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

Since the Spirit is so significant in Calvin's argument, it is striking that he never again
subpoenas this seemingly key testimony—key precisely because it comes from the
authority of tradition.
One can only speculate reasons for Calvin's lack of recurrent reference to
Chrysostom, if in fact there are reasons for it. Still, it is plausible to wonder, Is it
possible that Calvin recognized the polemical strength of appealing to Augustine rather
than to Chrysostom, and therefore shelved Chrysostom's testimony in the Institutio in
favor of Augustine's there and elsewhere? Such a question leads to discussion of Calvin,
sacramental pneumatology, and Augustine.
Interestingly, Calvin does not explicitly refer to Augustine regarding the role of
the Spirit as the "bond"—as vinculum or as nexus—in the economy of the sacrament of
the Lord's Supper—ever. In a passage in the Institutio, first introduced to his discussion
of the Lord's Supper in the 1543 edition of the Institutio, he comes close, but not
definitively close. In the passage, Calvin exegetes Augustine's exegesis of John 1 and
declares that Augustine there "conceives of Christ as present among us in three ways: in
majesty, in providence, and in ineffable grace." 1031 Interpreting Augustine to explicate
his own doctrine of "presence," Calvin writes:
Under grace I include that marvelous communion [communionem] of his body
and blood provided we understand that it takes place by the power of the Holy
Spirit [modo spiritus sancti virtute fieri intelligamus], not by that feigned
inclusion of the body itself under the element, indeed, our Lord testified that he
had flesh and bones, which could be felt and seen. 1032
1031 Institutio 1543, as in Inst. 1559 LCC 4.17.26. "Tribus modis eum nobis praesentem facit,
maiestate, providentia, ineffabili gratia, . . . ." (CO 1:1009). At the outset of the passage in Augustine that
Calvin quotes and exegetes, a marginal note in the Institutio 1559 reads "Tract. in Iohannem 50"
(Institutio Christianie religionis [Geneva: Stephani, 1559], 514).
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