With respect to Luther's novel interpretation of Rom 1:17 and the phrase δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ (Luther interpreted it to refer to the vindictive nature of God who, when the individual did not measure up to the highest form of spirituality, would come down on him with God's righteous vengeance), Catholic historian Heinrich Denifle pointed out that, after examining sixty-six commentaries on Romans in the Latin Church from the 4th to the 16th century, including Ambrosiaster, Augustine, and Denis the Carthusian, no commentator has found iustitia puniens (“righteous punishment” ) in δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ.[1]
Furthermore, as German historian Karl Holl admitted concerning the novelty of Luther’s theology on this score:
Luther can justly claim that something was opened up to him in Rom. 1:17 which no-one previously had seen. He did not simply rediscover Augustine; but rather he found, as he expressed it later in the immortal formula: the iustitia dei is not to be understood as formalis seu active, but as passive.[2]
Such is another piece of evidence showing that Reformation-era theologies are theological novelties that, in spite of proof-texting, were utterly known in the early Church.
Notes for the Above:
[1] Richard Sauffer, Luther as Seen by Catholics (London: Lutterworth Press, 1967), 14. Stauffer on p. 16 n. 2 notes that “Denifle’s work has not been translated into English. In the French translation (Luther et le lutheréranisme, 4 vols., Paris, 1910-1913), which is only of the first volume, the Abbé J. Paquier makes alterations from the original, both by liking up the ideas in a more orderly manner and by softening the calumnies somewhat.”
[2] Karl Holl, Die iustitia dei in der vorlutherischen Bibelauslegung des Abendendlandes (in: Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kirchengeschichte, vol. 3, Tübingen, 1928, pp. 171-188, here, p. 188), as cited by Stauffer, ibid., 17 n. 13
