《Lange’s Commentary on the HolyScriptures–Luke (Vol. 1)》(Johann P. Lange)
Commentator
Johann Peter Lange (April 10, 1802, Sonneborn (now a part of Wuppertal) - July 9, 1884, age 82), was a German Calvinist theologian of peasant origin.
He was born at Sonneborn near Elberfeld, and studied theology at Bonn (from 1822) under K. I. Nitzsch and G. C. F. Lüheld several pastorates, and eventually (1854) settled at Bonn as professor of theology in succession to Isaac August Dorner, becoming also in 1860 counsellor to the consistory.
Lange has been called the poetical theologian par excellence: "It has been said of him that his thoughts succeed each other in such rapid and agitated waves that all calm reflection and all rational distinction become, in a manner, drowned" (F. Lichtenberger).
As a dogmatic writer he belonged to the school of Schleiermacher. His Christliche Dogmatik (5 vols, 1849-1852; new edition, 1870) "contains many fruitful and suggestive thoughts, which, however, are hidden under such a mass of bold figures and strange fancies and suffer so much from want of clearness of presentation, that they did not produce any lasting effect" (Otto Pfleiderer).
Introduction
THE
GOSPEL
ACCORDING TO
LUKE
by
J. J. VAN OOSTERZEE, D.D,
Professor Of Theology In The University Of Utrecht
TRANSLATED FROM THE SECOND GERMAN EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS, ORIGINAL AND SELECTED
by
PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D,
and
REV. CHARLES C. STARBUCK
PREFACE OF THE AMERICAN EDITOR
It affords me great pleasure to introduce the author of this Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke to the American Churches, well assured that his name will soon be esteemed and beloved wherever the Anglo-American edition of Dr. Lange’s Commentary is known.
Dr. John James van Oosterzee was born at Rotterdam, Holland, in1817, and brought up in the faith of the Reformed Church. He studied at the University of Utrecht, and commenced his theological career in1840, with an able Latin dissertation De Jesu e virgine Maria nato, in defence of the gospel history against the mytho-poetical hypothesis of Strauss. He labored as pastor first at Eemnes, and at Alkmaar, and since 1844 in the principal church of Rotterdam, where he continued eighteen years.[FN1]In 1862 he was called to his alma mater, as Professor of Theology. He opened his lectures in Utrecht with an apologetic oration De sceptieismo hodiernis theologis caute vitando, 1863.
Dr. van Oosterzee is generally considered as the ablest pulpit orator and divine of the evangelical school in Holland now living. He combines genius, learning, and piety. He is orthodox and conservative, yet liberal and progressive. He seems to be as fully at home in the modern theology of Germany, as in that of his native country. To his attainments in scientific theology he adds a general literary culture and fine poetical taste.
It is as pulpit orator that he first acquired a brilliant and solid fame. He has been compared to Adolph Monod, in his more calm and matured days, when he stood at the head of the Evangelical Protestant pulpit of Paris and of France. His sermons on Moses, on the seven churches of the Apocalypse, and other portions of Scripture passed through several editions and some of them have been translated into the German language. He was selected as the orator of the festival of the Independence of the Netherlands, where he delivered in the Willems Park at Hague, in the presence of the whole court, an eloquent and stirring discourse under the title De eerste steen (The first stone).
In midst of his labors as preacher and pastor, he prepared a number of learned works which gave him an equal prominence among his countrymen as a divine. His principal contributions to theological science are a Life of Jesus,[FN2] which is mainly historical and apologetic; a Christology, or Manual for Christians who desire to know in whom they believe, which is exegetical and doctrinal;[FN3] and Commentaries on several books of the New Testament, of which we shall speak presently. These and other works involved him in controversies with Dr. Opzoomer and Professor Scholten of Leyden, which bear a part in the conflict now going on in Holland between supernaturalism and rationalism. He also founded and edited, in connection with Professor Doedes, the Dutch Annals of Scientific Theology from1843–1856. His essays on Schiller and Goethe, and similar subjects, prove his varied culture and deep interest in the progress of general literature and art.
The merits of our author have secured him a place in several literary societies, and also the decoration of the order of the Dutch Lion, and the Swedish order of the Pole-star.
It was a happy idea of Dr. Lange to associate so distinguished a scholar with his comprehensive Commentary, at the very beginning of the enterprise in1857. He could hardly have found, even in Germany, a co-laborer who combines in a higher degree all the necessary theoretical and practical qualifications for a theologico-homiletical exposition of the Word of God, and who could more fully enter into the peculiar spirit and aim of this work. Dr. van Oosterzee may be called the Lange of Holland. He is almost as genial, fresh, and suggestive as his German friend, in hearty sympathy with his christologico-theological standpoint, and philosophico-poetic tastes, and equally prepared by previous studies for the task of a commentator. If he is less original, profound, and fertile in ideas, he compensates for it by a greater degree of sobriety, which will make him all the more acceptable to the practical common-sense of the Anglo-American mind. His style is clear and natural, and makes the translation an easy and agreeable task, compared with the translation of Lange’s poetic flights and transcendent speculations. The Dutch mind stands midway between the German and the Anglo-Saxon.
Dr. van Oosterzee has already contributed several parts to Dr. Lange’s Bibelwerk, which are undoubtedly among the very best, viz, Commentaries on the Gospel of Luke, the Pastoral Epistles, the Epistle to Philemon, and the Doctrinal and Homiletical Sections to the Commentary on the Epistle of James 4
The first edition of the Commentary on the Gospel of Luke appeared in1859, and was translated by Miss Sophia Taylor for Clark’s Foreign Theological Library at Edinburgh, in two volumes, 1862–’63. The second, revised and improved, edition was published in1861, and from this the present American translation was prepared, without change or omission, but with considerable additions original and selected, according to the plan which is laid down in the Preface to the first volume. I acknowledge my indebtedness to Miss Taylor for assistance derived from her translation to the close of the third chapter.
It was my intention to prepare the whole Gospel of Luke alone. But owing to pressing engagements, and a proposed voyage to Europe during this summer, I have secured the co-operation of a competent assistant, the Rev. Charles C. Starbuck, of New York, who is vigorously engaged in the work, with the help of the same literary apparatus, and the same study in the valuable exegetical library of the American Bible Union.
For the Introduction and the first three chapters I am alone responsible.
The department of textual criticism—the most difficult and laborious, though perhaps the least grateful task of the American editor—is wholly new, and hence enclosed in brackets. As the esteemed author notices very few readings in the first three chapters, and never refers to the English version, it was deemed unnecessary to retain them separately and thus to multiply brackets and initials. In these additions, as in the volume on Matthew, full use has been made of the Sinaitic Manuscript, and the latest discoveries and researches in the department of Biblical criticism.
From the author’s Exegetical Notes I have in several important instances freely and fully expressed my dissent, e.g., from his solution of the census difficulty, Luke 2:3 (pp30, 32), his exposition of the angelic hymn, Luke 2:14 (pp38, 39), and his view of the dove at the baptism of Christ, Luke 3:22 (p58).
But these differences of opinion do not affect the unity of faith or at all diminish my admiration of the author. His book is sound, evangelical, fresh and interesting as few commentaries are. He has a happy tact in steering at equal distance from learned pedantry and unscholarly popularity, from tedious prolixity and cursory brevity. In the homiletical sections he shows rare talent and experience as a pulpit orator, and very properly confines himself to brief hints or finger-boards to the inexhaustible mines of Scripture truth and comfort, leaving the reader to explore them and to work up the precious ore for practical use.
I cannot conclude without publicly expressing my profound gratitude for the hearty and even enthusiastic welcome with which the first volume of this Commentary has been greeted in all the evangelical churches of America. Dr. Lange also expressed himself highly gratified with the plan and outfit of the American edition. I take the liberty of translating an extract from a letter of March9, 1865. “In your brilliant sketch,” he wrote to me, “I could hardly recognize the aged worker whom you have so leniently described; nor could I identify your stately Matthew with the humble German original; excepting, of course, the faithfulness and reliableness of your reproduction of the original text, in which I knew from the start you would fully satisfy every reasonable demand. As an author, I am thankful for the honor thus conferred upon me; as a Christian, I rejoice in the furtherance of a work which has been owned and blessed by the Lord.”
This success, which far surpasses the expectations of the editor and his co-laborers, will only increase their zeal and energy in the prosecution of their noble work. It is their aim to prepare, on an evangelical catholic basis, the very best Commentary for practical use which the combined scholarship and piety of Europe and America can produce.
From God must come the strength, and to Him shall be the praise.
PHILIP SCHAFF
[Since the above was set in type, I spent some happy days of last summer and autumn with my esteemed friend, Dr. Lange, at Bonn, on the charming banks of the Rhine, in delightful spiritual communion, as also with several of his co-laborers in the Bibelwerk, and with his intelligent publisher, Mr. Klasing at Bielefeld, all of whom feel deeply interested in the English reproduction of their work for the American churches. I regret that I was unable to follow the urgent invitation of Dr. van Oosterzee to pay him a visit at his summer residence in Holland, but I submitted to him the preface and the proof-sheets of the first three chapters, which met his cordial approval. Dr. Lange wrote to me since, that my visit to Germany had inspired him and his associates with fresh courage and zeal in the vigorous prosecution of the Commentary, and that most of the Old Testament books are now distributed among sound and able divines, although it is impossible to say when the whole will be completed. As for the American edition I can only say that nearly all the parts published in German are already taken in hand, and several of them are approaching completion. The Acts of the Apostles, the Catholic Epistles, and the Book of Genesis will probably be published before the close of this year.
P. S.
At the request of my honored friend, Dr. Schaff, I consented to continue the Commentary on Luke, which is now happily brought to a close. I did this with reluctance, being sensible to what disadvantage the bulk of the translation, with its comparative meagreness of illustrative addition, would appear by the side of the first three chapters, enriched as these are with the affluence of annotation which the studies of many years have enabled the Editor to add. I have been fortunate, however, in being admitted, through the great kindness of the officers of the American Bible Union, to the free use of their admirable library, of which I have availed myself especially in the Notes on the Text, as the comparative fulness of these will show. These have also been compared with the Codex Sinaiticus throughout, which had not been published when the original appeared.
The notes on the other parts of the work, though reasonably numerous, will usually be found brief, as, from the prevailing soundness and judiciousness of Dr. Van Oosterzee’s own discussions, I found but little occasion for enlarging. In those which have been added, the names of Bleek, Meyer, and Alford appear most frequently, the two former because of their high eminence in Biblical science, the latter because of his special relation to the Anglo-Saxon student of the gospels.
A great many modifications of the Common Version have been made, but solely with a view to critical exactness, and, therefore, with no particular regard to diction. No archaisms or points of style have been touched which were not supposed to obscure the sense.
The Revised Version of the American Bible Union in its final form was not published till the Commentary was about half printed. Several corrections have been adopted from it, and a good many are common to both works, being such as are naturally suggested by an effort to gain critical clearness.
Nothing whatever has been retrenched from the original except some mere references to German writers of little note, whose works it may fairly be presumed that those who read only English will never see. But every thought, it has been my aim to retain.
The translation of my portion is an entirely new one. There Isaiah, indeed, an Edinburgh translation, but I have not even seen it, and have not, at first or second hand, made any use whatever of it. The great simplicity and peculiar agreeableness of Dr. Van Oosterzee’s style has rendered the work of translation a comparatively easy and exceedingly pleasant one. The remarks of Dr. Schaff, made above, as to the character of the Dutch mind, as mediating between the German and the Anglo-Saxon mind, will be found, I think, fully borne out by the character of this Commentary. While thoroughly familiar both with the results and with the processes of German criticism, the author judges them all with that sober simplicity which we are disposed to claim as a main characteristic of our own race. The work, however, shows abundantly that sobriety and simplicity do not necessarily mean dryness, for it is pervaded by a genial glow, rising not unfrequently into a rich eloquence, worthy of the first living preacher of Holland. It has been a progress of no common pleasure and spiritual profit, guided by him, to accompany the Godman through all the stages of His wondrous life, as laid out before us in the less methodical, but free and rich delineation of St. Luke, from the Baptism to the day when, having passed through the grave and gate of death to His joyful resurrection, He crowns His patient training of the disciples whom He had chosen by His last great charge, and is then taken up to sit at the right hand of God, leaving them full of joyful adoration, and ready for the coming of the Paraclete. Seeing that in our day the affections of believers, and the defence of the faith are both gathering more closely around the person of our Lord, those render the most eminent service who enable us most clearly to behold His image in the fulness of His theanthropic love and majesty. To this clearer vision of our Redeemer, we are persuaded that the present Commentary will contribute in no mean measure, and with a living force derived from the author’s experiences as a Christian preacher, whose work is so much more nearly like that of our Lord than the work of the merely critical scholar.
In conclusion, it gives me pleasure to acknowledge the assistance of my friend, the Rev. James B. Hammond, who acted as my amanuensis, and whose intellectual sympathy with the work rendered his services of a much more than merely mechanical value.
CHARLES C. STARBUCK
THE AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
It was at the commencement of last year that my esteemed friend Dr. J. P. Lange communicated to me the plan of his Theological and Homiletical Commentary, and, at the same time, expressed the wish, which surprised as much as it honored me, that I should take part with him in this work, by furnishing a Commentary on one of the Gospels. It will not seem surprising that I did not give my consent to this proposal till after much delay. When I considered, on the one hand, my numerous professional engagements and other occupations; on the other, the measure of my ability; I felt that I would rather see so important a work in other hands. When I remembered that I had been hitherto accustomed to learn from so many excellent German theologians, I could not quickly familiarize myself with the idea of becoming their fellow-laborer, and in this work even one of their leaders. And, finally, when I surveyed the peculiar difficulties under which every author must labor, in appearing before a public for the most part unknown to him, I felt, notwithstanding the favorable reception which some of my translated writings have met with abroad, almost constrained to return a negative answer. On the other hand, however, there was something very attractive to me in the plan of this Commentary. The thought of being associated in a work with a theologian whom I so highly esteem as Dr. Lange, and with others of a kindred spirit, and of thus discharging a portion of the debt of gratitude for the rich instruction I had derived from their writings, possessed unusual interest. The opportunity offered me of being useful in another and more extensive manner than I could hope for in my immediate neighborhood, seemed to me an evident indication from the Lord of the church, which I felt I must by no means leave unheeded. The difficulty concerning the language was soon removed with the help of friends who are thoroughly masters of the German, so that I need not fear the application of the old adage to my work: His ergo barbarus sum, quia non intelligor olli. Besides, as I wrote here for foreign divines and ministers, I was at liberty to make such selections from my Dutch writings as seemed to me useful and necessary for the purpose. I therefore took courage to put my hand to the plough, without further hesitation; and have now the pleasure of presenting to the friends of Dr. Lange’s Bibelwerk the fruit of the comparatively few, and frequently interrupted, leisure hours which my professional occupations allowed me.