THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
Bibliography: The autobiography is contained in his Hictoire de Lorraine, vol. iv.. ut sup. Consult: A. Fange\ Vie de Calmet, Senones, 1762 (by his nephew; contains a complete list of Calmet's works); A. Digot, Notice biographique ct littcraire sur A. Calmet, Nancy, 1861; KL, ii. 1717-21. New material is presented in Documents inidits sur les correspondances de Dom Calmet, ed. P. E. Guillaume. ib. 1S75.
CALOVIUS, CQ-lS'vi-us (KALAU), ABRAHAM: Lutheran dogmatic theologian; b. at Mohrungen (62 m. s.s.w. of Kdnigsberg), Prussia, Apr. 16, 1612; d. at Wittenberg Feb. 25, 1686. He was driven away by the plague from the first two schools he attended, at Thorn and at Kdnigsberg, but he prosecuted his studies at home to such good purpose that when barely fourteen he was able to enter the University of Konigsberg. Here he took his master's degree six years later, and was at once taken into the philosophical faculty. He lectured on philosophy and mathematics, while eagerly continuing the study of theology. His polemical activity began with a tractate against the Reformed court preacher Berg (1635). In 1634 he migrated to the University of Rostock, of which he became a doctor in 1637. Then he returned to Konigsberg, was made assessor to the theological Education faculty, and resumed his lectures. and Early Two years later he became adjunct Professorial professor, and visitor of the Samland Activity, district; in 1643 he went to Danzig as rector of the gymnasium there and pastor of Trinity Church. He was a delegate to the Thorn Conference of 1645, where he came in contact with Calixtus. From this time on a great part of his life was devoted to polemical activity, especially against Syncretism (q.v.) and Calvinism. In 1650, at the invitation of the elector John George I., he went to Wittenberg, where the rest of his life was to be spent. He began there as third professor and preacher at the parish church, of which he became pastor in 1652 and general superintendent of the district, and by 1660 he was head professor and dean of the faculty. The university increased considerably in numbers through the attraction of his teaching, though the increase fell off when the elector of Brandenburg forbade his subjects (1662) to Calovius go there for theology or philosophy, at Witten- on account of the opposition of the berg. principia Caloviana to the Reformed teaching. An iron constitution enabled him to work incessantly at his books and lectures, as well as to support the loss of five wives and thirteen children and to marry again at the age of seventy-two. A complete record of his activity is left in his books, since he nearly always expanded his lectures into that form. His polemical activity was directed chiefly against the Syncretistic school of Helmstadt and its Konigsberg allies Behm, Dreier, and Latermann, as well as later against the Hessian friends of Calixtus. He had paid his compliments to the latter's teaching even in his Danzig days, and in his Inxtilutionum theologicarum prolegomena (2 parts, 1649-50). More important onslaughts on this school were Synopsis controrcrsiarum potior am (1652), with an introduction specially directed against Calixtus;
Syncretismus Calixtinus (1653); and Harmonia Calixtina-hwretica (1655), in which he accuses the " innovators " not merely of tolerating false doctrine but of teaching it themselves, and proves his point by attempting to show their " harmony " with Calvinists and Papists, Arminians and Socinians. By the date of this publication Calovius thought the time was ripe for a step which he had been urging for four years. The Consensus repetitus fidei verce Lutherans is undoubtedly in its essence the work of Calovius, in its first as well as in its final form. The purpose of this new dogmatic standard, the exclusion of the His Contro- Syncretists from the Church and so versial from the protection of the religious
Writings, truce, was not attained; in fact, after 1655, and still more after 1669, when definite instructions were conveyed to the Wittenberg theologians to restrain their polemical ardor, there is a noticeable slackening of anti-Syncretist activity; and Calovius turned his attention rather to the Jena school, and especially to Musaeus. In 1682, finally, he published a complete account of the whole controversy in his Historia syncretistica. Owing to the prohibition of polemical publications, it appeared without any author's name or place of printing, described merely as the work of " D. A. C. [Dr. Abraham Calovius], a distinguished theologian." The elector John George III., who objected on political grounds to such literature, had all the copies bought up, so that this edition is very rare. A second edition appeared in 1685, with Calovius's approval and with his name on the title-page. He attacked the Roman Catholics in his Matosologia papistica (1647), and the Socinians in several small works, which when collected (1684) filled two folio volumes. As if the conflict within his own Church did not give him enough to do, he interposed in the controversies of the Calvinists with his Consideratio Arminianismi (1655) and his Theses theological de Labbadismo (1681). His last work, the Anti-Bcehmius (1684), directed against Jakob Bohme, shows a failure in power.
In the way of constructive theology, his Systema locorum theologicorum (12 vols., 1655-77) is, with the possible exception of Gerhard's, the most important dogmatic production of the century — the true exemplar of what has been called Lutheran scholasticism. It takes the Lutheran doctrine, as it had developed on the basis of the Formula Concordia and the Scriptural principles', pushed to their extreme since the Regensburg conference of 1601, and defends it with unyielding logic and firmness against the intellectual forces of a new age. Even his principal exegetical work, the Hihlia illuMrata (4 vols., 1672-76),
His Con- has a polemical bearing, being intended
structive to correct the Annotata of Hugo Theology. Grotius, which is incorporated in it. He accomplishes his task with great acuteness, wonderful learning, and more feeling for the sense of Scripture than his opponent, whose preference was for secular authors, but with his inevitable dogmatic limitations. The circumstances of his life render it difficult to pronounce a summary judgment on the man and his career.