The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

III. Gerhard-Noted Lutheran Theologian

JOHANNES GERHARD (1582-1637) is considered an example and a master of Lutheran orthodoxy, the most important and most influential teacher of his time. He had the rare gift of combining a polemic scholarship with a serene piety and devotion. His spiritual father was Johann Arndt, the author of Das wahre Christentum (True Christianity). After receiving his doctor’s degree in Jena (1605), he was called by the duke of Coburg to be superintendent of Heldburg. The duke tried to keep him in his domains by all means, but in 1616 he left for Jena, to become a university teacher, and later became the rector of the university. With admirable skill he steered the university through the tribulations of the Thirty Years’ War and kept up its standard and fame in spite of all difficulties. PFF2 602.3

His most renowned works are his Loci Theologici (Jena, 1610-32) and his Confessio Catholica, in which the evangelical and catholic doctrines are presented in a masterly way. Both were reprinted again and again. He helped in editing a popular exegesis of the Bible, and he himself prepared the books of Genesis, Daniel, and Revelation. In his Adnotationes in Apocalypsin he holds to the historical view of interpretation. ⁹ Some of his interpretations are worthy of special mention. PFF2 602.4

1. APOCALYPSE COVERS CHRISTIAN ERA

For example, Gerhard holds that the Apocalypse deals with the church from the time of John the apostle on to the end of the world. ¹⁰ The four horsemen are expounded as Christ Himself, riding the white horse in power and victory, and carrying His bow of the gospel, whose arrows pierce the heart (signifying the preaching of the gospel by the Apostolic church); the red horse, ridden by the devil, represents wars, persecutions, and bloodshed; the black horse is famine; and the pale horse is pestilence. However, Gerhard adds a further interpretation: The horse of the church goes forth, white at first, then red under persecutions, afterward blackened by heresies, and finally pale with the hypocrisy of the bishops, until it becomes sick unto death. ¹¹ The woman of Revelation 12, the pure church, flees into the desert and disappears. Then the Roman beast arises from the sea, on whom rides an impure woman—the Antichristian church of Revelation 17.” ¹² PFF2 603.1

2. SYMBOLS APPLIED TO PAPAL ROME

The seven trumpets are applied by Gerhard to heretics of various sorts, used by the evil angels, whom God permits to be the instruments for stirring up the church. His view of the fifth trumpet is as follows: He interprets the star fallen from heaven as the Roman pope, who holds the key to the bottomless pit (the power of freeing souls from purgatory through indulgences); the smoke as the false doctrine which darkens the rays of the Sun of Righteousness; the locusts as the various orders of monks who propagate papal errors. ¹³ The forty-two months “contain 1260 days, that is, years,” but “we cannot know exactly whence the beginning of the computation is to be started.” ¹⁴ The time, times, and a half are three and a half years. If they are turned into months, they make forty-two months; if those months are turned into days, they make 1260 days, by numbering thirty days to a month. ¹⁵ All those periods refer to the duration of the Antichristian tyranny. ¹⁶ PFF2 603.2

Gerhard understands the two beasts of Revelation to be, first, the pagan Roman Empire with its ten horns, representing ten provinces of the empire; and second, the papal kingdom with its two horns of ecclesiastical and civil power. ¹⁷ He is positive that the number of the beast is the number of the Roman pope, but offers various interpretations of the number 666, without coming to a definite conclusion. He cites its possible derivation from Romith, Ecclesia Italika, and Lateinos; also Luther’s application of it to the years of duration of the pope’s worldly kingdom. ¹⁸ Gerhard applies the first angel of Revelation 14 to Luther, and the second angel’s message to the warning against Babylon, the kingdom of Antichrist, whose capital is Rome. ¹⁹ PFF2 604.1

3. VIEWS ON BABYLON AND THE TEN KINGS

The woman Babylon, of Revelation 17, is also the Roman Antichristian church, scarlet with the blood of saints, riding upon the Beast of the Roman Empire, which she has subjugated. ²⁰ PFF2 604.2

The seven mountains are the seven hills of the city of Rome. The seven kings are the successive forms of government of the empire, with the pope as the seventh, or eighth, head. ²¹ The ten horn-kingdoms are those which were subject to the ancient Roman Empire, namely: “1. Syria. 2. Aegyptus. 3. Asia [Minor]. 4. Graecia. 5. Africa. 6. Hispania. 7. Gallia. 8. Italia. 9. Germania. 10. Polonia,” and the neighboring kingdoms. Others give a slightly different list. PFF2 604.3

4. AUGUSTINIAN MILLENNIUM

Gerhard still follows the Augustinian theory of the millennium, placing it from about 300 to about 1300, when superstition began to increase in the world, and the orders of monks began to increase, and the Turks began to overrun the Eastern Empire. ²² He sees western and eastern Antichrists in the Papacy and Mohammedanism. ²³ PFF2 604.4