THE PROVENANCE OF JOHN CALVIN'S EMPHASIS ON THE ...

with another, one must not simply imagine him to be in dialogue with a living
contemporary, but even a long-deceased predecessor whose work was "living" in any of
various venues: an edition of extant works; an anthology, or florilegium, of patristic or
medieval citations; a reference of some sort in a contemporary's—or some other
intermediary's—discourse, whether theological, polemical, or exegetical.
The aim of this chapter, then, is to explore—to the extent that it can be
appropriately discerned—those with whom Calvin had to do, his "intellectual milieu,"
early on and "im-mediately," as a means to discern where the derivation of his emphasis
on the role of the Holy Spirit in his doctrine of the Lord's Supper might be sounded, as
with a line and plummet. What will be determined is that, by the time of 1536-1539,
when this emphasis first appears in his discussions, Calvin has emerged as a reformer,
schooled not as a "scholastic," but groomed as a "humanist," bent on an ultimately
exegetical calling. 287
3.1 Paris When Calvin Arrived
In October 1523, the queen mother of France, Louise of Savoy, sent a
Franciscan envoy to the Faculty of Theology of the University of Paris to solicit advice
on two related matters: how Luther's doctrine and influence might be eradicated in
France, and how persons of high position unjustly accused of countenancing Luther's
287 In general, principal sources for the foregoing biography include de Greef, "Overview of
Calvin's Life," in Writings of John Calvin, 17-82; Randall C. Zachman, "The Life and Work of John
Calvin," in John Calvin as Teacher, Pastor, and Theologian: The Shape of His Writings and Thought
(Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 15-28; Ganoczy, Young Calvin; Bruce Gordon, Calvin (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2008).
97