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

copy of Jud's translation to the Margrave of Brandenburg, 1095 thereby announcing his
approval of the work. By their exposure to and dissemination of Ratramnus' work, Jud
and Bullinger no doubt incited broader exposure to Ratramnus' work, including, then,
its constellation of spiritus, virtus, and corpus in a discussion of coena domini.
However, by their actions, Jud and Bullinger also de facto identified Ratramnus'
sacramental doctrine with the sacramental doctrine of Zurich and its "Zwinglians." This
sacramental doctrine of Zwingli and his successors is precisely the sacramental doctrine
from which Calvin attempts to dissociate his own sacramental doctrine, especially in his
writings of the 1530s and 1540s. 1096 So even if Calvin had found interest in Ratramnus'
treatise (despite its being deemed heterodox and perhaps even spurious), his
disinclination to have his sacramental doctrine associated with that of Zurich would
surely have inclined him to leave Ratramnus aside.
7.4 Conclusion
The point of this chapter has been to consider Calvin's assimilation of the
thought of his preecessors, a consideration occasioned by Calvin's specific reference to
one particular patristic work, his nonspecific reference to the thought of another church
father, and his lack of reference to one medieval text. Each of these demonstrates
Calvin's intended, if not wholly founded, 1097 aim to ground his particular
pneumatological emphasis in his doctrine of the Lord's Supper in the biblical-
1095 McCracken, Introduction to "Ratramus of Corbie: Christ's Body and Blood," 114.
1096 As much, if not more, for political than theological reasons, Calvin strives for concord with Bullinger
and the churches of Zurich in the late 1540s. See discussion above at page 84.
1097 Whether on his part in the sixteenth century, or on our part, in retrospect from the twentieth,
given subsequent scholarship on the works of Chrysostom and Augustine.
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