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

Thompson puts it paraphrasing Bucer, are "not addressed to the bread and wine, as if to
change them," but to the congregants; 1174 these words set apart something ordinary—
common bread and wine—for an extraordinary purpose—the exhibitio of Christ's body
and blood as spiritual food unto eternal life. 1175 Though Bucer was familiar with the
Eastern liturgies attributed to Basil and Chrysostom, their pneumatological euchology
did not hold liturgical sway for Bucer. 1176
8.3 The Holy Spirit in Calvin's Service for the Lord's Day, Strasbourg and Geneva
If Calvin's form for the celebration of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is void
of mention of the Spirit, his liturgy as a whole is slightly less so. Striking mention of the
Spirit is made three times: in the prayer of confession, in the absolution, and in the
prayer prior to the reading and preaching of the Word.
1174 Thompson, Liturgies, 240.
1175 Thompson continues, still paraphrasing Bucer, that "therefore the priest should not take the
bread into his hand at the Consecration, lest some presume to adore it" (Thompson, Liturgies, 240).This
understanding of "consecration with respect to use" as opposed to "consecration with respect to change"
is definitely prominent in the Reformed tradition. See, e.g., Calvin: "[B]ecause they [the ancient writers]
say that in the consecration a secret conversion takes place, so that there is now something other than
bread and wine, as I have just observed, they do not mean by this that the elements have been annihilated,
but rather that they now have to be considered of a different class from common food intended solely to
feed the stomach, since in tehm is set forth [exhibere] the spiritual food and drink of the soul" (Inst. 1559
LCC 4.17.14; see also 4.17.16). Interestingly, Calvin's Genevan successor, Theodore Beza, reflects the
same notion but inflects it pneumatologically. In her careful study of Beza, Jill Raitt writes: "The Supper
is not an activity . . . which provides an occasion for a parallel activity of the Holy Spirit. The activity of
the Spirit is through the activity and elements of the liturgy"; so bread and wine are not merely bread and
wine, "nor are they changed substantially or joined with the body of Christ so that Christ can be said to be
'under, with, or in' the bread. On the natural level, they remain bread and wine and as such nourish the
body. But in the action of the Lord's Supper as declared by the words of institution, they are changed.
They serve a new end and use through their relation to Christ, established by the Holy Spirit, and they
become subservient efficient causes of the union of the faithful with Christ. They are food that nourishes
eternal life" (Raitt, The Eucharistic Theology of Theodore Beza: Development of the Reformed Doctrine
[Chambersburg, Pennsylvania: American Academy of Religion, 1972], 71).
1176 Friedrich Lurz, '"Durch die Kraft des Heiligen Geistes." Die Wiederentdeckung der
eucharistischen Geist-Epiklese im 16. Jahrhundert.' Jahrbuch für Liturgik und Hymnologie 39 (2000),
18ff.
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