Reformation als Gewissensstachel. Das Schriftprinzip im Spiegel katholischer Exegesegeschichte

Post-Reformation exegesis developed in a dialectical learning process between Protestant and Roman Catholic scholarship. In the sublime republic of the learned, the exegetes – separated by denomination, but united around the biblical literature by response, criticism, and competition – exerted mutual influence upon each other. With the example of the career of the »scriptural principle« in Roman Catholic exegesis, this paper discusses four phases of such an interdependence: the philological and theological contest in the 16th century; the transfer of critical studies on the biblical text and its tradition in the 17th and 18th centuries; the Roman Catholic Bible movement in the Age of Enlightenment; the Roman Catholic reception of historical criticism as well as its present transformation. From a biblical scholar's point of view, the denominational tensions reveal fruitful hermeneutic potential.