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The ‘Extra’ Dimension in the Theology of Calvin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Heiko A. Oberman
Heiko A. Oberman
Affiliation:
University of Tübingen
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Extract

If it is true that the built-in principle of radical self-criticism is one of the marks of the Reformation tradition, contemporary students of Reformation thought have a valid claim upon their place in its authentic succession. Though more slowly and with occasional relapses into an earlier stance of confessional apologetics, this applies increasingly also to studies dealing with the relation of the theology of Luther and Calvin.

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Articles
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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , January 1970 , pp. 43 - 64
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1970

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References

page 43 note 1 Rückert, Hanns, ‘Die geistesgeschichtliche Einordnung der Reformation’, Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, lii (1955), 55Google Scholar; English translation, ‘Reformation—Medieval or Modern’, in the Journal for Theology and the Church, ii (1965), 11. The German version of this article appeared in the Festschrift Hanns Rückert, Berlin 1966, 323–56.

page 43 note 2 Art. cit., 50; transl., 7.

page 43 note 3 Ibid.

page 43 note 4 Supplementa Calviniana, i: Sermones de altero libro Regum, ed. Rückert, Hanns, Neukirchen 1936–61Google Scholar. (Hereafter abbreviated as SC, i).

page 44 note 1 Locher, Gottfried W., ‘Staat und Politik in der Lehre der Reformatoren’, Reformatio, i (1952), 204Google Scholar; the best extant compact summary of Luther's ‘Zweireichenlehre’ (206–8). In the light of Bernd Moeller's important study Reichsstadt und Reformation, Gütersloh 1962, there is good reason to emphasise the continuity with the medieval corpus christianum (civitas Christiana!) in the reformed concept of the Christian (city) (op. cit., 29, 33, 52; see especially the caveat on p. 48), and vice versa, the discontinuity with the Middle Ages in Luther's view of the relation between ‘Church’ and ‘State’: ‘In der Konsequenz muszte Luthers Anschauung die Stadtgemeinde zersprengen’, 37. The question remains: (a) whether this ‘muszte’ should not be read as ‘sollte’; (b) whether the late medieval civitas Christiana was not thus reduced to the earlier medieval stage of the regio christiana.

page 44 note 2 WA., 44, 346, 39.

page 44 note 3 Zwingli Hauptschriften, Band 7: Zwingli der Staatsman, ed. Pfister, Rudolf, Zurich 1942, 6Google Scholar.

page 45 note 1 Basel, 6 November 1519. ZW., vii. 214, 10. We cannot deal here in detail with the claim of recent students of the left wing of the Reformation that there is a shift in Zwingli's position on the relation of State and Church in the fall of 1523. So Bender, Harold S., Conrad Grebel c. 1498–1526: the Founder of the Swiss Brethren sometimes Called Anabaptists, Goshen, Indiana 1950, 97 ffGoogle Scholar.; Yoder, John H., ‘The Turning Point in the Zwinglian Reformation’, Mennonite Quarterly Review, xxxii (1958), 128–40Google Scholar, even discerns two shifts (136, 138). Williams, George H., The Radical Reformation, Philadelphia 1963Google Scholar, does not quote Bender but follows him paene verbatim on p. 90 (cf. Bender, op. cit., 253).

It should be noted that in Zwingli's letter of 29 December 1521 to Berchtold Haller († 1536), the reformer of Bern, it is clearly stated that the implementation and the timetable of reform should be adjusted to local situations: ‘Nee apud tuos sic agere convenit, ut apud nostros …’, ZW., vii. 486, 29 f. Here we also find a plea for tolerance with the weak, expressed in the idea of milk preceding and preparing for solid food (ibid., 487, 6; I Cor. iii. 2), which Yoder dates almost two years later in taking it to be a 1523 concession to civil authority (art. cit. 137). We should beware of describing as shifts of principle what are de facto differences in timing and assessment of opportunities for reform, always intended to avoid tumultus.

The contrast Williams creates between Zwingli's ‘Erasmian pacifism’ in July 1520, and Zwingli's view of the appropriate relation between congregation and town council in Zürich in October 1523, is artificial. The fallacy of his interpretation is partly due to the fact that Williams (op. cit., 89) has not noted that he quotes from a section of Zwingli's letter to Myconius of 24 July 1520 (the erroneous reference should be ZW., vii. 343, 19–30; a composite of quotes is presented as one paragraph), which is clearly an answer to Myconius's letter of 10 June (ZW., vii. 322, 9 ff.), ‘… admodum timeo Helvetiae nostrae’. More important for his whole book, insofar as it reveals the tendenciousness of his invention and use of the term ‘Magisterial Reformation’, is the fact that Zwingli, and not the impatient radical party in Zurich, opposes coercion of the doctrinally underprivileged, in 1523 as well as in 1520. Williams's modernising assumption that opposition to coercion presupposes the separation of Church and State precludes an understanding of what he calls the Magisterial Reformation.

page 45 note 2 Concilium Tridentinum, v. 572. Cf. my article ‘“Iustitia Christi” and “Iustitia Dei”: Luther and the scholastic doctrines of justification’, Harvard Theological Review, lix (1966), 18Google Scholar.

page 46 note 1 SC, i. 104, 34 f. Cf. Supplementa Calviniana, v: Sermones de libra Michaeae, ed. Jean Daniel Benoît, Neukirchen 1964 (hereafter abbreviated as SC., v), 120, 1–9; 121, 37–41. Cf. Simon van der Linde, De leer van den Geest by Calvijn. Bijdrage tot de Kennis der reformatorische theologie, Wageningen 1943, esp. 20a f. Notwithstanding the fact that ultimately Christ is to hand over his regnum to the Father (for Calvin an example used to elucidate the communicatio idiomatum: Inst., 11. 14. 3; Calvini Opera Selecta, ed. Barth Niesel (hereafter abbreviated OS), iii. 461, 13; 462, 9), the bodily restoration is the final ‘terme’; Cf. Quistorp, H., Die letzten Dinge im Zeugnis Calvins, Gütersloh 1941, 172 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 46 note 2 S.C., i. 104, 42; 105, 10.

page 46 note 3 Ibid., 105, 34–36. Cf. 113, 9–18.

page 47 note 1 ‘… nous avons a retenir, … quand il a pleue a Dieu de se manifester a nous en la personne de son filz unique, que c'est a fin qu'il soit glorifié …’: SC, i. 685, 35 f. From the earliest times onward (Schol. Ps. i 1, WA., 55 n. 3, 8, ed. Hanns Rückert and others, Weimer 1963), one could formulate the difference—to use Calvin's beloved expression, forma docendi—by saying that for Luther the locus of the gloria del is the iustificatio impii, while for Calvin it is the iustificatio iusti. This is in my opinion the theological motivationfor the different estimation of the function of the state.

page 47 note 2 SC., i. 127, 4 f.

page 47 note 3 Corpus Reformatorum, Calvin Opera (hereafter CO) xl. 592.

page 47 note 4 Berlin 1957, 336, quoting from CO., xlix, 381.

page 47 note 5 SC, i. 81, 15–17. The duplex regnum is systematically related to the duplex voluntas of God, pro nobis and pro se. The point of departure in each case remains the same: … ‘la volonteé de Dieu est tousiours reiglee en toute perfection et droicture’ (SC., i. 605, 20 f.). But this does not exclude God's will etiam extra legem: ‘Or Dieu a deux facons de commander. Il y en a l'une qui est pour nostre reigle quant a nous et a nostre esgard, l'aultre pour executer ses iugemens secretz et pour accomplir ce quil a determineé en son conseil, et pour donner cours a sa providence. Quant est de la premiere facon de commander, elle est contenue en la Loy’ (SC, i. 473, 7–10).

page 48 note 1 SC., i. 437, 17.

page 48 note 2 Cf. Locher, Gottfried W., ‘Christus wiser Hauptmann. Ein stück der Verkündigung Huldrych Zwinglis in seinem Kulturgeschichtliche Zusammenhang’, Zwingliana, ix (1950), 121–38Google Scholar; 125. This does not imply that Calvin never so refers to Christ; SC., v. 112, 24: ‘… nous ne demandions si non que d'etre enrollez par notre maistre capitaine Jesus Christ’.

page 48 note 3 Bizer, Ernst, Studien zur Geschichte des Abendmahlsstreits im 16. Jahrhundert, 1940, 357Google Scholar.

page 49 note 1 I am inclined to regard it as an apologetical or perhaps modernising inclination of Reformed historians to claim that ‘ad dexteram Dei’ has no local implications for Calvin, but rather expresses the sovereign nature of Christ's rule and its transcendence above all earthly categories. See Niesel, W., Calvins Lehre vom Abendmahl, Munich 1935, 76 fGoogle Scholar; Dankbaar, W. F., De Sacramentsleer van Calvijn, Amsterdam 1941, 184Google Scholar (cf. the statement of Dankbaar on page 194, where he not only defends Calvin against the charge of localisation, but even goes so far as to reproach Lutheran theology for the use of categories which are too spatial). Though Grass shows more sympathy for Luther than for Calvin and does not try to discover the function of the sessio, his evaluation of the causa formalis seems to me quite correct: ‘die Vorstellung von einem lokal im Himmel befindliche Leib, mit dem wir durch Vermittlung des Heiligen Geistes Verbindung bekommen, ist monströser als die lutherische Vorstellung der Multipräsenz des verklärten Leibes,’ op. cit., 266; cf. Bizer, op. cit., 357. To be sure, we should bear in mind that Calvin attempted to tone down the emphasis on locality by writing in 1543 ‘spado’ instead of ‘loco’ in the central formulation of this issue: ‘Atqui haec est propria corporis veritas, ut spatio contineatur’: Inst., iv. 17, 29; OS., v. 386, 6 f. In the final version of the Institutio, the French translation of 1560, this entire sentence is omitted!

page 49 note 2 CO., xlix. 560.

page 49 note 3 SC., i. 440, 15; 136, 37.

page 49 note 4 ‘… pour monstrer que non seulement il est auec nous, mais qu'il habite en nous et que nous sommes vniz en luy, voire iusques a estre nourriz de sa propre substance’: SC, i. 439, 42 f.

page 50 note 1 SC, i. 137, 28–31. For parallels, cf. Grass, Hans, Die Abendmahlslehre bei Luther und Calvin, Gütersloh 1954, 246–54Google Scholar. Grass warns us that this ‘substantialism’ is to be taken cum grano salis (253). We give some weight to the fact that our source is a Genevan sermon and not one of the later treatises destined for international publication. This is important to note because it is customary to make the later treatises innocuous by maintaining that they were written ‘pacificationis causa.’

page 50 note 2 ‘Il ne faut pas done que nous prenions ces signes comme choses visibles et figures qui soyent pour paistre noz sens spirituelz, mais que nous sachions que Dieu y conioinct sa vertu et sa verité, et la chose et l'effect est avec la figure; il ne faut point separer ce que Dieu a conioinct’: SC, i. 137, 5–8. We attach some weight to the fact that our source is a sermon rather than one of the series of later treatises which have usually been written off (too hastily, we believe) as published pacificationis causa.

page 50 note 3 The obvious interpretation of ‘la chose’ is, in the light of the Defensio de sacramentis, published January 1555, ‘res signata’. Here we find the reiteration of article 9 of the Consensus Tigurinus: ‘… not inter signa et res signatas distinguendo, non tamen disiungere a signis veritatem … ’, OS., ii. 272, 33 f. In the context of our 1562 quote chose’ follows the use of ‘choses’ explicitly identified as ‘choses visibles’; hence we read la chose as ‘la chose visible’, or the element of water, wine or bread, even though we realise that this interpretation can appeal to only a very limited textual basis and has, moreover, the weight of the entire remainder of Calvin's earlier testimony against it. See especially the Defensio … de sacramentis, CO., ix. 30: ‘Huius rei non fallacem oculis proponi figuram dicimus, sed pignus nobis porrigi, cui res ipsa et veritas coniuncta est: quod scilicet Christi carne et sanguine animae nostrae pascantur’. The issue is too important, however, not to reopen the discussion on this last stage in the formation of Calvin's doctrine of the Eucharist.

page 50 note 4 ‘Sacramentum tantum’ is the exterior visible aspect. As to our translation of the ‘effect’ as ‘res sacramenti’, cf. Joh. Altenstaig, Vocabularius Theologie, Hagenau 1517, fol. 224r-v, s.v. ‘sacramentum’: ‘Illud vero quod significatur, i.e. effectus ille quem deus invisibiliter operatur scl. gratia vel gratuitus effectus, dicitur res sacramenti sive effectus sacramentalis’. Cf. Thomas, ST., iii q. 63 art. 6 ob. 3; ibid., q. 66 art. i c.a. Calvin is also terminologically well-informed about scholastic theology; cf. regarding confession: Inst., IV. 19, 15; OS., v. 449, 19–25.

page 50 note 5 Cf. Helmut Gollwitzer, ‘Hier wird die Beharrung beim Proprium des Sakraments sinnvoll;’ ‘Die spiritualis manducatio bezieht sich, sich gründend, auf die manducatio sacramentalis [i.e. oralis’: Damit is das Verhältnis der beiden Emfangsarten beschrieben. Die geistliche Weise ist nur effectus, nicht causa des Sakraments’: Coena Domini, Munich 1937, 212, 217. In view of Calvin's formulations a year before in his Dilucida explicatio against Tielmann Hesshus ‘See CO., ix. 474. The immediate parallel for this paragraph in the sermons on II Sam. is in the appended tract, Optima ineundae concordiae ratio (1561); cf. OS., ii. 291, 18: ‘… ideoque ex parte ipsius Dei non proponi vacua signa, sed veritatem et efficaciam simul coniunctam esse’], the 1562 version should rather be seen as a new ‘dilucida explicatio’ than as a shift. Calvin touches on this matter in his letter to Frederik III of 23 July 1563 without further elaboration: CO., xx. 72–9. See Nijenhuis, W., Calvinus Oceumenicus, ʼs-Gravenhage 1959, 199CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 51 note 1 SC, i. 137, 31.

page 51 note 2 OS., i. 142, 41.

page 51 note 3 ‘Organa quidem sunt, quibus efficaciter, ubi visum est, agit Deus … ’: OS., ii. 250, 10 f. Cf. OS., i. 142, 34 f.

page 51 note 4 OS., ii. 250, 24–29; cf. 251, 6: ‘omnibus offeruntur Dei dona, fideles duntaxat percipiunt’.

page 51 note 5 Inst., iv. 17. 33; (OS., v. 393, 37).

page 51 note 6 Ibid., 393, 20.

page 51 note 7 For the veteri doctores see Alex. Summa, iv q. 11 m. 1 art. 3, par 2 and 3; Thomas, Sent. d. 9 q. 1 art. 2 quaestiunc. 2–5; S. T., III q. 80 art. 2–3; Scotus, Oxon. iv d. 8 q. 3 n. 2; (Vivés, xxvii. 75); Rep. iv d. 8 q. 3 n. 2 (Vivés, xxiv. 27 f.). For the moderni see the quotations in Altenstaig, op. cit., fol. 139v, 140r, s.v. ‘manducatio’. Since 1536, Irut., iv. 19, 16 designates our categories ii and iii as ‘manducatio duplex’. By using this formula as an argument against penance Calvin implicitly rejects the concept of duplex manducatio: ‘Ut in Eucharistia duplicem manducationem statuunt, Sacramentalem, quae bonis aeque ac malis communis est: Spiritualem, quae bonorum tan turn est propria: cur non et absolutionem bifaria percipi fingerent?’: OS., v. 450, 19–22.

page 52 note 1 Inst., iv. xvii. 33 (OS., v. 346, 25: ‘Porro hie duo cavenda sunt vitia …’). Cf. CO., ix. 162: ‘Nos etiam in sacramento Christum non nisi spiritualiter manducari asserimus, quia ab ilia crassa ingluvie, quam commenti sunt papistae, Westphalus autem nimis cupide ab illis haurit, pietatis abhorret sensus…. Sacramentalis, ut dixi, nihil aliud est quam carnis Christi in ventrem ingurgitatio’. Cf. the Augustinian thesis of credere=manducare in Cornelius Hoen, Epistola Christiana, ZW., iv. 512, 21 f. and in Zwingli, De vera et falsa religions commentarius, ZW. iii. 818, 8. Zwingli rejects here the two kinds of faith, informis undformata, which determine the difference between (ii) and (iii): ibid., 819, 8–10. (This whole chapter in the Commentarius cannot be understood except in the light of the indicated categories). On the parallelism of credere=manducare and est (in hoc est corpus meum) = signijicat, see Köhler, Walter, Zwingli und Luther, i. Leipzig 1924, 61 ff.Google Scholar; and ii. Gütersloh 1953, 92 ff.

page 52 note 2 Op. cit., 272

page 52 note 3 Nevertheless, ‘Et si autem extra sacramenti usum spiritualiter Christo communicant fideles, aperte tamen testamur, Christum, qui coenam instituit, efficaciter per earn operari’: CO., ix. 162.

page 53 note 1 ‘… in scholis volitat nugatoria fidei formatae et informis distinctio’: Inst., m. xvii. 8 (OS., iv. 16, 38–17, 1).

page 53 note 2 Cf. my “Reformation, Preaching and the ex opere operate’, in Christianity Divided, ed. D. Callahan, New York 1960, 233. Though the vocatio is attached to the preaching of the Word, it can take place ‘etiam extra praedicationem’: ‘… Spiritus illuminatione, nulla intercedente praedicatione, vera sui cognitione donavit’: Inst., TV. xvi. 19 (OS., v. 323. 13 f.).

page 53 note 3 SC, i. 684, 38. Cf. SC., v. 163, 18 f.

page 53 note 4 Bizer, op. cit., 59; cf. 127, 361.

page 53 note 5 ‘… afin que nous ne pensions point que Iesus Christ descende du ciel et qu'il quicte cest gloire …’: SC, i. 181, 24 f.

page 53 note 6 On the pre-history of the tropus concept see Rückert, Hanns, ‘Das Eindringen der Tropuslehre in die schweizerische Auflassung vom Abendmahl.’ Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, xxxvii (1940), 199–221Google Scholar.

page 53 note 7 SC, i. 137, 1–14. The same question of ‘reality or meaning’ occurs in connexion with ‘alque si’ in Melanchthon's Loci of 1521. Melanchthons Werke, ii. 1, ed. Hans Engelland, Gütersloh 1952, De Baptismo, 145–6. See Bizer, Ernst, Theologie der Verheiszung. Studien zur Theologie des Jungen Melanchthon, 1519–1524, Neukirchen 1964, 72Google Scholar.

page 53 note 1 Inst., iv. xv. 6 (OS., v. 289, 28–30, dating from 1539).

page 53 note 2 Inst., II. xiv. 2 (OS., iii. 460, 9 f.).

page 53 note 3 For a description of the pre-history of this term since the Consensus Tigurinus, via the Colloquia of Maulbronn and Montbéliard, to the ‘extra calvinianum’ (1621) of Balthazar Mentzer (Sr., †1627), see the excellent Harvard dissertation (1962) of Willis, Edward D., Calvin's Catholic Christology, Leiden 1966, 8–23Google Scholar.

page 53 note 4 Indicated as Sunday 17 in the edition of Niesel, Wilhelm, Bekenntnisschriften und Kirchenordnungen der nach Gottes Wort reformierten Kirche, Zürich 1954, 160Google Scholar. Question and Answer 48 read according to the Latin text: ‘An vero isto pacto duae naturae in Christo non divelluntur, si non sit natura humana, ubicunque est divina? Minime: Nam cum divinitas comprehendi non queat, et omni loco praesens sit, necessario consequitur, esse cam quidem extra [!] naturam humanam, quam assumsit, sed nihilominus tamen esse eadem, eique personaliter unitam permanere’: Collectio Confessionum in Ecclesiis Reformatis Publicatarum, ed. Niemeyer, Hermann A., Leipzig 1840, 440Google Scholar. Cf. The School of Faith, ed. Thomas F. Torrance, New York 1959, 77.

page 54 note 5 Cf. Bavinck, H.: ‘Beide, Luthersche en Roomsche Christologie, bergen hierdoor in zich een docetisch element …’: Gereformeerde Dogmaiiek, iii. 3rd. ed.Kampen 1918, 337Google Scholar. We note that the same accusation has been made by Max Thurian against Calvin: ‘Calvin n'est pas toujours exempt d'un certain docetisme …’: L'Eucharistie Memorial du Seigneur, Neuchâtel 1959, 262Google Scholar. More accurate is Koopmans, Jan in his Das altkirchliche Dogma in der Reformation, Munich 1955, 127Google Scholar.

page 54 note 6 ‘De Genade in het Nieuwe Testament’, in Genade en Kerk, ed. van Straaten, A., Utrecht 1953, 24 fGoogle Scholar.

page 55 note 1 ‘Die Christologie Calvins’, in Das Konsil von Chalkedon, ed. Grillmeier, Aloys S.J. und Bacht, Heinrich S.J., iii: Chalkedon Heute, Würzburg 1954, 529Google Scholar.

page 55 note 2 Christologie. De leer van het Komen Gods, Nijkerk 1940, i. 257, 262, 265Google Scholar

page 55 note 3 ‘Non potuit magis proprie de Christi persona loqui, quam his verbis: Deus manifestatus in carne’: CO., xviii. 289 f.; Calvin retained this emphasis throughout his life; cf. SC, i. 193, 9–12: ‘Voila nostre Seigneur Iesus Christ qui est une avec son Pere car il est d'une mesme essence; mais oultre cela encores, il est ung, entant qu'en son humanity, il est appellé d'une costé Dieu et d'autre costé homme, mais en une seule personne, il est Dieu manifesté en chair’. Cf. ibid., 155, 9; 181, 13.

page 55 note 4 ‘Unde colligimus non modo post Adae lapsum fungi coepisse mediatoris officio, sed quatenus aeternus Dei sermo est, eius gratia coniunctos fuisse Deo tam angelos quam homines, et integri perstarent’: CO., ix. 338. Cf. SC, v. 156, 36 f. See Emmen, E., De Christologie van Calvijn, Amsterdam 1935Google Scholar, 30 and Schroten, H., Christus de Middelaar bij Calvijn, Utrecht 1948, 109Google Scholar. Cf. Ganoczy, Alexandre, Calvin Théologien de l' Église et du ministhe, Paris 1964, 146 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 55 note 5 Cf. Robinson, J. A. T.. Honest to God, London 1963, 66Google Scholar: ‘God Almighty walking about on earth, dressed up as a man. Jesus was not a man born and bred—he was God for a limited period taking part in a charade. He looked like a man, he talked like a man, he felt like a man, but underneath he was God dressed up—like Father Christmas’.

page 55 note 6 Cf. OS., i. 80 f. with CO., i. 519. For the following see Willis, op. cit., 26–31.

page 56 note 1 OS., iii. 458, 10–13.

page 56 note 2 Cf. OS., i. 140 with CO., i. 1006.

page 56 note 3 Inst., iv. xvii. 30. Ed. Benoît, Jean Daniel, Institution de la Réligion Chréstienne, Paris 1957, iv. 419Google Scholar. Cf. OS., v. 389, 16–19.

page 56 note 4 See Inst. II. xiv. 4, where Calvin inserted in 1539 a warning against both Nestorius and Eutyches: OS., iii. 463, 18–25.

page 56 note 5 OS., i. 140; cf. i. 142: ‘… dicimus vere et efficaciter exhiberi, non autem naturaliter.’

page 57 note 1 CO., ii. 1030; cf. OS., v. 386, 1–11.

page 57 note 2 The so-called genus auchematicum or majestaticum. From 1536 onwards Calvin says that the coniunctio between the two natures—the tropus which the veteri call communicatio idiomatum—is by the Scriptures expressed ‘tanta religione … ut eas quandoque inter se communicent’: Inst., ii. xiv. 1; OS., v. 459, 8 f.

page 57 note 3 I believe that the reason why this has not been clearly seen in Calvin scholarship is the misleading smoke curtain of the adage ‘finitum non capax infiniti’. For the following section see ‘Infinitum capax infiniti’ in Vox Theologica xxxv (1965), 165–74Google Scholar.

page 57 note 4 For documentation see my Spätscholastik und Reformation, Zürich 1965, i, 291 ffGoogle Scholar. and my article ‘Schrift und Gottesdienst: Die Jungfrau Maria in evangelische Sicht’, in Kerygma und Dogma, xix (1964), 245 ffGoogle Scholar. Cf. Berkouwer, G. C., Vatikaans Concilie en nieuwe theologie, Kampen 1964, 309 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 57 note 5 That this is not merely a late medieval Fehlentwicklung, but of contemporary relevance, may appear from the encyclical ‘Mense Maio’ of pope Pius VI, 30 April 1965. See Katholiek Archief, xx (1965), 586; Herder-Korrespondenz, xix (1965), 411.

page 58 note 1 ‘Sed forte et in ipso maiestatem vereare divinam, quod, licet factus sit homo, mansit tamen deus. Advocatum habere vis et ad ipsum, ad Mariam recurre. Pura siquidem humanitas in Maria, non modo pura ab omni contaminatione, set et pura singularitate nature’: Sermo in Nativitate B.V.M., in P.L., clxxxiii. 441. For the parallel definition of ‘pura creatura’, see St. Antonius of Florence, Summa Theologica, iv. xv. 20.

page 58 note 2 Lectio 32 B: ed. Oberman-Courtenay, Wiesbaden 1963, i. 329.

page 58 note 3 ‘Neque Christus enim homo purus, sed homo deus ad dexteram patris regnat omnipotentis. Quomodo enim homo, terra et pulvis, de terrestri paradiso extrusus, ad celestem adspirare auderet, si non in aliquo suam naturam puram precessisse cognosceret?’: Sermones de Festivitatibus B.V.M., Hagenau 1510, Sermo 25 A.

page 58 note 4 ‘Quamvis enim scimus corpus domino corruptionem videre non potuisse, quia unitum est deitati, quod in nullo alio homine invenitur, idcirco nequaquam tantam spei summimus fiduciam nostre resurrectionis future, quantam ex resurrectione virginis, que puram habuit humanam naturam, i.e. deitati hypostatice non unitam’: op. cit., Sermo 18 I. See also the popular, often-printed Wisdom Commentary of Robert Holcot, Lectura 35 C.

Eustachius van Zichem O.P. († 1538), the first Dutch opponent of Luther, whom we will have to classify as a theologian of the via antiqua, provides us with an interesting parallel for the interrelation of Christology, Mariology and Eucharist with the vera caro. In his Sacramentorum Brevis Elucidatio, Lovanii 1523, G4v, he proves the necessity of transsubstantiation: since Christ cannot leave heaven, therefore these substances have to be changed into Christ. ‘… Sane non migrat e coelo Christus, qui non deserit patris dexteram [up to this point Eustachius agrees with his fellow countryman Hoen!], igitur nihil erit, quo iisce sub rebus claudi posset, nisi transmutata in se panis et vini substantia’. [Hoen completed the thrust of the argument by not terminating the elevation of the substances halfway, but placing them in heaven itself]. Eustachius gives, then, as a further example the Incarnation: Christ was indeed born utero clauso from the Virgin Mary and, though he is her issue, ‘non tamen nisi commutato virginis sanguine’. Text in F. Pijper, Primitiae Pontifidae Theologorum Neerlandicorttm Disputationes contra Lutherum, inde ab A. 1519 usque ad A. 1526 promulgatae, Hagae-Comitis 1905, 331 ff.

page 59 note 1 Cf. Dankbaar, W. F., De Sacramentsleer van Calvijn, Amsterdam 1941, 170 fGoogle Scholar.

page 59 note 2 Loc. cit., OS v. 386, 2–5; cf. 7–9.

page 59 note 3 In a recent article, typical of the state of contemporary research, it is claimed in a somewhat contradictory fashion that Calvin is at once the victim of a ‘mangelhafte scholastische Bildung’ and of ‘die Erstarrung des scholastischen Denkens seiner Zeit,’ Johannes L. Witte, art. cit., 527. The observations by Francois Wendel on Calvin's relation to Scotus, Duns, Calvin: sources et évolution de sa pensée religieuse, Paris 1950, 99 ff.Google Scholar, may well provide an encouragement for pursuit of more extensive research.

page 59 note 4 CO., ix. 194 f. This quotation I owe to a kind indication by Dr. Willis. See exactly the same emphasis on the authority of the ecclesia veins in Melanchthon, Loci communes, ‘De Filio’, with an accurate definition of the communicatio idiomatum as the ‘praedicationem in qua proprietates naturarum personae recte attribuuntur …’; in the 1559 edition op. cit., 200, 1–5, explicitly entitled, ‘forma loquendi in concreto’; see 152 n. 1. For documentation as regards Calvin's ‘sophists’, see my Spätscholastik und Reformation, i. 247. One should add at that point the quotations and discussion by Biel in his Canonis Misse Expositio, Lectio 65 A-D (ed. Oberman-Courtenay, iii. Wiesbaden 1966, 70–3).

page 60 note 1 Die kirchliche Dogmatik, i. 2, p. 184. Willis summarises his detailed investigation of the prehistory of the ‘extra calvinisticum’ with the designation ‘extra catholicum’, op. cit. 60.

page 60 note 2 The best survey of late medieval opinions can be found in Joh. Altenstaig, op. cit., s.v. ‘Communicatio’, and even more explicitly s.v. ‘Idioma’, fol. 44r, fol. 104v–105v. Universally, the communication of abstracta, i.e., of the two natures, is rejected; communication tn concreto, i.e. through the Person, is alone accepted.

page 60 note 3 Opus Oxoniense, iii. d 2. q. 1 art. 1 Cf. Spätscholastik und Reformation, i. 239.

page 60 note 4 Inst., ii. xii. 5 (OS., iii. 443, 24, 36).

page 60 note 5 Inst., ii. xii. 3 (OS., iii. 439, 25; 440, 14 f.).

page 60 note 6 Cf. Inst., ii. xiv. 3 (OS., iii 462, 6–9).

page 60 note 7 As a mathematical thesis the ‘non capax’ is accepted in scholasticism as a matter of course: that which is limited [circumscriptum], cannot possibly contain the unlimited [infinitum]. This cannot, however, be applied to anthropology. Thus, Biel defines man as creatura rationalis ‘dei capax’, Lectio 77 T; ed. cit., iii. 293. Wyclif refers to this thesis, ‘infiniti ad finitum nulla est proporcio’, as an epistemological axiom, but he does not regard it as applicable to the relation between God and the soul ‘cum inter deum et animam sit optima proporcio creata, quia finita ad duo bona extrema’: De Trinitate, x (ed. A. Dupont Breck, University of Colorado 1962, 117). Cf. Thomas, Exp. in 8 libros Physicorum, 3 c; de Veritate, 2. 9 c.

page 61 note 1 Die Glaubenslehre der evangelisch-reformierten Kirche, Zürich 1847, ii. 291 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 61 note 2 Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, 3rd. ed.Leipzig 1898–1908, iv. 54Google Scholar.

page 61 note 3 ‘Über die Herkunft des Satzes “Finitum infiniti non capax”,’ Stange, Festschrift Carl, Zeitschrift für systematische Theologie, xvi (1939), 503Google Scholar. The only quotation, taken from a translation by Mercator, is not convincing.

page 61 note 4 Haitjema, Th. L., De Heidelbergse Catechismus als klankboden en inhoud van het actuele belijden onzer kerk, Wageningen 1962, 124Google Scholar; cf. 122.

page 61 note 5 Scholion in Esaiam, iv. 6; WA., 25, 107. The theological motive is the exclusion of ‘Schwärmerei’; the religious motive is the certitudo salutis. Luther formulates the intention of his ‘non extra carnem’ in 1537 in a few words: ‘Periculosum est sine Christo mediatore nudam divinitatem velle humana ratione scrutari et apprehendere …’, WA., 39, i. 389. Karl Barth is, if possible, even more radical in his criticism of the ‘extra’: ‘Post Christum aber, in Rückblick auf die Inkarnation, kann diese Aussage nur eine Aussage des Unglaubens sein’, Die christliche Lehre nach dem Heidelberger Katechismus, Munich 1949, Though Calvin's order of battle is different, he combats, together with Luther, a theologia gloriae. von Geusau, L. G. M. Alting appropriately refers to ‘die Bundestheologie … die in ihrer Dynamik ein Gegengift gegen einseitiger Tendenzen zugunsten einer “theologia gloriae” bedeutet…’, Die Lehre von der Kindertaufe bei Calvin, Bilthoven/Mainz 1963, 199Google Scholar.

page 62 note 1 OS., i. 142.

page 62 note 2 Because of the necessity for an extensive discussion of medieval sources, we cannot here extend our scope to Calvin's interpretation of the concursus or influxus generalis. Whereas the whole cosmos is seen by him as a machina (cf. Inst., 1. xvi. 1; OS., iii. 188, 4; Inst., 1. xvii. 2; OS., iii. 204, 34 etc.), created and sustained by God, Calvin's concursus, unlike that of Thomas, Scotus or the nominalists, implies a sustaining action, a ‘providentia in actu’ (Inst, I. xvi. 4; OS., iii. 192, 20 f.), ‘etiam extra machinam’: ‘… puerile cavillum est earn [gubernationem] includere in naturae influxu … Deum sua gloria fraudant … qui Dei providentiam coarctant tam angustis finibus …,’ Inst. i. xvi. (OS., iii. 190, 31–192, 3).

page 62 note 3 Cf. my Spätscholastik und Reformation, i. 163 ff., and passim.

page 63 note 1 Inst., i. xvii. 2 (OS., iii. 205, 12–19).

page 63 note 2 Inst., i. xvii. 2 (OS., iii. 205, 12 f.); cf.‘… quamvis nobis absconditae sint rationes’ (ibid., 205, 19). ‘Vray est quʼil ne fait pas cela d'une puissance absolue, comme disent les Papistes’: SC., i. 605, 19 f. ‘Deum enim exlegem qui facit, maxima eum gloriae sua parte spoliat, quia rectitudinem eius ac iustitiam sepelit. Non quod legi subiectus sit Deus, nisi quatenus ipse sibi lex est. Talis enim inter potentiam eius ac iustitiam symmetria et consensus, ut nihil ab ipso nisi moderatum, legitimum et regulare prodeat’: CO., viii. 361; cf. sermon on Job xxxii. 2: CO., xxxiv. 339.

page 63 note 3 OS., iii. 205, 15–17. Calvin gives here a fair description of the exlex character of the late medieval potentia absoluta. I disagree here with the interpretation of Wendel (op. cit., 93), who claims that the Scotist potentia absoluta ‘est limitée … par la nature même de Dieu, cʼest-à-dire par sa bonté’. This limitation, however, applies to the potentia ordinata. The principle of non-contradiction abstracts from what God actually decided to do. It is, therefore, not this principle which ‘empêche Dieu de décider le contraire de ce quʼil avait décrété précedément’, but the reliability of God's covenant promissiones, decreta, pacta.

page 63 note 4 SC, i. 605, 20; cf. ibid., 473, 5.

page 63 note 5 SC., i. 605, 22–4.