Tractatus de legitima scripturae sacrae interpretatione (1610)

The ‹Tractatus‹ (1610), published in a German translation in 1612, outlines a scholarly sound set of rules for the art of interpreting the Scriptures. There is no doubt that Gerhard‹s ‹Tractatus‹ is one of the most important Lutheran publications in biblical hermeneutics between Matthias Flacius‹ (1520–1575) epochal ‹Clavis Scripturae Sacrae‹ and Salomon Glassius‹ (1593–1656) ‹Philologia Sacra‹. The ‹Tractatus‹ found its way into all of the editions of Gerhard‹s ‹Loci theologici‹ printed in the 17th and 18th century and was thus known far beyond the borders of Lutheran territories. This is a parallel edition of the Latin and German texts. Annotated and text-critical footnotes make it possible to analyze the text precisely. An appendix provides Gerhard‹s early disputation ‹Theoremata de scripturae sacrae interpretatione‹ (1604), presided over by Balthasar Mentzer, which was an important precursor of the ‹Tractatus‹. The afterword provides the introduction to the origins and impact of the source text.