§ 111. Calvin's commentaries. 531
2. Calvin kept constantly in view the primary and fnndaniental aim of the interpreter, namely, to bring to light the true meaning of the biblical authors according to the laws of thought and speech.^ He transferred himself into their mental state and environment so as to become identified with them, and let them explain what they actually did say, and not what they might or should have said, according to our notions or wishes. In this genuine exegetical method he lias admirably succeeded, except in a few cases where his judgment was biassed by his favorite dogma of a double predestination, or his antagonism to Rome ; though even there he is more moderate and fair than his contemporaries, who indulge in diffuse and irrelevant declamations against popery and monkery. Thus he correctly refers the " Rock " in Matt. 16 : 18 to the person of Peter, as the representative of all believers.^ He stuck to the text. He detested irrelevant twaddle and diffuseness. He was free from pedantry. He never evades difficulties, but frankly meets and tries to solve them. He carefully studies the connection. His judgment is always clear, strong, and sound. Commentaries are usually dry, broken, and indifferently written. His exposition is an easy, continuous flow of repi'oduction and adaptation in elegant Erasmian Latinity. He could truly assert on his death-bed that he never knowingly twisted or misinterpreted a single passage of tlie Scriptures ; that he always
and sanctimonia, and adds that tlieir antiquity lent them such authority, " ut nihil quod ab ipsis profectum sit, conlemnere debeavius." Compare with lliis judgment Luther's bolder and cruder opinions on the Fathers, quoted in vol. VL 534 sqq.
1 In the dedicatory preface to his Com. on Romans he reminds his friend (irynajus of a conversation they had three years previously, on the best method of interpretation, when they agreed that the chief virtue of an interpreter was "perspicua brevitas," and adds: " Et sane quum hoc sit prope unicum illius officium, mentetn scriptoris, quern explicandum sumpsit, patefacere : quantum ab ea lectores abducit, tantundem a scopo suo aberrat, vel certe asuisjinibus quodammodo evagatur."
2 Harmon. II. 107.
532 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
aimed at simplicity, and restrained the temptation to display acuteness and ingenuity.
He made no complete translation of the Bible, but gave a Latin and a French version of those parts on which he commented in either or both languages, and he revised the French version of his cousin, Pierre Robert Olivetan, which appeared first in 1535, for the editions of 1545 and 1551.^
3. Calvin is the founder of modern grammatico-historical exegesis. He affirmed and carried out the sound and fundamental hermeneutical principle that the biblical authors, like all sensible writers, wished to convey to their readers one definite thought in words which they could understand. A passage may have a literal or a figurative sense, but cannot have two senses at once. The word of God is inexhaustible and applicable to all times ; but there is a difference between explanation and application, and application must be consistent with explanation.
Calvin departed from the allegorical method of the Middle Ages, which discovered no less than four senses in the Bible,^ turned it into a nose of wax, and substituted pious imposition for honest exposition. He speaks of '' puerile " and " far-fetched " allegories, and says that he abstains from them because there is nothing " solid and firm " in them. It is an almost sacrilegious audacity to twist the Scriptures this way and that way, to suit our fancy .^ In commenting on the allegory of Sarah and Hagar, Gal. 4 : 22-26, he censures Origen for his arbitrary allegorizing, as if the plain historical e of the Bible were too mean and too poor. " I acknowledge," he says, " that Scripture is a most rich and inexhausti-
1 See Reuss, Gesch. des X. T. § 474 (p. 539, fith ed.). Reuss prepared from Calvin's French Commentaries a French version for his ed. of the Opera.
2 Expressed in the memorial lines : —
" Litem gesta docet ; quid credas, AUegoria : Moralis, quid agas ; quo tendas, Anagogia."
8 Pref. ad Bomanos : " Affinis sacrilegio andacia est Scripturas temere hue illtic versare et quasi in re lusoria lascivire : quod a multis jam olim factitatum est."