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Caspar Cruciger Sr.'s 1546 “Enarratio” on John's Gospel: An Experiment in Ecclesiological Exegesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Timothy J. Wengert
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Extract

Only months after Luther's death in 1546, a colleague, Caspar Cruciger, Sr., published his magnum opus, an 879-page commentary on the Gospel of John, In Evangelium Iohannis Apostoli Enarratio. Cruciger's Enarratio provides an excellent angle from which scholars may examine an important shift in Wittenberg's exegesis and theology during the crucial decade of the 1540s. To be sure, this work has few of the characteristics of other treatments of the fourth Gospel produced near the same time. The exposition of the four Gospels by Cologne's Franciscan theologian, von Konigstein, underwent far more printings. The works on John by Calvin and Bullinger have attracted more attention in our own day. However, when set into the context of continued sharp debate over ecclesiology, Cruciger's commentary on John provides a critical reshaping of Philip Melanchthon's exegetical method to meet the continuing challenge of defining the church in line with an emerging Lutheran orthodoxy and against Roman Catholicism. Unlike later Protestant commentaries, which often roll ponderously from one unrelated locus in theology to the next, Cruciger's work, though massive, focuses almost singlemindedly on the doctrine of the church. The commentary represents part of Wittenberg's response to failed discussions over the nature of the church and its authority which began in 1520, nearly halted in 1541 at the Colloquy of Regensburg which Cruciger attended, and collapsed with the outbreak of hostilities during the Smalcald War of 1547. It also demonstrates the farreaching effect of Philip Melanchthon's exegetical method in shaping that response among his own students.

Type
Articles
Information
Church History , Volume 61 , Issue 1 , March 1992 , pp. 60 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1992

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References

This article was read at the Third International Colloquium on Sixteenth-Century Exegesis held in Geneva, Switzerland, August 1988.

1. The original edition is IN EVANGELIVM IOHANNIS APOSTOLI Enarratio Caspari Crucigeri, recens edita. ARGENTORATI apud Cratonem Mylium. ANNO M.D.XLVI. There are viii leaves + 879 numbered pages, no colophon. Samuel Emmel of Strasbourg reprinted it in 1557 and in 1564.Google Scholar

2. Martin, Luther, Werke: kritische Gesammtausgabe, 60 vols. (Weimar, 1883–1983), 6: 285–324 (hereafter WA).Google ScholarAn English translation is in Luther's Works: American Edition, Pelikan, J. and Lehmann, H., eds., 55 vols. (St. Louis and Philadelphia, 1957–1986), 39: 49–104 (hereafter LW).Google ScholarThe piece was an attack on Augustine Alveld's tract from May 1520 entitled Eyn gar fruchtbar und nutzbarlich buchleyn von dem Babstlichen stul: und von sanl Peter: und von den, die warhaffiige scheflein Christi sein, die Christus unser herr Petro befolen hat in sein hute und regirung, gemacht durch bruder Augustinum Alueldt sanl Francisci ordens tzu Leiptzk.Google Scholar

3. WA 6:293, 3–4, 6, 9.Google Scholar

4. Thomas, Murner, Von dem babstentum das ist von der höchsten ober keyt Christlichs glauben wyder doctor Martinum Luther (Strasbourg, 1520),Google Scholaravailable in Flugschriften des frühen sechzehnten Jahrhunderts, ed. Kohler, H. J., et al. (Zug, Switzerland, 1981), Fiche 620, Flugschrift 1603. This is one of three pamphlets attacking Luther produced by Murner in 1520.Google ScholarThe other two rebutted Luther's tracts: “Sermon von dem neuen Testament” and “An den christlichen Adel.” On Murner, see Waldemar, Kawerau, Thomas Murner und die deutsche Reformation, (Halle, 1891).Google Scholar

5. Murner, Von dem babstentum, H 1v: “Auch bedarffsolche deine kirch keins haupts so sie allein ist wie du sagst ein einikeit zuo latin cum sit qualitas non post cristum [sic” substantiam habere caput “since it is a quality after Christ for the head not to have substance]. Dan solche einikeit ist ein vnleiplich ding kan sie kein leiblich haupt haben.”Google Scholar

6. WA 7:621–688 (LW 39:137–224).Google Scholar

7. WA 7:683, 8–11. The footnote referring to WA 6:407 is incorrect; it should refer to WA 6:293, as above.Google Scholar

8. WA 7: 684, 24.Google Scholar

9. For Luther's understanding of the church see Carl Axel Aurelius, Verborgene Kirche: Luthers Kirchenverstandnis in Streitschriften und Exegese 1519–1521 (Hannover, 1983).Google Scholar

10. According to Die Bekenntnisschriften der evangelisch-luthenschen Kirche, 10th ed. (Göttingen, 1986), pp. 31–137 (hereafter BKS).Google ScholarThe English is in The Book of Concord, ed. Theodore, G. Tappert (Philadelphia, 1959), pp. 23–96 (hereafter Tappert).Google ScholarSee especially in Tappert the Confessio Augustana (hereafter CA) 5, 7, 8, 14, 28. For a discussion of CA 7 and 8,Google Scholarsee Wilhelm, Maurer, Historical Commentary on the Augsburg Confession, tr. Anderson, H. George (Philadelphia, 1986), pp. 377–389. For an investigation of Melanchthon's early understanding of the church,Google Scholarsee Klaus, Händler, Wort und Glaube bet Melanchthon: Eine Untersuchung über die Voraussetzungen und Grundlagen des melanchthonischen Kirchenbegnffes (Gütersloh, 1968).Google Scholar

11. BKS 234 para. 5 and 238 para. 20 (Tappert, pp. 169 and 171). A similar remark is also in Melanchthon's first draft of the Apology, BKS 234, lines 35–55.Google Scholar

12. BKS 459 (Tappert, p. 315). The reference in the BKS to the fact that seven-year-olds are at the “unterste Grenze der Selbständigkeit” (lowest age of majority) has nothing to do with the text; for Luther a seven-year-old knows the Creed.Google Scholar

13. Luther, , “Von den Conciliis und Kirchen,” WA 50:509–653 (LW 42:3–178).Google ScholarIn the same year Melanchthon publishes “De ecclesia et de autoritate verbi Dei” (Melanchthons Werke in Auswahl, ed. Robert, Stupperich, 7 vols. [Gütersloh, 1951—], 1: 323–386). This work also includes a refutation of the notion that the reformers define the church as a Platonic republic (1:384–385).Google Scholar

14. See my “The Day Philip Melanchthon Got Mad: The 1541 Colloquy at Regensburg and Reformation Ecclesiology,” forthcoming in Lutheran Quarterly 5 (1991), and the literature cited there.Google Scholar

15. For literature about Cruciger and a more detailed examination of this controversy, see my “Caspar Cruciger (1504–1548): The Case of the Disappearing Reformer,” Sixteenth Century Journal 20 (1989): 417–441.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16. Ibid, p. 422.

17. Corpus Reformatorum, ed. Bretschneider, K. G. and Bindseil, H. E., 28 vols. (Halle, 1834–1860), 15: 3 (hereafter CR).Google Scholar

18. CR 15:3.Google Scholar

19. Ibid.

20. CR 15:5. Cruciger does not yet use the language of later Lutheran orthodox divines, who defined a creed as a norma normata. That he has such high regard for ancient exegetes marks him as both a humanist and a student of Melanchthon.Google ScholarFor the role of the Fathers in Melanchthon's thought see Pierre, Fraenkel, Testimonia Palrum: The Function of the Patristic Argument in the Theology of Philip Melanchthon (Geneva, 1961),Google Scholarand Meijering, E. P., Melanchthon and Patristic Thought: the Doctrines of Christ and Grace, the Trinity and the Creation (Leiden, 1983).Google Scholar

21. CR 15:5. Not surprisingly, Cruciger also lectures on the Nicene Creed in 1547, publishing the first fruits of his efforts in 1548. His death the same year cut short his work, which was then continued by Melanchthon and published in 1550 (CR 23:197–348).Google Scholar

22. See my Philip Melanchthon's “Annotationes in Johannem” from 1523 in Relation to Its Predecessors and Contemporaries (Geneva, 1987) for details.Google Scholar

23. CR 15:54.Google Scholar

24. CR 15:283–286.Google Scholar

25. CR 15:140–141. For similar examples see CR 15:244, 378, and 386.Google Scholar

26. Cruciger also stresses the church in other places, including CR 15:14, 17,36,50,52–54, 61, 63, 70, 72, 74–77 (comparing the sects of Jesus' day to those of the sixteenth century), 79, 90, 92, 112, 120, 124, 140, 154, 159, 163, 166, 199, 203, 213, 216, 234, 305–307 (where mention of the Paraclete leads to a discussion of the church), 313–318, 326, 330–334, 347–350, 365, 385, 392, 409 (where both allegorical and typological interpretations refer to the church), 414, 419, and 429.Google Scholar

27. CR 15:330–334. Cruciger goes on in CR 15:334–335 to explicate John 15:8 as the second form of worship, namely, the propagation and confession of doctrine. This is even more closely tied to the nature of the church.Google Scholar

28. CR 15: 92.Google Scholar

29. CR 15: 9. “Let us connect all the parts.”Google Scholar

30. CR 15: 11.Google Scholar

31. CR 15: 7.Google Scholar

32. CR 15: 313–318, esp. p. 314. “Non fingenda est invisibilis Ecclesia, sicut idea Platonica, nee tamen imaginemur Ecclesiam similem mundano regno, sed honestae scholae.”Google Scholar

33. These are the only opponents Cruciger mentions by name.Google Scholar

34. CR 15: 315. The quote is in Eusebius, The History of the Church, 6.45. Dionysius (d. 264?) was bishop of Alexandria and a pupil of Origen.Google Scholar

35. CR 15: 317.Google Scholar

36. We define the word humanism as interest in bonae litterae, rhetoric and history, not as a designation of a particular theological program. On Greek, see for example CR 15:30, 47,53.Google Scholar

37. CR 15: 118–119. See also CR 15: 141, 224, 258, 359, 380, 410, 436, and 438. On John 3: 27 (CR 15:88) Cruciger refers to such allusions as “illustrious examples.” He can also use heroes of the Old Testament, as in CR 15: 134, where he mentions the examples of David, Moses, Joshua and Jonathan. Melanchthon discusses examples in his dialectics, CR 20:746.Google Scholar

38. CR 15: 59 (for John 2), CR 15: 74 (for John 3), CR 15:98 (for John 4), CR 15: 115 (for John 5), and CR 15: 129–131 (for John 6). In his opening remarks on the entire gospel (CR 15: 7) Cruciger, in typically Melanchthonian fashion discusses the “summa historiae,” and, in a move approved by many modern exegetes, discovers that “summa” in John 20: 31. In CR 15: 68 Cruciger, rather than harmonizing John 2: 13–22, Matthew 21: 12–17, and Luke 19: 45–48, posits three separate temple cleansings.Google Scholar

39. For example, CR 15: 173 (the woman taken in adultery and the sin of her judges) is similar to the treatment by Melanchthon and a host of medieval exegetes, and CR 15: 217 (the sin of the man blind from birth) exercises Chrysostom, Augustine, and Cyril.Google Scholar

40. On friends, faith, and emotions see, respectively, CR 15: 73, 98, and 100. The issue of Christ's emotions arises in comments on John 12: 27, where Cruciger attacks the commentators on the Sentences (CR 15:276–280).Google Scholar

41. CR 15: 199. Melanchthon makes the same point in CR 14: 1121–1124.Google Scholar

42. CR 15: 385 and 388. In the latter section he mentions these causes: impulsive, final, efficient, material, instrumental and, separate from the final cause, the effect. Cruciger could have learned his Aristotelian framework from Melanchthon. See CR 20: 714, 718, 759–761.Google Scholar

43. CR 15: 84.Google Scholar

44. See CR 15: 64, 88, 98, 110, 115, 119, 123, 131–133, 137–138, 140–143, 155 (where he uses the term “locus communis”), 198, 205, 293, 409, 423, and 434. For the quote and an example of loci communis being used to preserve unity, see CR 15: 138.Google Scholar

45. CR 15: 64–65. Luther's postil on this text (WA 17/11: 60–64), one edition of which may have been edited by Cruciger (compare with WA 10/l/2: xxi, the edition P II), deals especially with issues related to marriage. Cruciger correlates the themes addressed in the text to contemporary issues.Google Scholar

46. CR 15: 31–34. Comments on John 3: 22–31 (CR 15: 87–92) include many aspects of his method, including questions about the historical record, a theological quaestio, loci communes, classical allusions, syllogisms, and analysis of John's method of argumentation.Google Scholar

47. CR 15: 388–440, p. 400 for quote.Google Scholar

48. CR 15: 388–392, esp. p. 388.Google Scholar

49. CR 15: 392.Google Scholar