Karl Barth on John Calvin:
Calvin is a cataract, a primeval forest, a demonic power, something directly down from Himalaya, absolutely Chinese, strange, mythological; I lack completely the means, the suction cups, even to assimilate this phenomenon, not to speak of presenting it adequately. What I receive is only a thin little stream and what I can then give out again is only a yet thinner extract of this little stream. I could gladly and profitably set myself down and spend all the rest of my life just with Calvin.[1]
[1] Karl Barth, Letter to Eduard Thurneysen, 8 June 1922, in Karl Barth Gesamtausgabe V: Karl Barth - Eduard Thurneysen Briefwechsel II 1921-1930 (Zurich: Theologisches Verlag, 1974), p. 80.
