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

The 1537 Synod of Bern was called, in the first place, for the purpose of settling
the ongoing dispute in Bern on a fitting doctrine of the Lord's Supper. 932 In the
immediate backdrop, too, was ongoing discussion about the Wittenberg Concord, which
had been signed by Bucer and Capito but rejected by the Swiss Confederation,
including Bern. Calvin, though of Geneva, a combourgeoisie (Burgrecht) associated
with member cantons of the Swiss Confederation but not itself part of the Swiss
Confederation, 933 had already encountered Capito and Bucer at two meetings, one in
Basel and another in Bern, concerned in part with Bucer and Capito's ratification of the
Wittenberg Concord. 934 These meetings were held in Basel in September, October, and
November 1536, and were followed on in January 1537 with a letter to Luther. The
letter contained an elaboration of the doctrine of the Lord's Supper as expressed in the
First Helvetic Confession; like that confession's articles on the Lord's Supper, the letter
speaks of "spiritual" but not of the Holy Spirit. 935 Still earnest for conciliation, Bucer
932 Bruening, Calvinism's First Battleground, 82-83.
933 Bruening, Chapter 2: "Politics in Vaud," in Calvinism's First Battleground, 23: "Historians of
Switzerland are fond of pointing out – and it bears repeating here – that one must not think of the Swiss
Confederation as anything like a modern nation-state. Member cantons maintained almost complete
autonomy, and there was no central body with coercive authority. The Confederation's cohesion stemmed
from a common desire for independence from imperial authority. Representatives would meet to discuss
issues affecting all the cantons, but no decision made at Confederation diets was compulsory on the
individual cantons. It was a federal system in the loosest possible sense, and the independence of the
cantons very nearly led to the system's demise when religious conflict tore the cantons apart in the
1520s."
934 A meeting in Basel, 24 September 1536 and a synod in Bern, October 1536. Cf. detail in
Bruening, Calvinism's First Battleground, 79; the "Chronology" of Calvin's early life according to his
letters in Ioannis Calvini Epistolae, vol. 1, ed. C. Augustijn and F. P. van Stam, 33; and de Greef,
Writings of John Calvin, 29.
935 The city councils of Zurich, Bern, Basel, St. Gallen, Mulhouse, and Biel to Luther, as well as
Basel, 12 January 1537: "So wurt der lib Christi von uns im nachtmaal warlich gäßen un sin blůt würt
warlich getrunken, aber nitt so rouw und fleischlich, wie es die bäpstler bißhar gelert und fürgäben
habend, namlich das man in ässe substantzlich, das ist lyblich und fleischlich, also das das brot in das
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