In der «Schule göttlicher Weisheit»

Zu Heinrich Bullingers Horizontbestimmung der biblischen Exegese

Abstract

Bullinger uses the term philosophia Christi in the prefaces to his Commentary on 1 John and the collected edition of his commentaries on the New Testament epistles to describe what his readers should expect to learn from the Bible. This article first explores Bullinger’s use of the term ‘philosophy of Christ’ in the corpus of his commentaries. Next, it sketches the development of the term from its origin in the patristic period up to the time of Dutch humanist Erasmus in the early modern period. A consideration of the multifaceted influence Erasmus and his understanding of philosophia Christi exerted on Bullinger and, more broadly, on the Zurich Reformed milieu concludes the discussion.