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LOGIA A JOURNAL OF LUTHERAN THEOLOGY HOLY TRINITY 2004 VOLUME XIII. NUMBER 3 CONTENTS CORRESPONDENCE .................................................................................................................................................................... 5"; ARTICLES Loci Communes, A Theologian's BeSl Friend: Or, How to Make the Theological Tool of Your Dreams Benjamin T. G. Mayes ................................................................................................................................................................................ 7 Playing the Discarded Image Card Paul Lehninger ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 11 Does It or Doesn't It? Apology XXIV and Eucharistic Prayers Armand J. Boehme ................................................................................................................................................................................... 17 Magnu~ Gonsensus: The Unity of the Church in the Truth and SoCiety's Pluralism Reinhard Slenczka ............................ ........ ......................... ...................... ................................................. ........ .... ................. ..... ......... ...... 21 REVIEWS .......................................................................... ., ................... : .............. ;, .......................................................... ; .......... , .......... 41 REVIEW ESSAY: Luther und Paulus: Die exege.tischen und hermeneutischen Grundlagel1 det lutherischen Rechtfertigungslehre im Paulinismus Luthers. By Volker Stolle. Review by John Stephenson A Tale of Two Synods: Events That Led to the Split between Wisconsin and Missouri. By Mark E. Braun Review by Paul W. Alliet Living By Faith. Justification and Sanctification. By Oswald Bayer. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley Review by Klaus Detlev Schulz Sermon Studies on Selected Psalms. Edited by John A. Braun. Review by Mark Braden LOGIA FORUM ................................................................................................................................................................................. 49 Shortage of Pastors in Luther's Day-Education Necessary • Christian Schools the Future of Christendom Do Not Neglect the Languages • Divine Service in German, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew Study Required for Public Preaching • The Philistines Are Coming Judicial Activism in the Church • David Benke, Yankee Stadium and Rock and 1~01l Who Believes in and Worships the One True God in Luther's Large Catechism? Sasse on the Eucharistic Prayer ALSO THIS ISSUE Inklings by Jim Wilson ........................................................................................................................................ ...................................... 6 A Call for Manuscripts ........................................................... ................................................................................................................... 15 "", -", Loci Communes, A Theologian's Best Friend How to Make the Theological Tool of Your Dreams BENJAMIN T. G. MAYES -------------------------------t------~----------------------PERHAPS THE FIRST THING ANYONE LEARNS about the "Age of Lutheran Orthodoxy" (c. 1580-1700) is that the theologians wrote large Latin dogmatics books. Now and then the question comes up, "How on earth did they do it?" How did men like Johann Gerhard (1582-1637), Abraham Calov (1612-1686), and Johann Andreas Quenstedt (1617-1688) manage to author such enormous tomes on such diverse topics? Their mastery of Latin can be explained by their having attended Latin immersion schools since grade school. But even fluency in a foreign language and a healthy dose of prayer, stlldy, and spiritual trial (oratio, meditatio, tentatio) do not guarantee the kind of memory needed to marshal the quotations and material presented by these Lutheran fathers in their magna opera. Having realized this, it was with great joy that I came across Quenstedt's-Ratioseu Methodus, Scriptores Sacros & Ecclesias­ticos cum fructu legendi, excerpendi, & Locos Communes Theo­logicos conjiciendi in the Odenwald Library of the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Oberursel, Germany. In this little booklet, Quenstedt, like many other Lutheran theologians from the Age of Orthodoxy, suggests that future ministers of the gospel prepare for themselves a blank book in which they can write excerpts from readings, ideas, modes of speech, and the like in an orderly way, in order to 'aid their memory and simplify future preaching, teaching, and writing endeavors. Such a book is called a book of loci communes, "commonplac­es." Quenstedt's suggestions can be used by Lutheran theolo­gians today with great advantage. A theologian who stores up information in his own loci communes will have the fruits of his labors ready for use at all times, like an archer who prepares for battle by putting arrows into his quiver. The following is a summary of Quenstedt's Ratio with additional observations. It does not claim to be theology, but will, nevertheless, be an aid to theology. There are many reasons why a theologian should read and organize his excerpts in an orderly way. The careful scholar prepares for himself an immense treasury of things and words, suited for every situation. He who knows how to prepare his own loci communes can do without many books, since he car-BENJAMIN MAYES, a graduate of Concordia Theological Seminary, Ft. Wayne, Indiana, is a Ph.D. student at Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 7 ries a library with him in one book. Care in excerpting and an­notating sharpens the mind. The things which are written stick more tenaciously and are pressed more deeply into the mind. Excerpts and notes guard the labors of many years most faith-,; fully and create aids for the memory. The highest necessity constrains us to make excerpts and ar­range them in loci communes, but the skill of excerpting is im­peded by many things including 1) inconstancy, infidelity, and fragility of the memory; 2) lack of a large book budget or the scarcity of certain books; 3) the multitude and variety of tasks and other impediments; and finally, 4) advancing age. Certain rules of excerpting have proven helpful to generations of theologians: 1. In making excerpts, use discretion and selection.· 2. Excerpt onlyfrom good authors, and don't read many books at once. Read only one at a time, with care and diligence. On reading and excerpting from many books the proverb applies: De o1f1.hibus aliquid, de toto nihil; (something from everything, butnothingfrom the whole). 3. Note the most opportill,le and necessary things for your studies. Set your scopebefdreyoursel£ Areyou{orwill you be) a teacher in a school or a minister in the church? Ifin a school, what age level and content? 4. Write down not only things you read, butals0 things you hear, see and think. With things that you think, though, don't immediately write them in your loci communes, but first in your diary. Later you can come back to your diary and if the thoughts still seem important, at that time you can write in your loci communes .. 5. Don't just write down things, but also the more elegant phrases such as emphatic expressions, analogies, illustra­tions, various formulas of commencing, concluding, ex­citing attention, asking, proposillg, refuting, linking, and destroying, and so on. 6. Write your excerpts continuously and uniformly. Let the pen never leave your hand. 7. Do not write down everything so broadly and abundantly. If the book you're reading i,s easy and the excerpts are no~" , especially rare, then four, five or even fewer lines can be annotated. Sometimes just a bibliographical reference is sufficient. But if the book is rarer and can't be found just anywhere, then you should be a bit more abundant with your excerpt, so that you won't need to consult the book 8 when you want to use the excerpt. Annotate chapters of histories in your loci communes using only three words, with numbers. And in the book itself from which you ex­cerpt, mark the passage excerpted with a dot, so that when you look for the passage the next time your eyes will see it immediately. LOGIA There are certain things to avoid when it comes to excerpting: 1. Do not read anything without excerpting. 8. Build up your excerpts in an orderly fashion, and arrange them well. The chief aid for your memory is order. Place excerpts together with excerpts of the same argument. 2. Those who do not know how to excerpt or are too lazy to do so rightly and yet want to appear learned, do the follow­ing: They underline, fold pages, write in the margins, make stars, pointing hands, N.B., and the like. Haec omnia, si non in vitia sunt, taedium tamen laboris aut ignorantiam excer­pendi produnt, Libris et Codicibus injuriam faciunt (all of these things, if not stemming from vice, are nevertheless te­dious labor, produce ignorance of excerpting, and damage books. Furthermore, these things do not help the memory at all). 9. Do not write down anything without also writing the full bibliographical citation. The first entry needs to be in full; beyond that it can be abbreviated. 10. Do not interrupt your reading to make long notations. When you read, have a sheet of paper at hand, and scrib­ble on it two or three words of passages you would like to excerpt, the page number, and the part of the page. Then proceed with your reading. (The ancients made books of these note-sheets, called conjectanea, miscellany.) Other thoughts which come to mind during your reading can also be jotted down in these conj,e.ctanea, so that your read­ing is not interrupted. When you read an author, at first glance almost everything seems worthy of recording. But afterwards, you are able to make a more sound judgment as to whether a particular excerpt is worthy ofbeing added to your loci communes. 11. Whatever you write into your loci communes, write with more elegant and neat handwriting. Do not write your let­ters too small, since in your old age your eyes will not be as strong. 12. Reread frequently and attentively the things recorded in your loci communes, or at least the main things. Do not let your book be more educated than your mind. Read one or two pages of your loci communes every day, to become more 3. Some rely on the indices of their books to find what they want at the time they have to write. Verum haec sordida pigritia est, et labor saepe inutilis et frustraneus (however, this is sordid laziness, and the labor is often useless and in vain. Indices often lack the most important information, they often give incorrect page numbers, the authors of the books often do not make their own indices, and finally many very useful books have no indices). 4. Others take quotations from the loci communes of oth­ers. Those who do this often miss the context from which the quotation was taken. Often loci communes do not give quotations in full. Also, the exercise of reading and making your own excerpts produces the best thoughts and stimu­lates the best patterns of thinking. Tua ergo et a Te collecta tibi erunt utilissima (therefore your things and the things collected by you are the most useful). 5. Many sew together huge volumes and large tomes in which they record whatever they read or hear in an arbitrary and tumultuous order. This is a Herculean eifort, but it is in vain. familiar with the important things you have writtl:n there .. __ . )here are various methods of collecting your excerpts into loci 13. Set aside time for certain activities: devotion,-reacling,wrir--comrilllnes. ing or notating, and repetition. 1. Some use three books, others two, others one for the pur-a. Athanasius set aside the first hour of the day after ris-pose of excerpting. " . ing from bed for prayers to God and the praying of the 2. Justus Lipsius (1547-1606) says one book is for Formulas, Scriptures. Likewise, he set aside the last hour of the day another for Ornaments, a third for Diction. before going to bed. 3. Jeremias Drexel (1581-1638) says one book is for Lemmata b. Devote time in the morning to the reading of authors. (titles, themes), another for Adversaria, a third for His-Do not read continuously for more than an hour, buttake torica. Lemmata are for non-historical things, where only a short break whenever you need to, lest you lose con-brief bibliographical references are made. Adversaria is for centration and your mind grow feeble. If you never cease non-historical things, where excerpts are made a little more stretching your mind, it will become limp and feeble. extensively. Historia is for historical things and examples. c. Devote time to writing or making notations two hours A separate volume of indices is kept, one index for Lem-after lunch, lest digestion be impeded and you become mata, one for Adversaria, and a third for Historica. In the tired. three volumes, no attention is paid to order, but items are d. Many assign the hour before sleep to repetitionl by which written from beginning to end. The index volume, however, they say that those things are to be ruminated which they is arranged alphabetically and keyed to the entries. The dis-read or heard or noted during the day, so that they more advantage of this method is that no locus is found in full firmly retain these things. Others say that after supper in anyone place. An advantage would be that space is not all study should cease, or that they should abstain from wasted in books, and one excerpt can be entered in several all work by lamp-light and meditation, and these hours places in the index. after supper should be devoted to walking or to learned 4. The method of Christoph Schrader (1601-1680) is similar to and pleasant conversation. that of Drexel. The three volumes are entitled 1) Enthyme-14. Use your excerpts. matum (thoughts, arguments), 2) Historiarum seu Exem-LOCI COMMUNES: A THEOLOGIAN'S BEST FRIEND 9 plorum, and 3) Moralium. In the volume Enthymematum are recorded all things which do not deal with virtue, vice, affections, or history. Exemplorum records history, stories, examples, and so on. Moralium records virtues, vices, all affections of the mind, and whatever pertains to the calm­ing and exciting of the same. There was one index for all three volumes, with M or pi written with the number if the quotation was to be found in the Moralium or in the Exem­plorum (Greek: Paradeigmata).The index was not, however, in alphabetical order, but new index entries were added as needed, which made it a somewhat confusing system. With a computerized index list which could be reprinted from time to time, this confusion could be easily avoided. 5. The method of Lucas Osiander (the Elder, 1534-1604) was to have one volume for exempla, argumenta et alia. Whatever happens to be the first locus you come across, you should write that as the title of the first page. The second you come across write as the title of the second page, etc. The alpha­betical index, then, will contain the page number where the particular locus is to be found. If you fill up one of your pages, you write at the bottom of that page where the next page ista be found dealing with this Locus (that is, the next blank page). This is also the method of Leonhard Hutter (1563-1616). The advantage to this system is that it is com­pact, yet it is not as scattered as Drexel's method. 6. Balthasar Meisner (1587-1626) says that two volumes are to be used: one for Practicos, the other for Theoreticos. The former contains homiletical material and the latter contro­versial material. Practici should be alphabetically arranged with short bibliographical references. Theoretici should have a letter of the alphabet for every four or eight pages. When the four or eight page section fills up, pages can ei­ther be inserted, or space at the end of the volume can be used, as with Osiander (number 5). . 7. Another method is to use a double index, the first part of the index being arranged according to a catechetical order, the second part alphabetically. Page numbers would then need to be entered into the index twice. 8. Johannes Huelsemann (1602-1661) says the easiest way to arrange an index is to have a mix: partially according to a theological, historical, chronological etc. order, and partially according to the alphabet. For example, "Transubstantiation" is listed under "T" alphabetically, not logically under "Eu­charist" or "Sacraments." But "Transubstantiation, nature of; mode of; time of," etc. all appear under Transubstantiation. Likewise, "Pope" appears under "P," not under "Church." But "Pope, name of; episcopal power of," etc. belong under "Pope." Quenstedt followed this method in the arrangement of his index, and I have done the same. One can always add to this index as new loci or other arguments are added. Titles ofloci should be short, one word or two in Latin, up to five in English. They should be short enough that by reading it you quickly know the whole sentence. They should not be too general. "God," "Christ," "Parents" are too general. Titles like these would lead to the necessity of unplanned subtitles, and by then your quotations would be confused on the page. Better examples are: God, Various names of; God's care for the pious; Christ the Redeemer of the World; Parents are to be honored; Pope is Antichrist; Pope is not infallible, etc. Titles are like clues we use later to find what we are looking for. Therefore they should be formed with proper and normal words, and they should be written in capital letters, to distin­guish them from the excerpts. Titles should be formed with the "head" or "heart" first. Thus, if the main word is victory, the title should not be "From God alone comes victory," but rather, "Victory is from God alone." Between your excerpt and the next subtitle, leave a space of two or three fingers, so that room is left to add bibliographical citations of other authors, and so that the next subtopic is eas­ily seen as separate. Subtitles (for example, Marriage, efficient,e. cause of; material cause of; formal cause of; things adjunct to; things contrary to; things profitable to; things unprofitable to) are not able to be assigned all at once, but must be added as time goes on and as need occurs. Space should be left for this. Do not let your book be more educated than your mind. Excerpts are. to be placed under the fitting loci and titles. Do not be overly meticllious about this, but make your excerpts, even if you have not assigned tlW most convellient locus for them. Nevertheless, unless you put your excerpts under the right loci and titles, no aid for the memory is being created, and the items will be found later only with great difficulty. The index is the prime way of organizing your notes and ex­cerpts. There are basically two ways of doing this. First, you can arrange them according to a catechetical order. 1. According to the Commandments, list virtues and vices contrary to them for each commandment. 2. According to the Apostles' Creed, list the articles of faith and the errors and heresies opposed to them. This would be analogous to arranging everything l;lccording to love and faith, as Luther recommends. An example of this from American Lutheran history is the translation of Conrad Diet­rich's Institutiones Catecheticae (St. Louis: F. Dette, 1896) from Latin into German. This work is essentially a brief dogmatics in catechism form. The other way to collect loci communes is to arrange the titles alphabetically. For this method, an index is required to show where each virtue and vice, each article of faith and its opposite error is to be found. Here also an index of authors is'·' needed to give the full bibliographical information of the books from which you make excerpts. In the loci themselves, you use only abbreviated titles. Choose a popularly recognized style of bibliography such as Turabian, MLA, and then stick with it. Various titles have traditionally been assigned to such self­made books of excerpts. Adversaria are little argument books or memoryp~ges, in which for the sake of memory you write 10 down things worthy of notation on occasion without any par­ticular order. Later you redact them and distribute them to the titles of your loci communes. Other names for excerpt books are Thesaurus universalis (universal treasury); Bibliotheca por­tatiUs (portable library); Pandectae (from the Greek pan kai dechomai), that is, books which contain every kind of things and doctrines; Codicilli Communes (common books); Codicilli Reminiscentiae (memory books), MemoriaeAerarium (treasury of memory), Rerum Sylvae (forests of things), Selectorum Syl­vae (forests of selections), or most commonly, Loci Communes (commonplaces) . With the advent of the computer, there are various new ways of keeping track of your loci. You can start a word processing file beginning with a list of topics, each preceded by an aster­isk. Then, in the body of the document, excerpts can be typed under the topic headings. Topic headings should be in capital letters, preceded by an asterisk. By using the asterisk, you can quickly run a search for a title rather than scrolling through the entire document to find the topic you are looking for. There are both advantages and disadvantages of keeping your loci com­munes on a computer. First, unless you are able to synchronize your word processing document with a hand-held computing device, it is likely that your loci will not be very portable or ac­cessible. Likewise, computer files are more likely to be ruined LOGIA accidentally than is a real book. On the other hand, entering information is often quick on the computer and finding infor­mation is much easier. All you need to do is to run a search. My solution is to do both. I keep choice quotations, Bible study, and sermon material in a book, and bibliographical data in a word processing document. I keep a loose-leaf index for both my book and my word processing document. For each topic, the index lists the pages of the book where the topic is dealt with. ("0" is entered when the topic is dealt with in the computer file.) Every six months I type the accumulated index entries into the computer and print off a new loose-leaf index. As the basis for a starting index, you could choose some terms from the index of Mueller's Christian Dogmatics or another dogmatics work. Just as many differe'nt theologians of the Age of Orthodoxy used different methods for constructing their loci communes, so also, every student of theology today will find or develop a method that works for him. The important thing is to find a sys­tem that aids the memory and allows you to find needed infor­mation quickly. If you follow your system consistently, you will soon construct a powerful tool for yourself by which teaching, preaching, and writing assignments will be made easier. This in turn may just allow you more time to devote yourself to prayer (oratio), meditation on God's Word (meditatio), and suffering patiently the tentationes that are sent your way. B!IBD :bther Digest LUTHER DIGEST, the only publication of its kind in the U.S., offers you the best in current transcontinental Luther studies. With Volume 11 (2003), we celebrate our eleventh year of publication with thirty-one abridged works. These include: An Annual Abridgment of Luther Studies Publisher: The Luther Academy ISSN 1085-9659 Scott Hendrix. "Luther on Marriage." Berndt Hamm. "How Innovative Was the Reformation?" Athina Lexutt. "Humor an~ Theology in Erasmus and Luther." Carter Li~dii~;g:T'LUTh.~Faffiily." Jared Wicks. "God and His Grace According to Luther 1509-1517." Franz Posset. Pater Bernhardl1s: Martin Luther and Bernard 0.1 C/aiiVatix, part two. Ekkehard Heise. "Theology of the Cross ... in the Latin-American Context." Carl Axel Aurelius. "Luther on the Psalter." Won Yong Ji. "lndigenization of the Christian Faith." Gregory J. MilIer. "Luther on the 'lUrks and Islam." D. V. N. Bagchi. "Sic el nOll: Luther and Scholasticism." Reinhard FIogaus. "Luther vs. Melanchthon?" Vol. 11 (2003>0 Vol. 10 (2002>0 Vol. 9 (2001>0 Vol. 8 (00)0 Vol. 7 (99)0 Vol. 6 (98)0 Vol. 5 (97)0 Vol. 4 (96) 0 Vol. 3 (95)0 Vol. 2 (94)0 Single volume, $15 (foreign, $20); any two volumes, $25 (foreign, $35). Name __________ Address, ____________ -. ___________ ---, For full information on all volumes, please visit our web site: http://www.cuw.edu/lutherdigest/ Please make checks or money orders on U.S. bank payable to LUTHER DIGEST and send your order to Luther Digest, PO Box 28801, Greenfield, WI 53228-8801.