Abraham Calovius (also Abraham Calov or Abraham Kalau; 16 April 1612 – 25 February 1686) was a Lutheran theologian, and was one of the champions of Lutheran orthodoxy in the 17th century. He wrote appr. 500 books, almost all in Latin. With Die Deutsche Bibel he entered the catechetical field: vulgarisation of Luther’s biblical thinking and promoting personal bible study.
J.S. Bach owned a copy of this (6-part) Bible commentary. If interested jumpto this place in the article. Excerpts and background you find here
Excerpted from an article by T.R. Schmeling, 2004
Major Works
From 1655 to 1682 Abraham Calov produced a proliferation of material on various subjects. Due to the sheer magnitude of his writings, some 500 titles in all, only his major works will be given attention. His chief systematic work, the Systema Locorum theologicorum, was written in two phases (Tomes. I-IV, 1655-1661; V-XII, 1677) and was published in 12 volumes. The purpose of the Systema Locorum theologicorum was to place the Bible into systematic form. The first tomes I-IV were prepared very thoroughly; however, the latter part, V-XII appears to be rushed (Preus. TPRL. 61). His chief exegetical work and certainly his magnum opus was the Biblia Illustrata, a commentary on the entire Bible including the Apocrypha (1672-76). This work was printed in Frankfurt am Main in four large folio volumes to counter Hugo Grotius’ Biblia annotata. It is a virtual gold mine of theology and attests to Calov’s exegetical abilities. The Biblia Illustrata was so popular that it retained its prestige well into the nineteenth century, when most scholarly commentaries still made frequent reference to this classic work. The prominence of the doctrine of inerrancy saturates each page. Apart from the Biblia Illustrata, he compiled commentaries on Genesis, Romans, and Hebrews.
Calov and Luther
Throughout his life Abraham Calov considered himself a faithful disciple of Dr. Martin Luther. He ardently read his beloved teacher daily and meditated upon his writings. Die Deutsche Bibel is a clear witness to this fact.
Die Deutsche Bibel was running commentary on each verse of Holy Scripture drawn from the writings of Martin Luther. Only where there were no remarks of Luther to be found would Calov submit his own gloss. Calov took no credit for this work. In fact he was very pleased to see that it was regarded as one of Luther’s works and not his own. [Excerpts from the introduction about their hermeneutical method]
Furthermore: Die Deutsche Bibel should be recognized as one of the many attempts to systematize Martin Luther. Martin Luther was an existentialistic and practical theologian. Rather his theology was a living, vivid, and vibrant thing. It was concerned with soteriology, the issues at hand, and had little time for speculative questions. While the opera of Luther were for the most part unsystematic, they were not confused and flawed. On the contrary, the systemization of Luther was meant to organize, summarize, and help one navigate his massive corpus. This systemization helped distinguish the mature Luther from the early Luther and limited the abuse of Luther’s writings by non-Lutherans. Some of the most noteworthy systemizations of Luther are: Loci Communes Lutheri by Johannes Corvinus, Thesaurus explicationem omnium articulorum by Timotheus Kirchner, Loci Communes Lutheri by Theodosius Frabricius, and Pastorale Lutheri of Conrad Porta (Cf. Kolb. Martin Luther as Prophet, Teacher, and Hero). One edition of Luther’s works even provided an index of his work based upon the Loci Theologici of Johann Gerhard.
Holy Scripture
Abraham Calov is primarily known as a dogmatician and philosopher. However, he was a far greater exegete and would be better envisioned as a biblical theologian. His entire theology was intended to be a summary of the Holy Scripture —nothing more nothing less. His devotion to the Holy Scripture was unparalleled and few could challenge him on a point of exegesis. He is often remembered in history as the greatest advocate of verbal inspiration. He attempted to reiterate, clarify, and make binding the Lutheran Confession’s existing position of verbal inspiration by appending the Consensus repetitus fidei verae Lutheranae to them.
In his Systema locorum theologicorum an entire chapter was devoted to the efficacy of Holy Scripture. This chapter was directed against Herrmann Rahtmann (1585-1628) who orchestrated the second major attack upon the Scriptures at the time of Lutheran Orthodoxy. Herrmann Rahtmann taught that Scripture was not a means of grace, but a dead letter. The Holy Spirit was not bound to the dead letter. In contradistinction Lutheranism taught that the Scriptures could not be separated from the Holy Spirit. For this reason they said that Holy Scriptures were efficacious even outside the use. Calov reiterates this point with one of his favorite expressions, namely, verbum efficax. This emphasis on the effect or power of the Word was belittled by Karl Heim (1874-1958) as nothing more than a “word fetish.” At the same time, however, Heim’s critique hints at the fact that Calov’s concept of verbal inspiration was not some dead letter, but a living, vibrant, powerful, and active means of grace.
The hermeneutics of Abraham Calov exhibits his complete loyalty to Scripture alone. He was a strong advocate of the historical-grammatical method and the study of the original languages. Contextual exegesis was of paramount importance, but when necessary he would employ the regula fidei, i.e., analogy of faith. Even when hermeneutics developed into a virtual science among the dogmaticians, Calov stressed Luther’s spiritual aids in the interpretation of Scripture: oratio, meditatio, and tentatio (cf. Calov. Paedia Theologica. Jung, Voelker. Das Ganze der Heiligen Schrift. Hermeneutik und Schriftauslegung bei Abraham Calov. 12-14). Abraham Calov and the dogmaticians stressed the sensus literalis throughout their study of Holy Scripture. The sensus literalis did not necessarily mean the literal-grammatical sense of the modern day, but the original meaning intended by the Holy Spirit (Hägglund. History of Theology. 307).
In contrast to a radical Antiochian interpretation of Scripture, Calov acknowledged a sensus mysticus, i.e., mystical sense. Sensus mystica was seen as an application of the text that did not destroy the one spirit-intended meaning of the text. In point of fact Johann Gerhard and his handpicked successor at Jena, Solomon Glassius, would speak of the sensus duplexus that is a literal and mystical sense (Glassius. Philologia Sacra. 2.1.1.1) This was in no way a denial of the one spirit- intended meaning (in contradistinction to the one literal sense), but a division of the one spirit- intended meaning into its applications or accommodations (accommodationes) and sub-applications (Gerhard. Disputatinum Theologicarum. I, 68ff). For example Lutherans often divided the literal into the proper and the figurative or trope (metaphor). They divided the mystical sense into the allegorical, typological, and parabolic (Glassius. Philologia Sacra. 2.1.2.2; Hollaz. Examen. Proleg. 3:18). Conversely, Lutherans like the Pomeranian David Hollaz criticized the medieval fathers for merely dividing the mystical sense into the allegorical, the tropological, and analogical, since these were really uses of the allegorical sense according to Lutheran hermeneutics (Hollaz. Examen. Proleg. 3:18).
Obsolete? Pre-modern and still relevant.
Some have suggested that Abraham Calov and the dogmaticians were ignorant of exegesis and that they dogmatized Scripture. This unsubstantiated view has begun to decline due to modern research. It is certainly true that there have been advances in biblical archeology, biblical history, biblical anthropology, lower textual criticism, etc., since the days of the dogmaticians. This should be expected. Their high regard for the perspicuity of Scripture may help explain some exegetical omission. Still the pioneering work of Flacius, Gerhard, Calov, Glassius, Dannhauer, Schmidt, and Pfeiffer cannot be overlooked. Modern exegesis would not be where it is today without their contributions.
if interested: Some more excerpts can be read here, and the entire article here (= PDF)