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

By now, an emphasis on the Holy Spirit has become expectable in Calvin's
discussions of the Lord's Supper. So, for the purposes of setting up a study of the
prospective provenance of that emphasis and its developing inflection, this survey of
Calvin's intellectual inclination and that of his intellectual circles of influence, living
and not, is sufficiently pursued.
3.8 Conclusion
As was suggested at the outset of this chapter, at this point in Calvin's life, we
encounter a reformer, not schooled in "scholastic theology," but groomed to be a
"humanist." As Ganoczy puts it, "a whole series of documents from 1532 to 1535
present us with a Calvin who is obviously a 'Fabrist' or, if one wants a more
comprehensive description, a Christian humanist devoted to moderate reform." 531
According to David Steinmetz, Calvin's "studies in humanities and law provided him
with a high-caliber humanist training, which shaped his entire relationship with the
written text." 532 So, as Muller would have it, already by the early 1540s, more than a
mere shadow of the so-called mature Calvin emerges, a Calvin
who was born Catholic, whose theology was learned primarily in and through
his work as a commentator and Reformer, whose work evidences the impact of
humanist philology and rhetoric, of patristic study, but also, both positively and
negatively, of the categories of medieval scholastic thought. . . . 533
"Calvin cites Berengar not as a witness to the truth but as the one whose recantation marks the
introduction of a superstitious carnal view of the Supper" (with reference to the Lausanne Disputation, his
1556 response to Westphal, and his 1559 Institutio). See further discussion below in Chapter 7.
531 Ganoczy, Young Calvin, 129.
532 Gilmont, Calvin and the Printed Book, 9.
533 Muller, Unaccommodated Calvin, 14.
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