Brevitas et facilitas
Brevitas et Facilitas means "brevity and simplicity" in English, the hermeneutical method of John Calvin. Especially he used this method in the dedication in the Commentary on Romans.
Calvin presented his own distinctive method of the hermeneutics of Scripture in his Commentary on the Epistle of Paul, the Apostle, to the Romans. It is called the ideal of brevitas et facilitas. Calvin was not satisfied with both Malanchthon's loci method and Bucer's prolixity commentary. He took a via media approach. Calvin's method was influenced by the rhetoric of Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian and Chrysostom. Calvin, however, confirmed that his own principle came from Scripture itself. Calvin showed that the clarity of Scripture was related to the ideal of brevitas et facilitas. According to John Bolt this means the brevitas et dilucidatio of Thomas Aquinas.
Method as brevitas et facilitas
According to Michael Mewborn, Calvin did have a basic approach to Scripture which is often described as brevitas etfacilitas, brevitas for short. Brevitas is an assent to clear and concise interpretation.
Even though the Latin terminology may paint Calvin's approach as irrelevant or archaic, the
heart of this method is the basis of evangelical interpretation today. Richard Gamble writes of
brevitas, “ may be understood as an attempt to communicate the message of the biblical
author in as concise, clear, and accurate a manner as possible….”
That brevitas et facilitas is a good summary of Calvin's exegetical methodology is hardly disputed; Battles, Kraus, Higman, Steinmetz, Girardin, Ganoczy/Scheld, and Parker among others have written recently about it.”
Brevitas describes Calvin’s prevailing disposition toward interpretation.
Calvin used this Method in his Commentaries. Richard Muller rightly notes that brevitas tended to describe more Calvin’s commentaries
than his sermons. This point is well taken and suggests even more convincingly that brevitas
characterizes Calvin’s approach to exegesis as he discerns biblical meaning in his study, apart
from oratorical influence. Calvin was more apt to say less when writing than when speaking.
Muller writes, “...whereas the commentaries held to the model of brevitas, the sermons tended
toward a more amplificatory model of oratory, often reaching three or four times the length of
the comment on the same text.
But less we assume that Calvin victimized the text or at least his interpretations by
verbalizing in excess of textual warrant or study, Muller notes that during oratory he was,
“drawing on more collateral texts for the sake of broader hortatory, topical, and polemical
development." It is a lesson to the exegete that the Holy Spirit does not dispense textual
understanding only in our study rooms, but that he gives us textual understanding, even when we
are without material aid.