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

It was in a sermon which Erasmus had attributed to St John Chrysostom and had
included in the edition of his works published at Basle in 1530, that Calvin
found the idea that the Holy Spirit is the bond of our union with Christ. He had
made use of this for the first time, it seems, in a passage in the Institutes of 1539
. . . . 577
Calvin's reference to this sermon attributed to Chrsysotom is indeed significant.
As with Calvin's reference to Romans, it perhaps points us in the direction of a more
complete picture of the provenance of the distinctive pneumatological inflection in
Calvin's doctrine of the Lord's Supper. But to imply that this sermon is the origin of
Calvin's doctrine is too strong. Calvin's reference and how it ought to be understood
shall be taken up in a forthcoming chapter.
Martin Bucer is perhaps the principal contemporary to whom scholars point as
having had significant influence on Calvin during the period being discussed, the period
between the publication of the first and second editions of the Institutio. 578 The measure
of Bucer's influence has long been debated. 579 Some who affirm his influence point
577 Wendel, Calvin: Origins and Development of His Religious Thought, 351 (emphasis added).
See also Dankbaar, De Sakramentsleer van Calvijn, 13. Wendel's footnote reads "Cf. Niesel, op. cit., p.
92." Though McDonnell cites Niesel in precisely the same way and does not acknowledge Wendel, surely
Wendel's conclusive phrasing was in mind when he wrote: "Calvin found the doctrine of the Holy Spirit
as the bond of our union with Christ in the Eucharist in a sermon Erasmus attributed to John Chrysostom,
which Erasmus inserted into an edition of Chrysostom's works published at Basel in 1530" (Wendel, John
Calvin, the Church, and the Eucharist, 257). To be fair, however, it must be observed that McDonnell's
expression is perhaps less suggestive regarding Chrysostom's sermon as the "provenance" for such
thought, or whether it merely gave "warrant" to Calvin's thought. That is, McDonnell's immediate
concern is that Calvin was not "an innovator in this matter" (i.e., with respect to this pneumatological
doctrine).
578 E.g., Philip Walker Butin, Revelation, Redemption, and Response: Calvin's Trinitarian
Understanding of the Divine Human Relationship (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 99, citing
Ganoczy, Young Calvin, particularly regarding ecclesiology; also Butin, Revelation, 115. See Mark A.
Garcia, Life in Christ (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock, 2008), 194.
579 See McDonnell, John Calvin, the Church and the Eucharist, 75ff. For an excellent survey on
recent scholarly opinion, see Kok, "The Influence of Martin Bucer on John Calvin's Interpretation," 5-19.
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