preferred to one arrived at by way of allegorizing or supplying a meaning other than theliteral. This method was a commonplace among humanists, who applied it to Greek and Roman writings earlier than to the Bible. Allegory was contrary to the humanistic canon of interpretation; and " literalism," that is, the desire to get at an author's own mind, was of its essence.

So we find Calvin bent upon establishing what a given author in fact said. He criticized the church fathers, especially Augustine, Chrysostom, and Jerome, for dealing too subtly with the texts, for allegorizing and speculation; even though he obviously takes their understanding of the Bible more seriously than he does that of the humanists.[34]He complains repeatedly that even while Augustine's remarks on a given passage are good, they are irrelevant to the purpose of its writer (on Rom. 8:28, John 1:16). Allegorizing was misunderstanding, and misunderstanding was the evil a scholar had to avoid by all means.

Neither the humanists nor Calvin meant by the literal meaning necessarily an unspiritual meaning. The natural interpretation of a passage for them was one that did Justice to theintentionof the author. When Calvin protested against allegorizing, he was protesting not against finding a spiritual meaning in a passage, but against finding one that was not there. The Word of God written for the upbuilding of the church was of course spiritual, but in the primary sense of leading to the knowledge of God and obedience to him. Calvin's " literalism" establishes rather than dissolves the mystery of the Word of God, provided for the Christian's help and comfort.

2.Calvin as Historian

As a disciplined humanist, Calvin recognized that the Biblical writers, for example the prophets, wrote for their own times and situations. In this sense, Calvin is a confirmed " historicist." When Isaiah, or Hosea, or Jeremiah, or a psalmist speaks he speaks for the benefit of God's people or the church in his own day. The Holy Spirit does indeed speak by them prophesying the Messiah, and for the future church. Calvin can say that Isaiah foresaw the glory of Christ (on John 12:45). But he habitually looks at the prophecies quoted in the New Testament, not from the position of the prophet, but from that of the apostles or Evangelists who " applied" them to their own situation. Even while he assumes that the New Testament writers wrote as dictated and directed by the Holy Spirit, as a commentator he is concerned with the way they dealt with the Old Testament; and he speaks of their activity as applying [traho,apto], both in the active and in the passive.[35]His basic conviction in this matter, put in practice throughout his Commentaries, is that the Old Testament applied to the situation of the early church, especially to the mission of Christ, and that the Bible as a whole applies to the situation of the church in his time So, he is interested in the way the New Testament writers applied prophecy to their own history after Christ. In fact, in the Old Testament itself, the exodus from Egypt is more than an incident in the past. It is a parable of the life of Israel, and we might add, of human life in general. The same is true of the mission of Christ, and his cross. Calvin was profoundly impressed with the analogy between Christ's destiny and that of the church in his time. Thus he saw a profound continuity between the Old Testament and the New, and between both and the events of his day (on Matt. 3:3).

To Calvin, the ultimate end of the Bible is the Kingdom of Christ, his reign over the people of God, and their faithfulness and obedience to him. This end was seen in the Old Testament dimly, or as he likes to say,umbratile, in a shadowy way. It was only right that when Christ came, the Evangelists should have applied the prophecies to him; for the words fitted him and his work far better than they did David, or Cyrus, and their works. Commenting on Matt. 27:35, he says that the statement of Ps. 22:18,They parted my garments among them, and did they cast lots upon my vesture, applies better to Christ than to David who was speaking of himself only by way of metaphor. The same according to Calvin is true of Ps. 118:22,The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner(Matt. 21:42). Christ himself applies Jer. 7:11,But you have made it a den of robbers, to his own situation, when he cleanses the Temple (Matt. 21:13).

As a critic Calvin recognized in the Bible a natural working of the human mind which is not always too clear or too apt. Commenting on 1 Peter 3:14,And be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled, he goes so far as to accuse Peter of misconstruing Isaiah (ch. 8). But he excuses Peter on the ground that he was only referring to the prophet for a purpose of his own, and not explaining " every word used by the prophet." He says that when Paul quoted Ps. 68:19, in Eph. 4:8,When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men, he actually changed the wording of the psalm, even though " he can hardly be said to have departed from the substance." But he believes that Paul did not actually quote the psalm; he " used it as an expression of his own, adapted to the matter on hand." Paul more than once gets into difficulties by using " the Greek translators" (on Heb. 10:5, 38), and at least once one cannot tell what prophet he is quoting from (on 1 Cor. 15:54). When Stephen says in Acts 7:16 that the patriarchs were taken to Shechem and buried in a sepulcher bought by Abraham, he clearly contradicts Gen. 50:13, Josh. 24:32. Calvin refers to Jerome's statement that the pilgrim Paula saw the tombs of the twelve patriarchs in Shechem. But he is not convinced. He says that perhaps Moses was using " synecdoche," that is, Joseph stands for the patriarchs; or that perhaps Luke was following an old tradition. He ends the discussion with,Quare hic locus corrigendus est. Hence this verse must be corrected! (See also on Josh. 24:32, Gen. 46:8, 47:31.) He also admits that when Luke made Paul speak Hebrew in Jerusalem, he may have been mistaken. Calvin thinks Paul spoke the common language of the day -- Aramaic (Acts 22:2). He thinks Mark is less accurate than Luke about Easter morning (on Mark 16:1), and that Matthew's version of Jesus' denunciation in ch. 23:24 is defective (defecta est oratio apud Matthaeum). Even Christ himself does not quote Isaiah exactly, but applies his words to his own purpose (on Matt. 15:7).

3.The Reliability and Inspiration of the Bible

Calvin studied the Bible as a book composed by human beings, according to the interests of the authors, and he followed the practices familiar to critics of literature. In this his humanism is obvious. But he also was a humanist of the bent of Lefèvre d'Étaples,[36]Erasmus, or Bucer, when he put his method to a theological use. Calvin was not interested in the Bible as a merely human product. His critical study was inspired by a profound and powerful desire to get back, through texts and versions, to " the oracles of God." If some humanists went back to the classical authors for new wisdom on man, Calvin, with the other Reformers, went back to the Bible for the wisdom of God.

It is important to remember that the Bible was to him above all the Word of God spoken for the edification of the church. This explains his willingness to admit many unsolved problems of detail, even while he insists that the writers of the Bible were themouthpieces of God. He sees that the Evangelists differ one from another in many a detail (on Matt. 22:2), but he insists that they agree on the main points of a story or parable. Where there is a question of numbers, as of women and angels at the resurrection, he points to the writers' unconcern for exact information in such matters and draws the reader's attention to the gospel or law. In fact, he sets aside a discrepancy of a thousand, between an account of Moses (Num. 25:90) and that of Paul, by remarking that the Biblical writers cared no more than the ancient Romans for numerical minutiae (on 1 Cor. 10:8). Paul was concerned to warn the church at Corinth against idolatry. What mattered was the reliability of the Bible with regard to the word of God and the promises of God, and not factual accuracy on detail.

The humanists believed in the wisdom of the classics, feeding their minds on the sayings (of which they made collections) of the ancient philosophers; but they did so not for mere factual accuracy, but for the edification of their age. There is a suggestive analogy between the humanist attitude toward the classics and Calvin's toward the Bible. The Word of God spoken by the Spirit was the word of salvation and every blessing that goes with it. One had to believe in it and receive it with gratitude. It was worthy of the most diligent investigation. So one did one's best to understand the Bible, and to discover its consistency as the Word of God. A man had to attend to the chief business on hand. What we have in the Bible is the wisdom of God, a " Christian philosophy," a way of life that will enable us to live and die well in a world where the devil rages and perils are always at hand. Indeed the humanistic method required that one deal with questions of time, place, and authorship raised by the texts; but one also had to be prepared to leave them unsettled, and go on to the main point, to what was said of God's glory and man's duty.[37]

Calvin knew that there were variant versions of the Bible, but he did not know -- nobody knew -- in his time, that there were various traditions behind the Biblical literature. Today we recognize that " contradictions" in the Bible are due to " date, authorship, and composition." But our way was not open to Calvin. Both assuming the inerrancy of the Spirit and knowing the ways of the human mind, Calvin did his best to harmonize contradictory statements. But even where he failed, he was satisfied that the intention of the Spirit in dictating " the oracles of God" was fulfilled; that the Word of God for the guidance of the church had been properly received and set down for the benefit of God's people.

Calvin indeed insisted that the Spirit " dictated" the oracles of God. But such dictation did not so much establish the authority of the Bible as give us the Word of God for the upbuilding of the church and the benefit of the Christian in particular situations. Since the Holy Spirit spoke by the prophets, God himself spoke; so, when men read the Bible, they attend to their God. But what is their business but to listen to him and to hear him for obedience? So it is that the Christians read the whole of the Bible as the Word of God: not to believe God spokebecausethe Bible tells us he does, but that as they read the Bible, God himself may speak to their condition. The authority of the Bible is to Calvin the authority of God revealing himself and speaking to a Christian's specific need; and the inspiration of the writers of the Bible is presupposed in God's self-revelation to the Christian who reads it.

Calvin's doctrine of the authority of Scripture is discussed at length by theologians and church historians. Unfortunately, too many of them rely on sections of theInstitutes, and fail to test the conclusions they draw by the content of the Commentaries themselves.[38]

Calvin, of course, accepts the whole Bible as the Word of God and he uses terms like " dictation" and " amanuensis of the Holy Spirit." In his Commentaries he shifts back and forth between God and the prophet as the speaker in the same way in which the prophets alternate the first and third person in their oracles. But those who see in such phrases a doctrine of inerrant Scripture and exact verbal inspiration forget that Calvin himself had a good deal of experience in dictating to secretaries and to students, and then correcting the results. God, the Holy Spirit, is of course inerrant, and the Word of God given by the Spirit was formulated to serve best the needs of God's church. But the human instruments, being men, were certainly not perfect. And they did remain men. Isaiah remained a great poet and Ezekiel indulged in wearisome repetitions. Calvin made no assumption of a succession of miracles to eliminate every slip.[39]

Calvin trusted the fidelity of those to whom God had entrusted his Word more than he trusted the care of the Jewish rabbis who supplied the vowel points. More fundamentally, he trusted the providence of God to provide his chosen in all ages with needful instruction. He himself seldom emends (but see Ezek. 16:43); however, when he discusses emendations suggested by others, he dismisses them, not on the ground of impiety, but because of the better sense he can find in the Masoretic text (e.g., Ezek. 14:4). Inerrancy is not for Calvin the basis for the authority of Scripture.

Calvin uses the doctrine of inspiration against the Church of Rome.[40]The Bible is the Word of God as over against the word of man as found in the papacy. His contention is that the Spirit spoke by the prophets and not by the pope or the Roman Church. The fathers could be wrong and often were; the councils could be wrong and often were; the tradition and the canon law could be and often were wrong. Over against all these, the Bible could not be and was not wrong. So when the fathers, the councils, or the tradition in general oppose the Bible, the Bible is right, and all the rest are wrong.

But the things at issue between Rome and the Reformers were not the incarnation of our Lord, or his resurrection, or any miracle or prophecy. They were not the number of Israelites who came out of Egypt or the genealogies of Matthew and Luke. They did not even have to do with " the date, authorship, or composition" of the books of the Bible. All such questions, which have agitated men from " the age of reason" to our own day, were not the points at issue. Therefore, the question of verbal infallibility and plenary inspiration, with the relevant questions having to do with " science and religion" or " faith and reason," were not at issue. The issue was a proper exposition of the Christian faith: the grace of God, sin, justification, the ministry, and the sacraments; in short, the gospel. The heart of the Bible to Calvin as to Luther is Christ -- the anticipation of Christ and the witness to Christ, Christ's own work and his relation to the people of God.[41]This is where the inspiration of the writers is crucial. Witness to Christ is the reason for inspiration, as it is also the reason for the work of the Spirit in the church. The Spirit spoke by the prophets about Christ! And as he spoke about Christ and all that is relevant to our salvation by him, he spoke with absolute authority. The Church of Rome had corrupted the gospel. The gospel in its purity was to be found in Scripture. This purity of the gospel was the work of the Spirit, who had dictated the gospel, as found throughout the Bible, to the writers.

At a later time, inspiration meant infallibility with regard to miracles, predictions, and sundry accounts of matters of fact. For the " fundamentalists," the test of belief in inspiration has been an acceptance of factual statements that seem contrary to natural process, or others that seem to involve contradiction. A grain of historical sense should suggest that Calvin was neither liberal, nor orthodox, nor neo-orthodox; even though all these can claim him in one respect or another. He was liberal in his determination to understand the Biblical writers historically He was orthodox in his belief that the Bible was " dictated" by the Spirit. He was " neo-orthodox" in making Christ who came to save sinners central to the whole Bible.

4.Knowledge of God

The language of the Spirit is the language of human beings, and even while it is dictated, spoken, it is dictated or spoken not in an alien tongue with an alien logic but in the familiar tongue of man with its common logic. However, the speech of the Spirit is a heavenly discourse, concerning God and his benefits, spoken not to satisfy our curiosity as to his " essence," but that we may know his power.[42]The language of the Bible is intended not to disclose God as he is in himself, but as he is toward us. He is toward us, not as an informant first but as a Savior, with his power. To know God in fact is to know above all his power; and we know his power in the faithfulness, peace, joy, the spiritual gifts, we receive from him. God's power and Word go together. According to Calvin, God's power is spiritual and the Spirit of God, who is witness to God's power above all, speaks a spiritual language which is accommodated to our understanding by the use of our common language.

There is a knowledge that gives a man power over the thing known; the knowledge of the Christian man is the opposite of this. By the knowledge of God the Christian subjects himself to God's power. The latter knowledge differs from " the speculative," which Calvin considered incongruous with the Christian's relation to God. We know God, not to use him, but to worship and obey him. Therefore we know, not God's essence (as we know the essence of an object), but his grace and will by and for worship and obedience. This knowledge is one adapted to our role as creatures, and one sufficient for this role; not more and not less than we need to believe in God and obey him. It is knowledge first and last of God's love exercised toward us; a knowledge carrying with it a certainty all its own by the same acting of God; but one in which " facts" as read in the Bible act as " signs" of God's spiritual power, and establish the sovereignty of God as God by pointing to him whose " being" is hidden from the mind of man.[43]

There is of course a singular congruity between the sign and the thing signified: as between the resurrection and the victory of God over sin and death; or between the ascension and the return of the Son to the right hand of the Father. But prior to the congruity we discern, there is the congruity of God's own doing, as established by the Holy Spirit. If we recognize the signs as signs, it is because the Spirit gives us light as an aspect of God's redemptive work. When we put Calvin's doctrine of inspiration in its proper context, and remember the unique way in which Biblical language is to him a signification of God's love and power as present in the church, we realize that Calvin used the Bible neither as an authoritarian nor as an anti-authoritarian, neither as a Hodge nor as a Sabatier; the Bible was to him the vehicle of God's power first, and secondly of our knowledge of Him.

5.Knowledge of Man

Calvin's belief that the Bible is God's Word, and his discipline as a humanist, are not sufficient for explaining his greatness as a commentator. What indeed is it that keeps a reader of these volumes of Commentaries interested, as he proceeds chapter after chapter, verse after verse? The variety in the treatment of the texts of course does a great deal to prevent boredom. But the positive interest of the reader is maintained by Calvin's constant concern with the light that the texts throw upon the life of man in its many aspects and its tantalizing depth. TheInstitutesbegin with the proposition that the knowledge of God and the knowledge of man are inseparable one from the other, and that they together constitute the only true and solid wisdom (vera demum ac solida sapientia).[44]Here in the Commentaries Calvin makes full use of this principle. The stories of " holy men" like Abraham, Moses, David, Jeremiah, Peter, Paul, and Jesus himself become occasions for illuminating comments upon humanity and its ways. Calvin does not, any more than the Biblical writers, apologize for God's elect. Aware of God's faithfulness and grace, he gives the reader " realistic" insights into the characters he depicts and helps him to understand himself as well as his fellow men. Thus it is that the Commentaries remain endlessly and perennially interesting. And the fact that Calvin sees all things ultimately in the light of the gospel gives his wisdom a special quality which we might well characterize as " Christian understanding." He knows that the wisdom of the Bible is not the wisdom of the " philosophers."[45]But to him it is wisdom, presented to us by the Holy Spirit himself, as wisdom without which we would have only our folly. It is clear that this conviction kept Calvin's ardor and his thought alive and made him a superb commentator on the Bible.

The Bible contains a definite perspective upon human life. Calvin appropriates it, and uses it freely and variously for an understanding of man. Calvin's interpretation of this perspective may well appear to some readers as " pessimistic." In the light of God's wisdom, men seem to be given to folly which produces in turn the miseries writ large in their history. The failings of patriarch, king, and apostle, not to mention those of God's people in general, are set down impressively in the Bible, and Calvin does not fail to point them out. He points out the infidelities, rebellions, cowardices, and malefactions of men which have brought contempt for God and misery upon themselves. History is tragic; but it is neither hopeless nor futile. Universal though evil is, men act as responsible beings, under the mercy as well as the judgment of God who is wise and knows what he is doing. Calvin entertains neither Stoic fatalism nor humanistic " faith in man." He repudiates both fatalism and " free will" because he sees history as the drama of God's sovereign dealings with sinners, for their salvation and the fulfillment of God's purpose. Thus history is suffused, as Jonathan Edwards would say, " with a divine and supernatural light" ; in it the Spirit speaks with the might of the living God toward faith and a godly life. So, the miseries of men are seen in the context of God's mercy and faithfulness, even his judgment and wrath cooperating with his Fatherly benevolence, toward the predestined purpose of his self-disclosure to men as illumined by Jesus Christ who is God manifested in the flesh.

[31]Lorenzo Valla was a learned, boisterous, and fearless scholar. He is famous for his exposure of " the Donation of Constantine," which was supposed to have established the supremacy of Rome in the church and over Italy and Western Europe. He was an accomplished Latinist, a rigorous textual and historical critic, and a general nuisance for the tradition. But he escaped the inquisition because of powerful friends including two popes (Nicholas V and Calixtus III).

[32]Calvin called Budé " a matchless ornament and crown of literature, by whose contribution today our France lays claim to the palm of erudition" (O. Breen,John Calvin: A Study on French Humanism, p. 114). He refers to Budé often (I Cor. 4:13, II Cor. 1:13, Phil. 2:9, John 2:5, 6:7, etc.) as an authority on the languages and civilization of Greece and Rome.De asse at partibus eiusof Budé was held in highest esteem as a source book on the subject. He was critical of the church and defended the primacy of Scripture and the cross for salvation, but he refused to join " the Lutherans." His family later found their way to Geneva. (See Josef Bohatec,Budé and Calvin, Graz, 1950, for a classic discussion.)

[33]Erasmus requires no special discussion here. His relation to the Reformation has inspired a literature that is copious and readily available. See Preserved Smith,Erasmus, 1923; Albert Hyma,The Youth of Erasmus, Ann Arbor, 1931; Margaret M. Phillips,Erasmus and the Northern Renaissance, London, 1949; Louis Bouyer,Autour d'Erasme, Paris, 1955.

[34]See pp. 107 f., 307 (cf. 327), 311, 334, 370.

[35]See p. 91.

[36]Lefèvre d'Ètaples (1450-1536) visited Italy (in 1492, 1500) and brought to France new zeal for classical learning. In 1512 he published a commentary on Paul's epistles, and pleaded for the study of Scripture as " the unique means of approaching Him who works all things in all" (A. L Herminjard,Correspondence des Reformateurs, col. I, p. 6). In 1517 he was denounced by the Sorbonne for denying that Mary Magdalene, Mary the sister of Lazarus, and " the sinful woman" were the same. After 1520 he became the center of a lively reform movement including the Bishop of Meaux and the king's sister, Marguerite d'Angoulême. In 1523 he translated Gospels into French, and continued translating the Bible until 1530. He died a fugitive at Nérac in 1536.

[37]See the Preface to the Commentary on Hebrews.

[38]Cf. Davies, Rupert E.,The Problem of Authority in the Continental Reformers, London, 1946. Exceptions are Emil Kraeling,The Old Testament Since the Reformation, Harpers, 1955, and the section in The Interpreter's Bible, vol. 1, pp. 124-126, by John T. McNeill. See also Henri Clavier,Étude sur le Calvinism, Paris, 1936, especially pp. 103 f. Dr. Edward A. Dowey maintains that Calvin assumes the traditional views of the inerrancy of the Bible even while he comments upon it as the work of human beings (The Knowledge of God in Calvin's Theology, 1952, pp. 90 f.). This position, which seems correct, has been debated, and it does not alter our thesis that the ground of the authority of the Bible for Calvin was not inerrancy, but God who speaks by it. For a fine discussion of the subject, see " The Reformer's Use of the Bible," by Paul L. Lehmann, inTheology Today, October, 1946. See also Kemper Fullerton,Prophecy and Authority, ch. 7.

[39]But see on Jer. 36:4-6, 28, and Dowey,op. cit., pp. 90 f.

[40]Institutes, Bk. I, ch 7.

[41]See pp. 61 f., 93f., 101, 104 f., et al.

[42]See below, pp. 141, 176.

[43]See pp. 59-63, 270 ff., 356, 366 ff.

[44]The first sentence of theInstitutes.

[45]See pp. 127, 131, 279, 313, 341, 389.

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