Biblical Exegesis and Early Modern Legal History in Calvin’s Mosaic Harmony

The chapter examines John Calvin’s commentary on Exodus through Deuteronomy (1563) through the lens of sixteenth-century historical jurisprudence, exemplified in the works of Calvin’s contemporaries François de Connan and François Baudouin. Recent scholarship has demonstrated how Calvin’s historicizing exegesis is in continuity with broader contemporary trends in premodern Christian biblical interpretation; this chapter explores another essential context for Calvin’s approach to the Bible. The intermingling of narrative and legal material in these four biblical books inspired Calvin to break with his customary practice of lectio continua and apply his historical hermeneutic more broadly and creatively to explain the Mosaic histories and legislation. Calvin’s unusual and unprecedented arrangement of the material in this commentary and his attention to the relationship between law and history reveal his engagement with his generation’s quest for historical method.

John Calvin’s Historicizing Interpretation of the Bible

This chapter makes the case for viewing John Calvin’s engagement with the Bible in light of contemporary concerns with history and historical method. It outlines the contexts of his exegetical program, including premodern exegetical traditions and their understandings of scripture’s historical sense as well as the broader intellectual milieu and the social, cultural, and political contexts that shaped his work. It delineates four central aspects of Calvin’s method: his commitment to continuous exposition and lucid brevity; his focus on the mind of the biblical author and prioritizing of the literal sense; his views on the authority of Paul and the exegetical tradition; and his theological assumptions about the scopus and unity of scripture. Finally, it provides a summary of the remaining chapters in the book.

Prophecy and History in Calvin’s Lectures on Daniel

In his lectures on Daniel (published in 1561), John Calvin saw clear analogies between the situations facing Daniel during the Babylonian exile and sixteenth-century Reformed Christians. However, he relates these two in a surprising and unprecedented way that evidences a strong sense of historical anachronism. He limits the scope of Daniel’s prophecies to Christ’s first advent—that is, to historically past events. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he did not view the book of Daniel as an eschatological handbook for the end times, and he has been credited with inaugurating a critical shift in the interpretive history of this biblical book. Calvin relates the prophecies of the four empires and the seventy weeks to the time leading up to the first century CE and does not find reference to the Antichrist. Analogies to later times are possible not because they are inherent in the prophet’s original message, but because of the connectedness of historical events under divine providence.

David, Faith, and the Confusion of History in Calvin’s Commentary on the Psalms

This chapter considers John Calvin’s portrayal of the psalmist David as a paradigm for the faith of sixteenth-century Christians and illuminates a development in his doctrine of faith that his commentary on the Psalms (1557) makes especially clear. In contrast to most of the earlier exegetical tradition, Calvin focuses on the historical person, David, and downplays David’s prophetic status. In order to retrieve David’s faith as an example for his own day, Calvin takes a restrained view of traditional messianic interpretations and posits a similarity between David’s situation and the present that acknowledges but also bridges the vast historical distance—and the two dispensations of the one covenant. Calvin depicts David’s faith using perceptual metaphors and offers perspective on faith’s response to the confusion of history.

Salvation in History in Calvin’s Commentary on the Gospel of John

This chapter examines John Calvin’s interpretation of the Fourth Gospel and its singular place in the history of Johannine interpretation through comparison with previous and contemporary exegetical traditions. Calvin’s 1553 commentary represents the culmination of novel sixteenth-century evangelical approaches to this “spiritual gospel” that redefined its spiritual character and reversed traditional views that John offered advanced and more difficult teaching than Matthew, Mark, and Luke. As with his treatment of the Psalms and Isaiah, Calvin downplays the traditional emphasis on christological doctrine and does not view teaching Christ’s divinity as the Gospel’s central purpose. Instead, he emphasizes the overarching theme of human salvation in history. John, for Calvin, provides not a deeper grasp of Christ’s person but rather a more complete portrayal of his salvific mission, of what Christ as incarnate mediator does for humans rather than who he is.

History Past and History Present in Calvin’s Reception of Paul

This chapter takes up John Calvin’s central biblical authority, the apostle Paul. Because of Paul’s significance for the entirety of Calvin’s reforming program, this chapter broadens the focus from Calvin’s exegesis in order to determine the character of Calvin’s “Paulinism.” The investigation examines Calvin’s access to Paul; Calvin’s reception of Paul in his biblical exegesis (through his treatment Galatians 2 in commentary, sermon, and Bible study); the role of Paul in his reformation agenda (viewed through the program outlined in a 1543 treatise on reforming the church); and, finally, the ways in which Calvin can be considered a “Pauline” theologian (in the development of the Institutes). On the foundation of a historically informed reading of Paul, Calvin built a distinctive program of biblical exegesis, established a reformed church in Geneva, and developed a systematic theology that constituted the only serious rival to that of his mentor in Pauline studies, Philip Melanchthon.

The Consolation of History in Calvin’s Sermons on Second Samuel

In May 1562, John Calvin began a series of sermons on Second Samuel, seeking to shape the response of ordinary Genevans to the first French religious-civil war by appealing to biblical history to illuminate the present. Calvin teaches how to learn from scripture and distinguish elements of perpetual significance from anachronisms relevant only to the history of Israel. He presents sacred history as a unique record of the past that, unlike profane history, can speak to the present through its chronicle of past events. Calvin urges his listeners to compare the events depicted in Second Samuel to their own experience. This historical vision, in which biblical history becomes a living and lived lesson, also shapes a treatise written during the third war by François Hotman, Calvin’s colleague and theorist of legal history. Hotman also sought and found the consolation of the Holy Spirit through Old Testament history, viewed afresh from the experience of wartime affliction. For both Reformed thinkers, the biblical past and the experience of war combined to forge a key spiritual weapon: a historical vision of the present tied into divine providence throughout the ages.

Exile in the Mirror of History in Calvin’s Commentary on Isaiah

In his 1559 commentary on Isaiah, John Calvin as refugee pastor ventures a largely ecclesiastical rather than christological reading of this book, written at a time when Geneva experienced a large influx of religious exiles. For Calvin, the majority of Isaiah’s prophecies reference in the first instance the experience of the people of Israel and their future return from Babylon. Biblical history at the time of Isaiah then becomes a mirror for the contemporary experience of exile. Calvin explores the true church throughout the ages as a refugee community, literally and metaphorically. The image of the past as mirror—common in Calvin’s other exegetical works—is here particularly well-developed to maintain the integrity of Israel’s history and allow sixteenth-century Christians to make sense of their own experience and to foster trust in divine providence for the restoration of the church.

Epilogue

This epilogue reflects on what John Calvin’s historicizing approach to scripture, evidenced in his actual engagement with the biblical writings, figures, and themes examined in Calvin, the Bible, and History, might contribute to an understanding of Calvin’s sense of history more broadly. As Euan Cameron has noted, Calvin was not a historian in a strict sense, but he was quite historically minded. This book demonstrates that the sine qua non for understanding Calvin’s broader concept of history lies in grasping the historical consciousness manifested in his engagement with the biblical past. Contributions include a more nuanced view of Calvin’s understanding of the Bible as a historical document and source, a more refined perspective on how he squares his historicizing convictions with his search for contemporary religious meaning, and insight into his concept of history: the relation of sacred and profane accounts of past time and history as a temporal process, under the guidance, to be sure, of divine providence.