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How Firm a Foundation: Martin Bucer's Historical Exegesis of the Psalms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

R. Gerald Hobbs
R. Gerald Hobbs
Affiliation:
associate professor of church history in the Vancouver School of Theology, Vancouver, British Columbia.
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Extract

In September 1529 the Strasbourg printer, Georg Ulricher of Andlau, exhibited to visitors at his stall in the Frankfurt autumn book fair the first copies of a new commentary on the Psalms. The in-quarto volume, amounting in all to over four hundred folios, purported to be the work of a Lyon humanist, one Aretius Felinus. Its author was in fact Martin Bucer, ex-Dominican, now evangelical pastor and rising star of the Strasbourg church. Bucer's refuge in pseudonymity was an attempt—as he explained in a letter to Zwingli—to facilitate circulation of the work in regions like France and the Low Countries where the name of Bucer was likely to bring it to the attention of censors vigilant to stem the flow of heretical literature. It would do no harm either, as he admitted, to dissociate the volume from the name of one who had played so prominent a role in the still lively evangelical quarrel over the Lord's Supper.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , December 1984 , pp. 477 - 491
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1984

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References

1. On Ulricher, see Ritter, François, Histoire de l'Imprimerie Alsacienne aux XVe et XVIe siècles (Strasbourg, 1955), pp. 316–317;Google Scholar and Chrisman, Marion U., Lay Culture, Learned Culture (New Haven, 1982), chap. 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Sacrorum Psalmorum libri quinque ad Ebraicam veritatem versi et familari explanatione elucidati. Per Aretium Felinum Theologum. The dedicatory epistle to the dauphin of France concludes “Lugduni III. Idus lulios, Anno M.D.XXIX.” The colophon identifies the publisher and place of printing. See Stupperich, Robert, Bibliographia Bucerana (Gütersloh, 1952), §25Google Scholar (hereafter abbreviated as PsBuc).

3. Egli, Emil, Finsler, Georg, Kohler, Walther et al. , eds., Huldreich Zwinglis Samtliche Werke (Leipzig, 1905– ), Corpus Reformatorum, vols. 88– (hereafter cited as CR), vol. 97, p. 871.Google Scholar A translation of the letter with analysis and corrected dating, in Hobbs, R. Gerald, “Exegetical Projects and Problems: A New Look at an Undated Letter from Bucer to Zwingli,” in Prophet, Pastor, Protestant: The Work of Huldrych Zwingli after 500 Years, eds. Furcha, Edward J. and Pipkin, H. Wayne (Allison Park, Pa., 1984), pp. 89–108.Google Scholar On Bucer's role in the eucharistic controversy, see Hazlett, Ian, “The Development of Martin Bucer's Thinking on the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in its Historical and Theological Context, 1523–34,” (Diss., Munster, 1975), esp. chap. 3.Google Scholar The best biography of Bucer remains Hastings Eells, Martin Bucer (New Haven, 1931).Google Scholar A critical editor of Bucer is well underway: Robert, Stupperich, ed., Martin Bucers Deutsche Schriften (Gütersloh, 1960– );Google ScholarWendel, Francois et al. , Martini Buceri Opera Latina (Paris, 1954–1955; Leiden, 1982– );Google ScholarJean Rott, , ed. La Correspondance de Martin Bucer (Leiden, 1979– ).Google Scholar

4. As Bucer himself termed it in his Epistola Apologetica, ed. Cornelis, Augustijn, Martini Buceri Opera Latina, vol. 1 (Leiden, 1982), p. 128:Google Scholar “It is a pious fraud (puis dolus) which harms no one while benefitting many.” See Erasmus, , Epistola contra quosdam qui se falso inactant evangelicos (1529) in Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami Opera Omnia, 10 vols. (Lugduni Batavorum, 1703–1706;Google Scholar Gregg reprint ed., n.d.; hereafter cited as LB,) vol. 1573–1590, for the initial accusation; and Erasmus's final shot in his Responsio ad Epistolam Apologeticam (August, 1530), LB 10, col. 1589–1632.

5. Eck, Johannes, Explanatio psalmi vigesimi (1538), ed. Walde, B., Corpus Catholicorum 13 (Munster, 1928).Google Scholar He cites “Felinus” several times with some reservations, but obviously no knowledge of his identity.

6. Reusch, Heinrich, Die Indices Liborum Prohibitorum des Sechszehnten Jahrhunderts (Tübingen, 1886), p. 252.Google Scholar

7. The Psalter of David, printed in 1530 purportedly in Strasbourg, but probably in Antwerp, with preface signed “Johan Aleph”; reprinted twice within a decade. Reprint issued by Sutton Courtenay Press (Appleford, 1971); see also Butterworth, Charles C. and Chester, Allan, George Joye (Philadelphia, 1962).Google ScholarBucer, Martin, Familiere Declaration du livre des Pseaumes, 2 vols. (Geneva, 1553);Google Scholar see also Chaix, Paul, Dufour, Alain, and Moeckli, Gustave, Les livres imprimés à Genève de 1550 à 1600, Travaux d'Humanisme et Renaissance 86 (hereafter THR) (Geneva, 1966), p. 21Google Scholar—the translator omitted most of the technical passages of Bucer's exegesis. Roussel, Bernard, “Simon DuBois, Pierre Olivétan, Etienne Dolet, auteurs ou éditeurs de traductions françaises de textes de Martin Bucer,” Revue d'Histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses 59 (1979): 530–539.Google ScholarPellican, Conrad, Commentaria Bibliorum, 7 vols. (Zurich, 1532–1539), vol. 4, fol. 45r–198v.Google ScholarMusculus, Wolfgang, In sacrosancturn Davidis Psalterium commentarii (Basel, 1551).Google ScholarLiber Psalmorum Davidis (Paris, 1546),Google Scholar a fuller version for the Psalter of the text issued in Robert Estienne's edition of the annotated Latin Bible of 1545; both Bible and Psalter were reissued in 1556–1557 in expanded form with more Bucer material. François Vatable, who died in 1547 after years of teaching Hebrew in Paris, seems to have had little to do with these editions, despite the association of his name with the posthumous editions. Marlorat, Augustin, In CL.Psalmos Davidis et aliorum SS. Prophetarum explicatio ecclesiastica (Geneva, 1685; 1st ed., 1562).Google ScholarCalvin, John, In librum Psalmorum commentarius (1557), in Opera quae supersunt omnia, eds. Baum, G., Cunitz, E., Reuss, E., 59 vols. (Brunswick, 1863–1900);Google Scholar Corpus Reformatorum, vols. 29–88, vols. 31–32, see esp. vol. 31, col. 13–14.

8. Erasmus's several expositions and paraphrases of individual psalms, beginning with Psalm 1 (1515), are reprinted in LB 5, 171–556. Luther's Operationes in Psalmos (1519–1521) are a lengthy commentary on Psalms 1–21 22). See the critical re-edition currently in progress by Hammer, Gerhard and Biersack, Manfred, in the Archiv zur Weimarer Ausgabe (hereafter AzWA) of which volume 2 has appeared recently (Cologne, 1981).Google ScholarBugenhagen's, JohannesIn librum Psalmorum Interpretatio (Basel, 1524)Google Scholar reached seven printings by 1526. See Holfelder, Hans Hermann, Tentatio et Consolatio: Studien zu Bugenhagens “Interpretatio in Librum Psalmorum,” Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte 45 (New York, 1974).Google Scholar

9. Pratensis, Felix, Psalterium ex hebreo diligentissime ad verbum fere tralatum (Venice, 1515;Google Scholar reprint ed., Hagenau, 1522; translation without notes in several reprintings. Jerome's two translations were available in several editions; see especially d'Etaples, Jacques Lefèure, Quincuplex Psalterium (Paris, 1508; 2nd ed., 1513; reprint ed., Geneva, 1979; THR 170).Google Scholar

10. Bucer's generous use of his liberty to revise as he translated occasioned a violent quarrel with Bugenhagen, who took exception with some justice to Bucer's substitution of his own views on the eucharist for those of the author; see Neuser, Wilhelm in Martin Bucers Deutsche Schriften, vol. 2, pp. 175–186, 259–264.Google Scholar

11. See remarks in the preface to his Zephaniah commentary of September 1528; Stupperich, Bibliographia Bucerana, vol. 22.

12. On Bucer's exegetical activity, see Muller, Johannes, Martin Bucers Hermeneutik, Quellen und Forschungen zur Reformationsgeschichte 32 (Gütersloh, 1965), pp. 10–12;Google ScholarRoussel, Bernard, “Martin Bucer exégète” in Strasbourg au coeur religieux du XVIe siècle (Strasbourg, 1977), pp. 153–166.Google Scholar

13. For a look into the activities of these Zurich, Basel, and Strasbourg scholars, see Hobbs, R. Gerald, “Monitio amica: Pellican à Capiton sur le danger des lectures rabbiniques” in Horizons Européens de la Réforme en Alsace (Strasbourg, 1980);Google Scholar and J Friedman, Jerome, The Most Ancient Testimony: Sixteenth-Century Christian-Hebraica in the Age of Renaissance Nostalgia (Athens, Ohio, 1983),Google Scholar chaps. 1 and 6.

14. Ps Buc (Basel, 1547), sig. a5v.Google Scholar All references will be to this edition, which is the base text of the critical edition.

15. Hobbs, R. Gerald, “Martin Bucer on Psalm 22: A Study in the Application of Rabbinic Exegesis by a Christian Hebraist,” in Histoire de l'Exégèse au XVI siècle: Textes du Colloque International tenu à Genève en 1976, eds. Olivier, Fatio and Pierre, Fraenkel, Etudes de Philologie et d'Histoire 34. (Geneva, 1978), pp. 144–163,Google Scholar for a specific study of Bucer's resolution of this tension.

16. CR 101.410. “aliis qui hac mente veritatis capace destituti sunt … nihil tamen de Christo vere persuaseris … (with the others who have been deprived of this [that is, a mind capable of the truth] … you will however make no real headway concerning the Christ), Ps Buc, p. 182; “Mittendi igitur sunt Iudaei, donec Spiritus Christi eis contigerit” (let the Jews go, therefore, till the spirit of Christ touch them), ibid., p. 327.

17. See Bucer's grouping of Catholic and Lutheran opponents in his letter to Zwingli, cited in note 3 above.

18. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, editio altera Romana, 5 vols. (Rome, n.d.), la.1.10. For a similar expression of purpose in Luther, see Operationes, on Ps. 3:1, AzWA 2, p. 119 and n. 4–4.

19. “Eruditio enim illa quam vocant a me nunquam est expectata. Veritatem Dei per Christum scripsi; alius addat, si velit, eruditionem!” (Never look to me for what is popularly called erudition. I have written the truth of God as it is in Christ; let someone else, if he wants to, add the erudition), Ps Buc, sig. a3r.

20. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 1a. 1.10. The influence of Aquinas on Bucer can be seen also in the phrase quoted in note 25. Lubac, Henri de, Exégèse medievale: les quatre sens de l'sEcriture, 4 vols. (Paris, 1959–1964), 1.2.434.Google Scholar

21. Jerome, , Lettres, trans. Labourt, Jérôme, 8 vols. (Paris, 1949–1963), Letter 129 to Dardanus, 7: 163–164.Google Scholar

22. Ps Buc, sig. a5r.

23. “quadrigam illam enarrationum: allegoricam, quam ipsi vocant anagogicam, moralem et historicam. Unde et illud usu venit, quod iam multis annis non pauci Scripturarum explicationem professi, ex quolibet quodlibet dixerunt” (that four-wheeled chariot [quadriga] of the commentators: the allegorical, what is called anagogical, the moral, and the historical. To this we owe the consequence, that for many years now a good number of those who have taught Scripture have said whatever pleased them on no matter what text), Ps Buc, sig.[a6]r. See also Luther, , WA 5.644.Google Scholar Bucer knew and appreciated the Luther work: see Bucer's, Correspondance, no. 27.Google Scholar On Luther's exegesis, see Raeder, Siegfried, Grammatica Theologca: Studien zu Luthers Operationes in Psalmos, Beitrage zur Historischen Theologie 51 (Tubingen, 1977), pp. 26–27.Google Scholar

24. See de Lubac, Exégèse mediêvale, 1.2.418: anagogical as synonymous for allegorical, or the three (or more) spiritual senses, rather than in the narrower usage, as the fourth sense (relating to the future life).

25. Ps Buc, sig.[a6]v. For Aquinas, see note 20 above. Bucer, elsewhere on these themes:Enarrationum in Evangelia libri duo, 3 vols. (Strasbourg, 1527), vol. 1, sig. 4–7;Google Scholar“Quomodo S.Literae pro concionibus tractandae sint,” Revue d'Histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses 26 (1946): 56–58.Google Scholar

26. Pellican, , Commentaria, vol. 1, sig. A2-[B4], esp.Google Scholar A3v-A4r, B2r. See also Zürcher, Christoph, Konrad Pellikans Wirken in Zürich, Zürcher Beitrage zur Reformationsgeschichte 4 (Zurich, 1975), esp. pp. 85–152.Google Scholar

27. Capito, , In Habakuk (Strasbourg, 1526), fols. 4v, 7v, quotation at 5r.Google Scholar Compare Kittelson, James, Wolfgang Capito: From Humanist to Reformer, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought 17 (Leiden, 1975), esp. pp. 208–210.Google Scholar

28. Lubac, de, Exégèse mediévale, 1.2, chap. 7; 2.1, pp. 301–302;Google Scholar Luther WA 5.644.

29. Hobbs, , “Bucer on Psalm 22,” pp. 148–149;Google ScholarHailperin, Herman, Rashi and the Christian Scholars (Pittsburgh, 1963), pt. 4;Google Scholar and Lubac, de, Exégèse medzévale, 2.2.344–367.Google Scholar Lefèure d'Etaples, Quincuplex Psalterium; and Bedouelle, Guy, Le Quincuplex Psalterium de Lefèure d'Etaples: Un guide de lecture, Travaux d'Humanisme et Renaissance 171, (Geneva, 1979).Google ScholarOberman, Heiko, Forerunners of the Reformation (New York, 1966), pp. 286–292.Google Scholar On the exegesis of Lefèvre, see also Bedouelle, , Lefèure d'Etaples et l'Intelligence des Ecritures, Travaux d'Humanisme et Renaissance 152 (Geneva, 1976).Google Scholar

30. Ps Buc, sig. a5v-[a6]r.

31. Ps Buc, sig. a4r.

32. In the Commentaria, as in both editions of his Psalterium Davidis (1527, 1532).

33. Augustine, , De Civitate Dei, 2 vols. Corpus Christianorum Series Latina, vols. 47–48 (Tournai, 1955), book 17,14, vol. 48, pp. 578–579.Google ScholarPs Buc, sig.[a6]v-[a7]r.

34. The numbering and versification of the Psalms in this article is that of the Hebrew text, the system used by Bucer, though not by all sixteenth-century exegetes.

35. This is a part of the accusation brought against some of Lyra's exegesis by the fifteenth-century Spanish bishop Paul of Burgos, himself a converted Jew, in his Additiones to the Postillae of Lyra. See, for example, Psalm 24. Lyra and Burgos were printed, frequently, together with the Glossa Ordinaria, in the margin of folio editions of a corrected Vulgate. See, for example, Biblia cum Glossa ordinaria, Nico1a de Lyra postilla, moralitatibus eiusdem, Pauli Burgensis additionibus, Matthiae Doring replicis, 6 vols. (Basel, 1506–1508),Google Scholar a reprint of the edition associated with Sebastian Brant.

36. The text of the preface, Lefèvre d'Etaples, Quincuplex Psalterium, sig. + Aiir− + Aiiiv (1513 ed. and reprint ed.); also given in Bedouelle, , Quincuplex Psalterium, pp. 22–38 (with French translation);Google ScholarOberman, , Forerunners (English translation), pp. 286–292;Google ScholarRice, Euguen F., The Prefatory Epistles of Jacques Lefèure d'Elaples (New York, 1972), pp. 192–201.Google ScholarOn the setting of Lefèvre's polemic, see the excellent monograph by Bedouelle.

37. The term historia is susceptible to several shades of meaning. Bucer employs it consistently for the historical event that is the setting of the text's composition and hence is reflected within the text. For a similar use of the term, see Peter Lombard, on Ps 3:1, Migne, PL 191,77; and Luther, AzWA 2, 119.121–122.

38. Ps Buc, sig.[a6]v-[a7]r.

39. Even Lefèvre accepted the tradition; Bedouelle, Quincuplex Psalterium, pp. 149–151. Ibn Ezra reports that Ibn Giqatilla, the eleventh-century Spanish exegete, proposed that the final two verses were added by an exile in Babylon. If Bucer read this, he gives no indication of it. Only thirteen psalms have a superscription in the Hebrew. Bucer paid no heed as a rule to variant traditions in the Septuagint, as for example at Psalm 29.

40. For the Psalms, the 1517 edition contains only the commentary of Kimhi; while in 1524–1525, this dropped in favor of Rashi and Ibn Ezra. For a fuller identification and discussion of Bucer's tools, see my study, “An Introduction to the Psalms Commentary of Martin Bucer” (diss., Strasbourg, 1971).

41. Ps Buc, p. 24. This historia had been one of Lefèvre's targets. Nicholas of Lyra in fact had discussed it at great length before lapsing into the traditional and safe christological interpretation which gained its authority with particular thanks to the quotation of Psalm 2:1–2 at Acts 4:25–26. “Conjecture,” for example, at Psalm 43:1, Ps Buc, p. 299.

42. Hobbs, , “Bucer on Psalm 22,” pp. 153–155.Google Scholar

43. Ps Buc, pp. 159–160. For a discussion of the handling of this text by a broad range of sixteenth-century exegetes, see Hobbs, R. Gerald, “Hebraica Veritas et Traditio Apostolica: Saint Paul and the Interpretation of the Psalms in the Sixteenth Century,” in Acts of the Second International Congress on Sixteenth-Century Biblical Exegesis, ed. David, Steinmetz, in press.Google Scholar

44. Bugenhagen, , In librum Psalmorum, p. 107.Google Scholar

45. The first seven verses of the psalm are thus treated as a creation hymn, though Bucer did not propose a historia for its composition.

46. Giustiniani, Agostino, Psalterium Hebraeum, Graecum, Arabicum et Chaldaeum cum tribus latinis interpretationibus et glossis (Genoa, 1516).Google Scholar

47. Bucer, Martin, Enarratio in Evangelion Johannis (Strasbourg, 1528), fols. 78v–87r.Google Scholar

48. Although Bucer does not use the language of Aquinas here, he seems to have this in mind (see note 18); ibid., fol. 79r.

49. Ps Buc, p. 162.

50. Ps Buc, pp. 68–69.

51. “In his enim typum Christi praetulit, indeque exemplo est omnibus Christianis” (In these things David has displayed the type of Christ, and is an example for all Christians), on Psalm 54:2, Ps Buc, p. 337. Such expression is frequent throughout the commentary.

52. Ps Buc, p. 201. This homily which concludes the psalm is introduced revealingly with the remark “Hactenus iuxta historiam et literam” (Up to this point, according to the historia and the letter).

53. George Joye, in the introductory epistle to his English translation of Bucer (note 6 above), echoing Ps Buc, sig.[a5]v: “I have no fear of the critics, provided they alone be judges who possess a solid knowledge of the sacred tongue.”

54. See the comment in an unpublished letter from Pellican to Bucer, of 6 August 1529 (Zurich Staatsarchiv E.I.1,1, #216): “Ego vero … studium tuum ac iudicium probare cogor, nisi quod miseret me laborum tuorum in pervestigandis et diiudicandis Rabinorum sententiis, quas toties repetis sibi dissentientes tan sensu quam grammatica” (I am truly compelled to approve your effort and judgment, except that it is a pity you put so much effort into seeking out and weighing the opinions of the rabbis, which you quote so frequently in their mutual disagreements on both meaning and grammar). Compare Lefèvre's attack on Christian use of rabbinic materials (note 35 above). Luther, writing in 1537 in the preface to the Psalterium Davidis (Frankfurt, 1538) of Eobanus Hessus, may well have had Bucer in mind when he referred contemptuously to those “Qui ludaicas tenebras in clarissimam lucem aliquot Psalmorum invehunt” (who introduce Jewish shadows into the splendid light of some Psalms).

55. “Accordingly no one should think what we have expounded on the pattern of the age for which it was written, whereas most of the holy fathers interpreted concerning Christ and the Church, to be insolent. In fact, this undertaking of ours does not condemn, but makes stable the interpretations of the holy fathers… while taking away in large part the opportunity for slandering our teachings from the Jews.” Ps Buc, on Psalm 4:7–9, p. 54.

56. Ps Buc, sig. a4r.