Paul S. Chung, Christian Spirituality and Ethical Life: Calvin's View on the Spirit in Ecumenical Context.

Holder, R. Ward

Paul S. Chung, Christian Spirituality and Ethical Life: Calvin's View on the Spirit in Ecumenical Context. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications (Wipf & Stock), 2010. Pp. 163. $20.00, paper.

G. Sujin Pak, The Judaizing Calvin: Sixteenth-Century Debates over the Messianic Psalms. Oxford Studies in Historical Theology. Oxford, U.K., and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. 216. $65.00.

In Chung's and Pak's works on John Calvin's thought, we have two radically different ideals for engaging the Genevan Reformer's work. Chung's is more aimed at contemporary concerns, while Pak's is a historically conceived consideration. Taken together they demonstrate both the breadth of the current trends in Calvin research and the variety of advantages and problems that different methods bring to the table as scholars and believers strive to understand Calvin.

Chung's effort is frankly set out as an attempt to uncover Calvin's view on the Holy Spirit, as a resource for both ecumenical conversation and for spirituality's relationship to human ethical life in both individual and corporate expressions. Thus, Chung sets himself a high bar, as he notes the various extant portraits of Calvin that deny the possibility of the task. However, as Chung notes, some of these portraits are frankly nineteenth-century caricatures from which Calvin studies and pneumatology should be released.

Chung proceeds logically through the topics of the Spirit in its various dimensions. While the discussions are balanced, a review of the footnotes reveals an oddity in the book. With very few exceptions, the author has chosen not to engage the secondary literature, especially those treatments written in the last two decades. However, despite that flaw, the conclusion of the volume is certainly welcome, that Calvin can be a resource for the formation of a contemporary ethic that is spiritually and communally formed. This message can broaden the appeal of Calvin as a theological resource for those who are less familiar with his work.

Pak's work presents a different kind of examination of Calvin's thought. In 1589 and 1593, the Lutheran theologian Aegidius Hunnius wrote treatises attacking Calvin for "judaizing" in his biblical interpretation, especially of the messianic psalms. As Calvin was long dead, it fell to David Pareus to answer Hunnius's charges, which he did in a treatise published in 1595. But, the question remained whether Calvin had somehow left the orthodox

Christian exegetical tradition in his handling of these psalms. Pak's history of exegesis methodology is perfectly suited for the consideration and contextualization of Calvin's interpretation of the messianic psalms. The inherent strengths of this analytical model stand her well, but Pak also wields this tool skillfully. She avoids the most frequent fault of the method, that of becoming a series of lists of what was written, by making a convincing argument that the medieval tradition of commenting upon the messianic psalms--Ps. 2, 8, 16, 22, 45, 72, 110, and 118--can be considered through representative figures. She chooses the Gloss, Denis the Carthusian, Nicholas of Lyra, and Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples. Against that backdrop, Pak considers the interpretation of Martin Luther, Martin Bucer, and Calvin.

Armed with the insights from this analysis, Pak takes on the Hunnius-Pareus polemic and draws conclusions about Calvin's exegesis, both in the early modern period and as a resource for modern thinkers. Though this is a sophisticated study with a number of important insights, some of Pak's most important findings are that Calvin departed from the antecedent tradition of seeing the messianic psalms as inherently and plainly christological, by concentrating upon the historical setting of the psalms and their author, David. He did not begin the modern historical method, Pak argues, but was redefining the "literal sense" in a manner far more open to the insights of modern critical readers than previous understandings. Finally, she suggests that Calvin's model of engagement with Jewish exegesis may provide a model that escapes the worst antisemitic tendencies in Christian reading of the Hebrew Bible.

Granting that Pak's work is very solid, flaws do remain. Pak wants to suggest that Calvin's exegetical principles pushed him to his departures from the medievals, Luther and Bucer, but those exegetical principles are never set out in a systematic fashion. A clearer discussion of exegesis would have helped to make sense of the variety of currents active in Calvin's engagement with the Bible.

Both authors have provided scholars and believers with significant works with which to engage. Both see enduring historical and constructive theological value in engaging Calvin's thought in a variety of venues. The difference in their approaches demonstrates the variety within historical theology and the range of scholars still fascinated by Calvin's work.

R. Ward Holder, Saint Anselm College, Manchester, NH