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

come by way of Luther's publications as they appeared either in Latin, or in Latin or
French translation, or by way of second- or third-hand oral or print resources.
So what of Calvin and Luther on the Lord's Supper—particularly with respect to
their appeals to the work of the Holy Spirit and the sacrament of the Lord's Supper? Is
their thought resonant?
On the one hand, it might be said that there is no resonance between the thought
of these two reformers. On the one hand, it might be said that Luther resolves
discussion of Christ's presence and the communication of his flesh and blood so
according to the person of Christ in his glorified humanity 697 as to leave aside the
person of the Spirit. Perhaps this is so in part because of his aversion to the claims of
those whom he, Luther, identifies as "spiritualists," "fanatics" who allegedly spurn the
corporality of Christ and the real communication of his body and blood. To Luther, they
seemingly dissociate revelation received of the Spirit from revelation received of Christ
incarnate.
You have not been able to read or understand his books, since he wrote the greater part of this sort in
German. . . . So that you may not be ignorant, therefore, of what it had been especially useful to know in
this affair, we will rehearse a few particular passages of his. We give you the substance faithfully, but
specify the page, so that, if you like, you can invite an interpreter skilled in the German language to
translate for you word for word. If you do not possess the books, we have them and shall be happy to lend
them to you" (Letter of the Zurich pastors to Calvin, no. 2034, dated 24 October 1554, CO 15:274,
translated and cited in Gerrish, "John Calvin on Luther," 82). See also Steinmetz, "Luther and Calvin on
Church and Tradition," in Luther in Context (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 85.
697 Lohse, Martin Luther's Theology, 230. "Luther's idea of the total personis also basic to the
further development of his Christology that is best known to us, that is, his doctrine of ubiquity, the idea
of Christ's exalted human nature as everywhere present. He was led to develop this view in his dispute
with Zwingli. . . . . If Luther first expressed his view of the omnipresence of Jesus' exalted human nature
without giving reason for it, he saw himself forced to do so by Zwingli's criticism. He referred to
reflections in Occam and Biel, who had already distinguished a circumscriptive esse in loco (the spatial
presence of an object) from aa definitive esse in loco (e.g., the presence of the soul in the body). Biel had
gone beyond to reckon with the possibility of a "repletive" presene (the presence of an object outside
itself). The divine ubiquity involved such a presence" (Lohse, Martin Luther's Theology, 230, with
reference to Luther's sermon "The Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ against the Fanatics," LW
36:342; WA 19:491). See also Steinmetz, "Calvin and His Lutheran Critics," in Calvin in Context.
218