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

correspondence, sermons, formal and even informal conversations. His words on the
Lord's Supper follow on their words. His doctrine is derivative. With respect to the
sacraments, Luther's Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520) and Zwingli's An
Attack of the Canon of the Mass (1523) are vanguard expressions of the reformation
movement. Contextually considered, Calvin's expositions clearly are not. To say this is
not to diminish Calvin's doctrine; it is simply to dispel any notion that Calvin's doctrine
of the Lord's Supper is somehow fundamentally novel. 685 His doctrine is, to say it again,
derivative, generated from his earnest reflection on scripture, the tradition of the church,
and the thought of his contemporaries, each source informing the other. Furthermore,
his doctrine comes to expression in that period of Reformation history when Protestants
were allying their doctrine with or distinguishing it from that of other Protestants as
much as from that of the Roman Catholic Church.
Calvin's theological debt to his contemporaries is great and diverse. As noted in
chapter three, Calvin was widely read already early in his career, and he was a quick
study. "Calvin was certainly not a reader like others," says Ganoczy. "What he read he
assimilated very rapidly. . . ." 686 Furthermore, Calvin was a "self-taught, 687 independent
thinker who made judgments for himself. He was more a passionate seeker for truth
than the disciple of a man or school . . . . [T]he works . . . he read moved him to
685 As note before, neither Calvin nor any of his contemporaries, Roman Catholic or Protestant,
was interested in being doctrinally novel. They saw themselves—even if they did not always see each
other—as bearers of the church's tradition.
686 Ganoczy, Young Calvin, 75.
687 See also Muller, Unaccommodated Calvin, 125.
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