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Patristic Authority According to Lutheran Arch-Theologian Johann Gerhard

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Patristic Authority According to Lutheran Arch-Theologian Johann Gerhard LUMINA, NON NUMINA: PATRISTIC AUTHORITY ACCORDING TO LUTHERAN ARCH-THEOLOGIAN JOHANN GERHARD Benjamin T.G. Mayes Even a casual reading of post-Reformation Lutheran “arch-theologian” Johann Gerhard (1582–1637) shows the enormous role that the early church fathers play in his theology.1 He is often credited (incorrectly!) with coining the word “patrology” in the title of his posthumous 1653 Patrologia,2 even though previous books had been printed with that title.3 But there is a truth underlying this fable: Gerhard’s fame and extensive use of the fathers surely hastened the adoption of the term “patrology” as a technical name for the science of the church’s fathers. Likewise, Protestants’ patristic interest did not end with the Refor- mation. Throughout the seventeenth century the study and publication of the fathers flourished.4 The overwhelming presence of the fathers in 1 Gerhard was styled “arch-theologian” during his lifetime by Matthias Hoë von Hoenegg: Erdmann Rudolph Fischer, The Life of John Gerhard, trans. Dinda and Hohle (Malone: Repristination, 2001), ch. 18, §2, p. 295. We shall normally use the definition of “early church fathers” provided by Johannes Quasten, Patrology, vol. 1 (Utrecht: Spectrum, 1975), 1. In countless places of his 1617 commonplace On the Church, Gerhard quotes no less than sixty-three of St. Augustine’s works. By comparison, only thirty-eight of Martin Luther’s works were quoted in this commonplace. Johann Gerhard, Theological Com­ monplaces: On the Church, trans. Dinda, ed. Mayes (St. Louis: Concordia, 2010). 2 Johann Gerhard, Patrologia, sive De Primitivae Ecclesiae Christianae Doctorum Vita ac Lucubrationibus Opusculum posthumum, ed. Gerhard (Jena: Georg Sengenwald, 1653). The claim is made by: Muller, AC, 52; Hubertus R. Drobner, The Fathers of the Church: A Comprehensive Introduction, trans. Schatzmann (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2007), 5; Quasten, Patrology, 1:1. Cf. Andreas Merkt, Das patristische Prinzip: Eine Studie zur theolo­ gischen Bedeutung der Kirchenväter (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 147, who qualifies the claim for Gerhard’s coinage. 3 Raphael Custos, Πατρολογια, id est Descriptio S: Patrum Graecorum & Latinorum, qui in Augustana Bibliotheca visuntur (Augsburg: [Custos], 1624); Caspar Heunisch, Patrologia Ex certis fundamentis Historicis atque Chronologicis accurate deducta (Rotenburg & Leipzig: Autor, 1639). 4 Archer Taylor and Frederic John Mosher, The Bibliographical History of Anonyma and Pseudonyma (Chicago: UCP, 1951), 50; Bengt Hägglund, “Das Verständnis der altkirchlichen Tradition in der lutherischen Theologie der Reformationszeit bis zum Ende des 17. Jahrhunderts,” in Chemnitz­Gerhard­Arndt­Rudbeckius, ed. Bitzel and Steiger (Waltrop: Hartmut Spenner, 2003), 15–53, here 52; Jean-Louis Quantin, “Un manuel anti-patristique: Contexte et signification du ‘Traité de l’emploi des saints Pères’ de Jean Daillé (1632),” in Die Patristik in der frühen Neuzeit, ed. Frank et al. (Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 2006), 299–325. <UN> <UN> 458 benjamin t.g. mayes Gerhard’s writing, in particular, brings up the questions: What authority did the early church fathers have in Gerhard’s theological work? And how do the fathers comport with the Protestant emphasis on the authority of sola Scriptura in general? Finally, how should one regard and approach the fathers? Before the 1950s, the common consensus among scholars was that the Reformation set forth two different approaches to the relation of biblical authority and patristic authority: biblicism (set forth by Martin Luther) and traditionalism (set forth by Philipp Melanchthon).5 But Peter Fraenkel’s study of Melanchthon and the fathers changed this general view, placing Melanchthon and Luther very much in the same camp.6 Since then, studies of this question have tended to treat the Reformers as representing basically the same viewpoint: Scripture alone was the formal norm for matters of faith, while the fathers continued to be used as a resource.7 This point of view tends to emphasize the lack of patristic authority among sixteenth-century Protestants. This newer, unified view must not be allowed to camoflage the spec- trum of approaches that existed among Reformation-era and post- Reformation-era Protestants. Case in point: Johann Gerhard is usually classified as holding firmly to the authority of sola Scriptura for theology, with an extensive use of the fathers as a polemical resource.8 True as this is, it does not cover all that Gerhard has to say on the topic of patristic 5 Otto Ritschl, Dogmengeschichte des Protestantismus (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1908), 1:400. 6 Peter Fraenkel, Testimonia Patrum: The Function of the Patristic Argument in the Theology of Philip Melanchthon (Geneva: Droz, 1961); see also Hägglund, “Das Verständnis,” 23–31. 7 E.g., Scott H. Hendrix, “Deparentifying the Fathers,” in Auctoritas Patrum: Contributions on the Reception of the Church Fathers in the 15th and 16th Centuries, ed. Grane et al. (Mainz: von Zabern, 1993), 55–68. See also the many studies in Silke-Petra Bergjan and Karla Pollmann, ed., Patristic Tradition and Intellectual Paradigms in the 17th Century (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010); Leif Grane et al., ed., Auctoritas Patrum; Leif Grane et al., ed., Auctoritas Patrum II: New Contributions on the reception of the Church Fathers in the 15th and 16th cen­ turies (Mainz: von Zabern, 1998); Günter Frank et al., ed., Die Patristik in der frühen Neuzeit: Die Relektüre der Kirchenväter in den Wissenschaften des 15. bis 18. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 2006); Irena Backus, Historical Method and Confessional Identity in the Era of the Reformation (1378–1615) (Leiden: Brill, 2003); Backus, ed., The Reception of the Church Fathers in the West: From the Carolingians to the Maurists, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1997), which unfortunately overlooks most Lutheran theologians; Merkt, Das patristische Prinzip. 8 Johann Anselm Steiger, “Johann Gerhards Tractatus de legitima Scripturae Sacrae interpretatione und die patristische Tradition,” in Patristic Tradition and Intellectual Paradigms in the 17th Century, ed. Bergjan and Pollmann (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 59–71; Hägglund, “Das Verständnis,” 49; Bengt Hägglund, Die Heilige Schrift und ihre Deutung in der Theologie Johann Gerhards: Eine Untersuchung über das altlutherische <UN> <UN>.
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