In his essay “The Rise of Hermeneutics” (1900), Wilhelm Dilthey (1882–1911) maintained that the Clavis Scripturae Sacrae (1567) of the Slavic Lutheran Matthias Flacius Illyricus (1520–1575) was the first significant text on hermeneutics (see Wilhelm Dilthey: Selected Works, Vol. 4, Hermeneutics and the Study of History [Princeton University Press, 2018], 242–244). Conversely, Salomon Glassius's Philologia Sacra (1623–1636) has been called “the most important Biblical hermeneutics of Early Modern Lutheranism” (36) after those of Flacius and Johann Gerhard (1582–1637). Glassius represented a movement called Lutheran Orthodoxy (ca. 1580–1740s), which sought to gather Lutherans around their catholic and evangelical continuity with the consensus of the church fathers and the Lutheran Confessions. The author of the book under review has recently accepted the New Testament chair at the Lutherische Theologische Hochschule in Oberursel, Germany.

Wenz offers an extensive study of Baroque Lutheran Biblical interpretation as chiefly represented by the massive five-book Philologia Sacra. Its first part was published in 1623 (books 1–2). This was followed by the Grammatica Sacra in 1634 (books 3–4) and Rhetorica Sacra in 1636 (book 5). Wenz's ultimate aim is to rethink hermeneutics through the lens of Glassius in order to chart a course beyond modern rationalistic and postmodern deconstructive approaches to biblical interpretation. Wenz spells this out in his final chapter where he argues for a canonical-sacramental hermeneutics and shows the contribution it can make to contemporary hermeneutical discourse. It is canonical because the whole Bible ultimately has the same purpose or goal (scopus): namely, Christ. It is sacramental because God really communicates himself through words. Wenz finds support for this in Johann Georg Hamann's (1739–1788) incarnational conception of language as well as in contemporary theologians like Johannes Wirsching (1929–2004) and Karlmann Beyschlag (1923–2011). Wirsching contends that hermeneutical questions must be understood Christologically in Christian theology, that the early church made its Trinitarian-Christological confession on the basis of scripture because it had no truth of its own, and that the church signaled that it had foregone tradition when it ratified a canon. Beyschlag emphasizes that the early church's use of the analogy of faith testified to the primacy of inter-biblical perspectives over against syncretism and Gnosticism.

Even if one does not find Wenz's pastorally oriented proposal for a hermeneutics of presence convincing, his concerns provide much food for thought. Wenz has also provided the reader with an invaluable study in the history of hermeneutics. He has made the contents of a key text available that would otherwise remain inaccessible to those without a working knowledge of early modern theological Latin as well.

The book comprises eight chapters. The first chapter describes the impact of Ernestine or Ducal Saxon Lutheranism on Glassius's theological development. Born in Sondershausen, he was educated at the Universities of Jena and Wittenberg. Glassius first served as Jena professor of Biblical languages (1621–1625) and then superintendent of his hometown until 1638. That year he was called to succeed his mentor Johann Gerhard, the so-called arch-theologian of Lutheranism, on the Jena theology faculty and continue his editorial work on the Weimar Bibel. This was a glossed German Bible intended to cultivate piety and provide interpretative aids for opening up the world of the text. From 1640 to 1656, Glassius left the university to assume the office of General-Superintendent of Gotha until his death. Here he played a decisive role in Duke Ernst the Pious of Saxony-Gotha-Altenburg's (1601–1675) Arndtian reformation of life movement. Toward the chapter's end, Wenz situates his study within recent research on Orthodox Lutheran Biblical studies. However, this chapter could have said a little more about Glassius's role in charting the Ducal Saxon Lutheran path between the Lutheran Irenicists and their Orthodox Lutheran opponents during the Syncretistic Controversy (ca. 1648–1686). This controversy revealed fissures within Baroque Lutheranism and its theological hermeneutics.

In the second chapter, Wenz shows that Glassius considered theology to be sacred philology. Glassius states God is a “good that communicates itself” in his 1629 devotional Arbor Vitae (61). God alone can communicate and reveal himself to humans. The Bible is the tree of life and the ordained means though which God in Christ and via the Holy Spirit communicates himself to mankind. The Bible reflects Christ, the image of God, who is also the book of life in whom the faithful are inscribed and ordained to eternal life. Therefore, the pastor as sacred philologist must employ a twofold method to interpret the book of life. First, the purpose or goal (scopus) of a passage must be discovered through stylistic, grammatical, and rhetorical analysis. This means one should find the particular purpose of a passage, keeping in mind both the central or common purpose of the book and the universal purpose of the Bible (i.e., Christ). Second, there must be a homiletical-pastoral application of the passage to the mind and heart of one's hearer so that Christ, the book of life, is ultimately impressed upon them and the image of God is renewed.

Glassius's conception of the characteristics of Scripture are laid out in the third chapter. In Orthodox Lutheran fashion, he marshals catholic and rabbinic support for his elucidation of key Protestant topics, like the authority, clarity, perfection, and efficacy of scripture. In the fourth chapter, Wenz talks about the stylistic, grammatical, and rhetorical aspects of sacred philological analysis. Here Glassius exhibits marked advances for the time, although he defends the age and authenticity of the Hebrew vowel points for polemical reasons.

Unlike other Lutherans who taught scripture has only one literal sense, Glassius argued for a literal and mystical twofold sense. Wenz explicates this in his fifth chapter on hermeneutical philology. Glassius maintains the literal sense of the Old Testament may at times have a Spirit-intended mystical sense. Accordingly, he distinguished it from mere allegories and applications. Glassius also provides rules for ferreting all of this out. Still, he was careful not to make claims for a mystical sense that were not explicitly substantiated by the New Testament.

In chapter 6, Wenz illustrates Glassius's exegesis in action from his writings. His strategy of gathering (collatio) passages on a motif from both testaments and letting them interpret each other is showcased. Glassius's conception of the homiletic-pastoral application of scripture is fleshed out from his writings in the seventh chapter. The book's final chapter was already described above.

Wenz can be commended for demonstrating that pre-Kantian hermeneutics cannot be dismissed as lifeless, academic, or irrelevant. For Glassius, liturgy and pastoral care were the proper loci of Biblical interpretation. Wenz also reveals that Glassius's hermeneutics of presence still have something to offer contemporary hermeneutics.