IX. Calovius Combats Grotius’ Adoption of Catholic Interpretation

ABRAHAM CALOVIUS, or Kalau (1612-1686), was born in East Prussia and educated at the University of Konigsberg. He became rector of the Gymnasium at Danzig in 1643 and professor of theology in the University of Wittenberg in 1650. He represented the most exclusive form of Lutheranism, and being purely a polemical writer, his life consisted of a continuous chain of bitter controversies with the Romanists and Calvinists. To his Biblia Novi Testamenti Illustrata (The Books of the New Testament Explained) he added Grotius’ annotations, which he refuted wherever he disagreed, ^{74Abraham Calovius, Biblia Novi Testamenti lllustrata, vol. 1, title page.} with the purpose of combating the Preterist views of Grotius. In his notes on Matthew 24 Calovius denied Grotius’ theory of Antiochus, in connection with the abomination of desolation, and disagreed with his sidestepping of Catholicism as Antichrist and Babylon. ^{75Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 413, 414; vol. 2, p. 1866.} “Grotius perverts everything,” he complained. ^{76Ibid., vol. 2, p. 1841.} Calovius enumerated many Greek and Latin authors in support of the Historical view of prophecy.PFF2 616.2